A neuroethological study on a bat colony spirals into speculative terrain as a translation engine begins to blur the roles of observer and observed.

A group of scientists attempt to study the foundations of consciousness by intervening in the neural activity of eight lab-born fruit bats. Using custom neural tags, their experiment aims to amplify known dynamics of interbrain synchrony – moments when brain activity of two or more individuals becomes temporarily aligned. But when the bats unexpectedly flee the lab and disperse into the surrounding desert, something unanticipated occurs. Far from collapsing the study, the open-field data reveals the emergence of an anomalous neural pattern, named State X. This collective cognitive field doesn’t appear confined in one bat but seems to arise “between” them. As the scientists continue to monitor the colony through ambient, sensory feedback, they find themselves increasingly entangled with the bats’ altered condition, confronted by the paradox of felt intimacy without comprehension. A question arises within the research team: Could the feedback system be extended to include human neural rhythms—and if so, what are its ethical and cognitive implications?

Filmed across desert field sites in Southern California and experimental labs at EPFL (Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne), the narration of Shape of Language takes the form of a speculative research log. The project is developed as a close collaboration between creative technologist Sakander Zirai, composer Studio Øraya, and filmmaker Emilia Tapprest, with VFX by 3D artist Carlo Clever, and emerges from the Enter the Hyper-Scientific residency program at EPFL in Lausanne. 

The film’s entire soundtrack is composed exclusively from processed ultrasonic bat vocalizations recorded by naturalist Don Endicott in the Anza-Borrego desert. These recordings form the raw material for composer Studio Øraya, who employs techniques of spectral stretching, spatialization, and dynamic resynthesis to uncover latent rhythmic and tonal structures embedded within the data. Working in close dialogue with the neuroethological premise of the film, the sonic architecture operates as a resonant system—a mode of nonverbal inquiry into how perception might be shaped across radically different umwelts. Sound becomes the site where scale, time, and cognition are warped. By modulating sonic temporality and emphasizing phase relationships, the soundtrack mirrors the entangled dynamics of interbrain synchrony explored in the narrative, probing ineffable, or “non-narratable”, processes presented in the film through an evolving affective atmosphere.

A two-channel version of the film premiered as an immersive installation at the EPFL Pavilions in June 2025, accompanied by an interactive ambient data display designed and built by Sakander Zirai, translating neural data by the Buzsáki Lab recorded in small mammals in various activity states of sleep and wakefulness: https://vimeo.com/1091599397