Santa Cecilia & Semionauta are an artistic duo who combine experimental music, performance and visual art to create intense, multi-dimensional experiences. Their debut album Tell Me To Sin explores the dark recesses of human emotionality and spirituality, full of hypnotic soundscapes where elements of suffering, death and transcendence meet. The album features powerful bass sounds colliding with Santa Cecilia’s ethereal vocals, bringing sensitivity and drama to Semionauta’s abstract compositions. The album, enriched by a performative video, goes beyond traditional musical forms to create a space where sound, body and image merge into a single story of spiritual and emotional intensity.
Semionauta, known for his experiments with UK Bass Music, Sound Design and Noise Music, uses proprietary technologies, sensors, generative algorithms and artificial intelligence in his work. His work has been presented in clubs, festivals and contemporary art museums in the UK and Italy. Santa Cecilia is a performance artist, singer and director, exploring the convergence between cultures, creating intense environments that combine music, body and technology. Together, they founded the platform Ecosistemi Artificiali in 2020, the culmination of their collaboration that combines art and education.
We talk about the inspirations that drive their work, the artistic explorations that lead them to the boundaries of different genres and media, and the challenges they face in both art and everyday life. We discuss how they balance tradition and modernity, combining organic and technological elements, and how their personal experiences influence the direction their art takes. We also touch on contemporary themes such as the clash of cultures, emotional intensity and the role of the artist in a rapidly changing world full of uncertainty and challenges.
Artur Mieczkowski
Artur Mieczkowski: Your collaboration is a unique combination of music, visual art and performance. What were your artistic beginnings like? When did you first start creating together and what did each of you do before your paths merged?
Santa Cecilia & Semionauta: Our artistic collaboration began alongside our relationship, around 4 years ago. We were both fascinated by each other’s backgrounds and respective skills. Together, we blended them but, more importantly, we explored new methods. The music that resulted is something new for both of us, both in terms of sound and vocal approach.
Santa Cecilia: I personally come from Performance Art and video making. The body, seen as a political instrument, has always played a central role in my artistic research. What interested me was showing the truth of human emotions, which are often overshadowed by the façade of social networks. Being inspired by cinema, especially David Lynch’s and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s psychomagic, I have always aimed to welcome the audience into an immersive environment to stimulate an altered dimension closer to that of dreams.
Semionauta: My path is mainly forged by sound, I started studying music early on and never stopped since. Throughout the years I have also developed an interest for music technology, programming, sensors, artificial intelligence, and immersive arts, but recently, after the pandemic and the insurgence of generative artificial intelligence, I started to favor a more organic, analogic, and playful approach to sound. In the last two years, for example, we started collecting old cow bells from rural areas of Italy and developed a real passion for Reed Organs, as of now we have three variants at home!
A.M.: Organic and technological elements are often intertwined in your work. How do you manage to balance these two opposing worlds?
S.C.: Technology is part of both of our paths in a complementary way. I don’t see them as opposing worlds, technology relates to the body by altering it and, consequently, changing our way of feeling and being social. It is precisely this social aspect that interests me. Many of our works incorporate technology both conceptually and technically. We are not interested in putting it in the foreground, showcasing or glorifying it. Instead, we use it according to our dramaturgical and aesthetic choices.
S.: Yes, we study technology to be able to understand its limits and make use of it in an aesthetic manner, but most importantly to develop informed ethical choices. It also plays an important role for our curatorial project Ecosistemi Artificiali, as we provide educational projects, seminars and workshops to university students.
A.M.: The Tell Me To Sin album explores themes of suffering, death and the transcendence of pain. What prompted you to tackle such difficult themes?
S.C.: Tell Me To Sin is a very personal album; it is a catharsis for all those emotions that each of us experiences throughout life. Every track is inspired by personal events or by the lives of those close to us. It’s an album that gives space and dignity to pain without fear of expressing it. I see it as an anthem to courage and beauty.
A.M.: For the track Down Here Praying, you collaborated with Bulgarian experimental artist Evitceles. How was this collaboration and what did he bring to the composition?
S.C.: The collaboration with Evitceles really surprised us because of how he made the track his own. He was brave enough to add his voice to the composition, which we really appreciated. It didn’t feel like just a remix but more like a shared experience.
S.: We never met in person and just exchanged files remotely, but his energy and vision felt truly genuine. He transformed and expanded “Down Here Praying” into a completely new song.
S.C.: Etienne connected with the album’s mood, and it felt like we got to know each other through the music. That’s the magic—connecting through emotions.
A.M.: Your music deals with themes of emotional darkness, but at the same time is very introspective. What meaning does the process of spiritual catharsis through art have for you?
S.: The whole process of creating for us is extremely personal and intimate, it’s imbued in our daily life, and as such it tackles real life situations we found ourselves in. As Cecilia already mentioned, each song on Tell Me To Sin came to be after a specific event happened. What we are seeking to get out of this is to transcend suffering and elevate our senses as much as creating a layered sensorial experience for the audience. Through this approach art becomes liberating!
S.C.: I discovered my voice only a few years ago; it was wild and out of my control. I intentionally avoided shaping it through traditional techniques and instead embraced the impossibility of owning it, focusing on being open to letting it own me. In this way, I feel like my body becomes a channel for emotions that often don’t feel like my own. It’s a sensation that connects me to something ancestral. This both excites and deeply calms me. For me, this is what art is—the chance to step into another dimension and view life from a different perspective, one that is abstract and more universal.
A.M.: How does the Transumanza project combine tradition and modernity? What role did sound play in your journey through Sicily?
S.: Transumanza is our most recent project and took shape last summer during an artistic residency and two performances for SITU Festival in Modica (Sicily), but we have been collecting experiences and inspiration for it for a couple of years now. When travelling through Sicily, we met local artisans, instrument makers, spiritual people, musicians, intellectuals, and “cunta storie” (which is the name for traditional street story-tellers). It’s an effort to rediscover the traditions of our land while experiencing them in the most genuine and profound manner.
S.C.: There are many ways to delve into a culture and its traditions. We chose music and the arts because they allowed us to talk with many people and play music with them during our journey. This really facilitated the entire process, breaking down cultural, geographical, and generational barriers. We played the Zampogna (a traditional form of Italian Bagpipe), frame drums, and sang traditional songs with the elders. We interacted with the generosity of a population that still has much to offer. Musically, we aim to understand how traditions influence us, like building a family tree connected to myths and legends. We are interested in absorbing, deconstructing, and seeing how they influence us artistically. It’s a very free process, open to many other popular contaminations.
S.: We try to give our personal interpretation to the things we discover and learn, respectfully and with first hand experience. In particular, during our last journey we focussed on exploring the sounds of the pastoral landscape, and we even got to watch the locals build these instruments in their homes and shops!
S.C.: In the future we hope to expand this research to other countries that fascinate us, like Northern Europe and Eastern countries. We love adding traditional musical instruments to our repertoire, but before doing so, it’s important for us to spend time with that culture to hear all the stories that have shaped it.
A.M.: What results brought cooperation with local artists, artisans and residents during your tour of Sicily?
S.C.: The beauty of this musical journey was meeting the local people. These artists, artisans, and so on, are simple folks, often farmers or people who have had to reinvent themselves many times in their lives. They opened their homes to us, we shared meals with them (food is very important in Sicily), and they told us their stories. This inspired us deeply, not only in our art but also in reconnecting with a simpler, more communal way of living, outside the rules of various artistic industries.
S.: During one of our encounters we met Fabrizio Fazio, one of the best traditional drum makers of Italy, with whom we improvised a jam session in his shop and ended up commissioning him three really huge (from 50 to 60 cm) frame drums, specifically a “Daf”, a “Tamorra Muta” and a “Tamburello”.
A.M.: The character of Streusa – a witch and healer – appears as an important inspiration in your project. What fascinates you about this character?
S.: “Streusa” is an ancient Sicilian word which was used to describe educated and dangerous women in a male-centric society. It represents a figure fighting for emancipation filled with magic and mystery.
S.C.: It is the symbol of how the dominant culture has suppressed human freedom and knowledge, often demonising it. A “Streusa” is a powerful and independent figure who isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. Those in power feared the influence she could have, which led to her persecution. Every culture has a version of Streusa, sometimes with different names. In this case, she is a female figure, but generally, she represents anyone who has fought for our freedom. We are fascinated by this, as well as by the esoteric and mystical dimension of magical herbs, songs, and rhymes. For me, she is also a symbol of a “woman considered different.” While society has improved, we still struggle with the need to reject what we fear. To me, she represents a call to continue challenging this inequality with the resources I have.
A.M.: In your performative film Madre, you explore the dynamics of encounter and repulsion between bodies. What did you want to convey through these prolonged rituals?
S.: The prolonged form is another tool that allows us to transcend into a specific state of consciousness, it’s about really digging into a feeling and letting it unfold, it’s only after the fact that the meaning comes into focus. But there are certain pointers and ideas we throw on the table and then try to interpret them together. To be honest, the performative film is about one hour long and would be more than enough for the entire album, but due to censorship issues arising with digital platforms, we decided to extract only the footage for Madre.
S.C.: The idea came from working with the format of Tableau Vivant, which blends performance art and visual art. This format evolves slowly over time, creating a dreamlike dimension. Choosing slowness is, for us, a way to counter the speed of our daily lives, which is heavily influenced by the frantic consumption of media content. There wasn’t a script to start with; we wanted to work with the spontaneity of the bodies and the beauty of nature. This project was done in 2022 when we were still searching for a common ground in our artistic languages and our way of living. Perhaps this sense of attraction and repulsion was part of our relationship at that time. We like tracking our emotions over time and finding a poetic language to express them.
A.M.: Your music, including Tell Me To Sin, moves from delicate, ethereal sounds to raw, intense screams. What emotions do you want to evoke in your listeners through this contrasting dynamic and what do you hope to achieve by combining such different emotions?
S.C.: Honestly, we don’t have a specific intention to evoke certain emotions in our listeners. Rather, we think that those who are drawn to our music are looking for something powerful, something that resonates with the emotions within them. Looking back, we feel that our music moves through many different emotions, one after the other, and honestly, I think this reflects what happens to each of us. Emotions are often contrasting and can change in an instant. Our tracks allow space for each of these contradictions, or at least that’s how I perceive it.
S.: Exactly, I think that what you are talking about is mostly a result achieved through genuine intuition, we don’t love to plan too much ahead when it comes to delivering raw emotions. There has to be a layer of spontaneity, so before a session we often talk about moods, images or stories so we can focus our energy towards them without losing excitement. And as Cecilia already said, it is a matter of creating an abstract projection of real life scenarios, which can be really dynamic and dramatic.
A.M.: What were the biggest challenges you faced in making the Tell Me To Sin album?
S.: I think the biggest challenge, but also one of the most rewarding processes, was the journey that brought us to the making of the album, putting it all back together and realising that we were onto something. The record is made from different fragments of our life recorded during 2 years and initially without a clear intention, so we had to find the common thread.
A.M.: You often emphasize the role of space in your work. What was the significance of the locations where you worked on the album in terms of its sound?
S.C.&S.: We like to think that space and architecture are not neutral. They carry social configurations, prejudices, and possibilities. We are very interested in playing with the audience’s expectations when we create our performative projects. We enjoy altering these expectations with lighting, specific set designs, technology, and movement of bodies on stage to create an environment where we can welcome and engage with the audience in an abstract way.
S.C.: In Tell Me To Sin, we primarily worked on the music in natural and bucolic settings. Nature served as a refuge from the musical production expectations we initially had. I believe that these moments of isolation allowed us to connect with ourselves without the distractions of everyday life. When we finished the album and re-emerged into the world with this work, we realised that we had created something non-commercial, something intense and dark. We are very grateful to Strange Therapy for embracing this kind of work.
S.: As we already mentioned a big part of our process is about trying to crystallise a moment or a feeling and in doing so space has a significant impact, all senses are triggered and channelled towards the creation. So the lighting, architecture and acoustics all influence the work and we actively search for that. For example, to record Madre, we travelled to Rome (Cecilia’s hometown) and set-up a recording space in an old hotel room with the right mood and light-design.
A.M.: How do audiences respond to your live performances that require active engagement? How important is the element of audience interaction to you?
S.C.: Generally, audiences are curious, at first often shy, but over time something activates their bodies and starts making them move in space. The extended durations of up to 4 hours for performances also help, giving people all the time they need to engage. I think it’s more important than ever to create a performance that allows for interaction. This is because we are increasingly unaccustomed to real, physical interactions. It’s also important to take on the responsibility of being a bit intrusive sometimes; there’s something toxic about the extreme privacy that makes us more and more distant. We manifest this intrusion through dynamic lighting, sound, and extended durations.
S.: The reaction changes from place to place as well as the intensity of the performance, both elements go hand in hand as a feedback process. In a broader sense we strive to break the barrier between audience and performer so activating them helps to put all of us on the same plane. Again, architecture plays a role in this too as we try not to perform on top of stages, but rather be on the same level of the audience.
A.M.: Could you share with us upcoming projects and directions you want to explore in the future?
S.C.&S.: We have two albums in the works, one of which will definitely see the light in 2025. These albums will feature music extracted from our latest durational performances, Trascendenze Artificiali, and will be divided into Act I and Act II. Act II will also include a collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Demetrio Cecchitelli, with whom we have a long-standing friendship and who frequently participates in our projects. Really excited about this! Recently, we have been focusing more on music, but in 2025, we will plan a new workshop-based production that will involve roughly 15 performers from various artistic disciplines. This time, we would like to collaborate with entities in Milan. Meanwhile, thoughout winter we will continue to work on our educational projects with university students on the creative use of Artificial Intelligence, another area where we are deeply involved both creatively and ethically.
A.M.: Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you all the best for the future.
S.C.&S.: Thank you for your interest in our work Artur, it’s been a pleasure! We hope that we’ll soon have the opportunity to meet and engage with the Polish artistic scene as we often visit Krakow and are very curious about it.
Review: Santa Cecilia & Semionauta – Tell Me To Sin