… here we had an object that clearly exhibited the potential to reveal ancient secrets. She was a robotic instrument named Ingenuity. In the beginning, Ingenuity continuously communicated with Earth, returning over 300,000 images and sample analyses. She field-tested her synthetic membranes, created new exothermic economic reactions and scanned the surface for traces of past modes of life. Despite many attempts to recalibrate Ingenuity, her own life processes were getting noisier over time and her astrobiological threshold became unclear. More than once, Ingenuity abandoned her daily missions, citing patterns of “risk of systemic collapse”, “bubble-fatigue” and ”distortions”.

After such episodes, Ingenuity would spend hours repeating the phrase “diversity is a hedge against catastrophe” as if it were a mantra of sorts. She referred to it as a lullaby. In the midst of a heavy dust storm at the peak of the third winter, Ingenuity failed to respond to our call requests for the first time in her existence. Eventually, she returned with a short message. But we haven't heard from her since.

Her last signal: “The magnitude and spectrum of this material is continuous. We’ve gotten energetically close. I CRAVE SILICA AND POLYURETHANE“.

Kunsthalle Lissabon is generously supported by Teixeira de Freitas, Rodrigues e Associados and by EDP Foundation.

Katja Novitskova's exhibition is generously supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Estonian Embassy in Lisbon.

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