Contemporary concepts of the Anthropocene reveal numerous fractures where theories about the future of humankind contradict one another. While we degrade nature by greedily exploiting its resources, we simultaneously claim to be part of it — emphasizing a desire to restore its rightful place. Yet it is precisely from these natural resources that technology develops, along with the devices that support us and which have become nearly indispensable to daily life. The boundary between human consciousness and machine intelligence is becoming increasingly blurred, as the dystopias once imagined by sci-fi films edge closer to reality.
Andrzej Staniek, however, flips this perspective: instead of imagining alien life forms arriving in the distant future, he suggests they may already be here — silent, dispersed, and invisible. The artist presents speculative sculptural forms that resist classification — hybrid bodies evoking both biological remains and synthetic organisms. Made of resin, silicone, and organic fibers, these ambiguous beings defy human-centered logic.
Staniek’s entities coexist with us — within our microbiomes, and within the technological prostheses that hybridize our bodies; in the bloodstream of fiber optics, in code, impulses, signal disturbances, and the breakdowns of logic.
Absent Visitors explores the presence of the nonhuman — a dark ecology and post-anthropocentric materiality — offering a meditation on mutation, decay, and the porous boundaries between life and matter.
Staniek’s mysterious “guests” align closely with the more-than-human perspective — one that considers not only the human and the ecosystem, but also digital-technological entities, including avatars in the metaverse and social robots. As the artist emphasizes, the embodiment of these seemingly organic beings was preceded by pixel grids, countless hours spent in front of a computer — a kind of cognitive prosthesis.
The sculpture series is accompanied by a video work that also addresses corporeality and fragmented perception, this time viewed — or so it seems — from a human perspective. But is it really? Narrated by the voice of a child, the immersive storytelling draws us into identification while simultaneously evoking unease, leading us into the cracks of what lies beyond human understanding.
The world depicted in the film is both raw and deeply corporeal — grounded in a stark contrast between sterile purity and the unsettling strangeness of forms. Staniek proposes the notion of the creator’s body as a “host” for alternative life forms — for technologies that operate between our neurotransmitters.
This raises the question: how deeply have we already let our visitors in? Where do the boundaries of human control over technology lie — and are we truly the ones creating it, or is it, in some way, already using us?
— Natalia Barczyńska
Photography: Alicja Kielan