Massina Mõistuss / Machine Mind

2026

This work centres on a Seto choir performing leelo with words written specially for the artwork, responding to life near AI data centres and the technological transformation of local communities. Drawing on the polyphonic tradition of Seto singing, the choir gives voice to environmental disturbance, infrastructural violence, and social change often hidden behind narratives of innovation and progress.

At the beginning, the sung text speaks of humming buildings, sleeplessness, rising costs, disappearing birdsong, and the feeling that land, water, and everyday life are being reorganised around distant corporate interests. In the second part, words gradually disappear, dissolving into machine-like noise and humming. The choir becomes both witness and chorus: carrying memory, naming loss, and embodying the hidden physical presence of AI infrastructure.