The Sensortype

Digital images should not beunderstood as reflections of human vision, but outputs of machinic systems withtheir own sensory logics. Cameras are computers that record, compress andclassify. They do not see as we do. To understand contemporary images, we mustmove beyond representational frameworks and instead examine the technicalapparatuses that govern visibility. This shift opens up new possibilities forimage-making that are expressive, critically-situated, and attuned to theirconditions of production. As a response, I introduce the sensortype: anew category of mixed-exposure image that interrogates the computationalmediation of digital photography. Rather than conforming to photographicinstrumentalization, sensortypes reveal the recursive and contingent nature ofcomputational vision by foregrounding lighting conditions, sensor technology,file formats, denoising algorithms, and compression schemes. Drawing on thepractice of investigative aesthetics, I frame sensortypes as visual inquiriesthat expose and map the hidden technical conditions of machine seeing. Byengaging post-processing not as correction but as critical revelation, theseimages make visible the infrastructures that underlie contemporaryimage-making. Sensortypes are both artistic strategy and theoretical tool,contributing to a digital art history attuned to mediation, material systems,and the politics of algorithmic visibility.