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Vertigo (2017-2020)

‘Vertigo’ is a long-term project by the Dutch artist Martine Stig. With video, photography and form studies, she examines how our perception has been changed by technology and what its implications are for visual culture. Since drones and satellites now allow us to look from almost any vantage point, notions such as linear perspective and monocular representation are beginning to lose their universal self-evidence. To reset the paradigms of our visual culture, Stig investigates new ways of looking.

Planar (2017)
HD-video, black and white, 12:33 min
Video annex slide show, shot from a roof terrace in Genoa. A camera scans the surface of the city. Evoking an atmosphere of surveillance drones and film noir, Stig’s images show the streets in detail, but offer no sense of place or story. The artist hereby plays with aesthetic expectations and assumed technology.

Profiles (2017 – 2018)
A form study of the human facial profile. As technology increasingly disconnects our gaze – or our camera – from the body, the characteristic format of an eye-level profile photo needs to be revised. Stig seeks to redefine it in a 360º world.

Walking in the City (2018)
HD-video HD, 11:42 min
This short science fiction film shows the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo through a vertical stereoscope, revealing several notions of perception and power. Spontaneous images recorded in both real (street) and virtual (Google Earth) public space play a game with the seer and the seen. With a text by Basje Boer.

Sync. (2019)
Holiday photos in a rural setting, synchronously photographed from eye level and from the sky before being superimposed. An old cinematic effect to depict a ghost, dream or hallucinatory state of mind, a technique that allowed the viewer to believe in the fantastic. Stig responds to the ‘ghost connotation’ in this series whilst simultaneously showing a new reality.

thanks to Caradt, Center for Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology and the Mondriaan Fund.

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