THIS ITB STUDENT BUILT A CAT BRAINWAVE TRANSLATOR. IT DOESN'T TRANSLATE MEOWS.
An ITB student built a cat brainwave translator that reads EEG signals and turns them into art. Here's how Project Solem really works.
Gusti Ilalang Seta's Project Solem reads a cat's brain activity and turns it into art, not words.
At a glance
- Stimuli tested on the cat 6
- Device versions shown in the video 2
- Instagram likes on the viral post 23,300+
- Shares 462
A white foam cat head sits on a desk. Behind it, a wall covered in pencil sketches. In one hand, a student holds a small green circuit board. The internet called it a "cat language translator." The student never promised that.
The project is a cat brainwave translator in the loosest sense. Project Solem is an art-and-tech experiment by Gusti Ilalang Seta, a student at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) in Bandung, West Java. He uses EEG (electroencephalography) to record electrical activity in a cat's brain, then turns that data into visual or physical art. He shared it on TikTok under @florasapien, and the Instagram account @ussfeeds spread it further. The post doesn't say when the experiment happened or what it cost.
What is Project Solem?
Project Solem is Gusti's way of asking a simple question: what does a cat's brain do when something happens around it?
He doesn't try to turn meows into sentences. He records how the cat's brain reacts, then uses that signal as raw material for art.
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How does the cat brainwave translator work?
It starts with EEG, the same kind of technology doctors use to measure electrical activity in the brain. Gusti attached the sensors to a cat and gave it six different stimuli. He then watched how the brain activity changed after each one.
Each stimulus produced a different pattern. Those patterns became the data. The data became the art.
Is it really a translator?
No, and that is the part worth sharing. The "translation" is not linguistic. Nothing in Project Solem decodes what a cat "says."
What gets translated is the cat's neurological response. A sound or a touch changes the brainwaves, and those changes are converted into shapes, lines, or objects. The cat doesn't speak. Its brain is read like a signal.
Think of it as a seismograph for feelings, drawn by a designer.
What does the device look like?
The video shows the project's second version, labeled "Versi 2" on screen. Gusti walks through a hand-drawn sketch of a lightweight headset-style device with an elastic band. Labels on the drawing appear to mention electrodes and Bluetooth.
The real hardware is much smaller than you'd expect. It is a green circuit board that fits in the palm of a hand. The sketch wall behind him, with its layered paper, felt-tip lines, and pinned drawings, makes the whole thing feel like a workshop, not a lab.
Why did it go viral?
Cats help, obviously. But the bigger hook is the idea that a living animal's data can become art.
The caption on the @ussfeeds post sums up the mood: "Turning brainwaves into art, one meow at a time."
Gusti describes Project Solem as a way to explore the connection between living beings and how different species interact. Biological data becomes another way to understand how animals respond to the world around them.
