Mimi Ọnụọha

Machine Sees More Than It Says, 2022

Video (colour, silent) composed of archival footage and software

3 minutes 47 seconds

Courtesy of Vellum Gallery, John Johnson

"I was working on a completely different piece and kept stumbling across footage from different videos that all seemed to share an aesthetic feel and hint at deeper computational stories....as if the tools I was using were intervening to speak of themselves." — Mimi Ọnụọha

About the work

Clips of footage are gathered from archival videos made between the 1950s and 1980s. Stitched together, they form a sketch of a computer's imagining of itself and the courses of development which formed it, hinting at processes of resource extraction, transport, technical advancement, interfaces and labour.

About the artist

Nigerian-American artist Mimi Ọnụọha (b. 1989, Italy) creates work that questions and exposes the contradictory logics of technological progress. Through print, code, data, video, installation, and archival media, Ọnụọha offers new orientations for making sense of the seeming absences that define systems of labor, ecology and relations.

Ọnụọha's solo exhibition credits include the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK) and bitforms Gallery (USA). Her work has been featured at the Whitney Museum of Art (USA), the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (AUS), Mao Jihong Arts Foundation (China), La Gaitê Lyrique (France), Gropius Bau (Germany), The Photographers Gallery (UK), and Espaço Cultural Futuros Arte e Tecnologia (Brazil) among others. Her public art engagements have been supported by Akademie der Kunst (Germany), Le Centre Pompidou (France) the Royal College of Art (UK), the Rockefeller Foundation (USA), and Princeton University (USA).

Ọnụọha earned her MPS from NYU Tisch's Interactive Telecommunications Program, where she has taught as an Assistant Professor. She is a Creative Capital and Fulbright-National Geographic grantee. She is also the Co-founder of A People's Guide To Tech, an artist-led organization that makes educational guides and workshops about emerging technology.