AA-MHUMA-AITI-KITTEKITII, 2014-18

Word.

AA-MHUMA-AITI-KITTEKITII is a supposedly warming word that must be said in order to fulfil its function.

The word is mediated in various forms. First and foremost, its medium is speech. It can be pronounced and passed over orally.

Other mediations include its phonetic notation in a letter; printed on the entrance ticket for a museum; as being the title of an exhibition; as stamp, and materialized as wax sculptures given shape by associations between speech sound and form.

The word is constructed, based on a memory of the existence of such a warming word that is long, hard to remember and with a particular combination of soft and hard sounds. Delivered orally and in its written representation, the word is accompanied with an explanation for its function:

There is a word you can say to warm yourself up when freezing. The word is not a spell. It does not work by magic. It is a word that, when uttered, makes you stop being cold because of the physical movement that the word makes you perform. The way the word shapes your mouth causes your body temperature to rise. When you give voice to the word, the signals sent to your brain and spinal cord mitigate contractions of the muscles, and your shivering ceases.