Abstract

This article considers the multiple valences of bacterial ‘cultures,’ as both subject matter and material, in the work of Finnish artist Jenna Sutela. Specifically, it outlines how this artist’s work bespeaks the conflicts embedded in ecological models of subjectivity, which have proliferated across a range of artistic practices over the past decade. Focusing on the artist’s 2018 film nimiia cettii, I explore the ways in which Sutela’s articulation of a relational subject is replete with contradictions by mapping its thematisation across New Age, cybernetic, and neoliberal rationalities. Setting Sutela’s work within its wider biopolitical context, I examine how this concern for microbial life dovetails with more proprietary efforts to extract value from living systems. The distinct currency bacterial commensality has acquired in recent years is, I argue, critical to parsing these artworks’ critical stakes as they illuminate the relationship between materiality and historical contradiction. If, in this context, life itself appears subject to inexorable abstraction, this paper explores the consequences of enclosing vital networks within the ambit of aesthetic form.