Still Processing: art meets algorithm at Amsterdam’s Nxt Museum

“When you break something, and it falls apart, sometimes you really see what actually was there in the first place,” Rosa Menkman tells Euronews Culture. 

Dutch artist and researcher Menkman’s investigation (a “breaking apart”) of image processing is central to Nxt Museum’s recently opened exhibition, 'Still Processing'.

Situated in Amsterdam’s rapidly evolving Noord neighbourhood – a formerly neglected industrial area turned creative hotspot – Nxt Museum has since its genesis, as founder and director Merel van Helsdingen explains, sought to “bring together art, technology, science, and performance”. 'Still Processing' builds on that vision, inviting us into a liminal space where our perception of reality, mediated by technology, is interrogated – primarily, as van Helsdingen points out, via the work of local artists.

The title of the exhibition, 'Still Processing', speaks volumes about the current state of our relationship with technology. In an era where we are bombarded by a deluge of information and images, how do we process the constant stream? How do we reconcile the rationality of technology (although technology, too, can reflect human biases) and the emotional impact it has on us? The works on display probe these questions, inviting visitors to explore the implications of how images and sounds are created, transformed, and consumed.

'Still Processing' is divided into two primary themes: the manipulation of images by technology, and the role of the human brain in processing these transformations. At its core, the show invites visitors to pause, take stock, and consider the mental and emotional imprints left by the digital age: from the flattening of images in digital compression to the evolving nature of AI-generated