Martine Stig on the growing frictions between technology and perception, memory and storytelling in a more-than-human world. An ongoing dialogue with Ilse van Rijn in three film essays.
- Jan 5
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 11
We live in a post-optic world. Human vision is decentralized as (sole) base for knowledge production to make room for the nonhuman (machines, animals, plants). Yet, our worldview is based on optical information (“seeing is believing”!) and our visual culture leans heavily on old habits: affirming the human spectrum as the norm, celebrating the indexical qualities of the image.
The post-optic, as Carolyn L. Kane coins it, is an extension ànd a challenge of vision rooted in optics. It's through algorithmic imagery that we gain the ability to see beyond our own visual limits. This expansion of perception allows us to step beyond a human-centric viewpoint to embrace wavelengths visible to machines and other species.
As a visual artist, I am interested in the entanglement of image, gaze and technology––in how technologies guide our perception and how images influence our thinking. I examine the ways in which different image systems blur the boundaries between established categories. Recognising that organic entities do not hold a monopoly on seeing, I ask: how can we enable communication between the human and the more-than-human? Can the (mis)use of technology bring us closer to the entities––machines, plants, animals––with which we share living and thinking space? Fascinated by the classical belief that information technologies can connect us to a “sacred” or otherwise hidden reality, I work with digital, post-optic and AI technologies, bending them to broaden our perceptual spectrum and to reveal the shared space in which we coexist.
This line of inquiry culminates in a trilogy of film essays that explore what I call the post-optic. Perception is presented as not neutral, as seeing multiple perspectives simultaneously, as something that shapes knowledge. The act of seeing is relational—almost “quantum-like”: flexible, and open to contradictory or overlapping states.
In different polyscenes I explore forms of seeing that move beyond the human eye and unsettle familiar notions of presence, embodiment and the boundaries between species, bodies and technologies.
In 'The Reflection of the Man' I question what it means to be human in an increasingly hybrid world. Using ubiquitous technologies such as face-recognition software, alongside Rorschach techniques and algorithms, I test how far I can stretch the act of seeing and what forms of presence might emerge when I try to draw closer to nonhuman companions.
'NIR' continues this exploration by entering timespaces invisible to the human naked eye yet accessible to machines and animals. Through near-infrared imaging, I investigate how technology can shift boundaries between human and nature. Flesh-like trees, blood-like mountain streams and cyborg-humans appear as norms of human-centred seeing begin to dissolve. An ultrasoundscape accompanies an open-ended conversation with ChatGPT, expanding the field of perception into both the machinic and the speculative.
In 'HEAT', I turn to infrared thermography, using temperature rather than reflected light to render the world. This thermal view challenges the idea of the body as solid, fixed or autonomous. Instead, bodies become amorphous forms that leave traces and share volume with objects, land and material. Thermal imagery blurs distinctions between entities and temporalities, revealing a strange and unfamiliar world in which living and non-living, past, present and future coexist.
Together, these works form a trilogy that moves beyond the human optic and invite a more porous, entangled understanding of the world. They continue the ongoing dialogue between writer Ilse van Rijn and myself on the shifting frictions between technology and perception, memory and storytelling. Distributed by li-ma.nl
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'The Reflection of the Man' by Martine Stig (2021)
'NIR' by Martine Stig (2024)
'HEAT' by Martine Stig (2025)
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Martine Stig (Nijmegen, 1972) lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. Her work explores the entanglement of image, gaze, and technology, examining how image systems blur established categories. Photography forms the basis of her research, film essays, and photographic and digital works. Stig has published five books, exhibited internationally at institutions including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Aperture Foundation, NYC. Her work is held in major collections. She teaches and leads the MA Visual Arts & Postcontemporary Practice in Den Bosch and co-founded Radical Reversibility and the online meeting space wealgo.org.
Studio:
Tweede Leeghwaterstraat 7G
1018 RA Amsterdam