Stine Deja’s (b. 1986, Denmark) practice operates at the intersection of human biology and digital technology, probing the psychological, societal, and behavioral transformations induced by technological acceleration. With a rigorous conceptual approach, an otherworldly aesthetic, and a distinct satirical edge, Deja constructs a space where the absurd and the critical coalesce, offering speculative perspectives on the trajectory of human culture. Her work spans total installation, kinetic sculpture, sound, and video, weaving together multiple media to question the evolution of our relationship with technology.

In Full Circle, Deja turns her attention to the very essence of technological change. How do technologies shape us, and how do we, in turn, shape them? From the earliest tools to the most complex artificial intelligences, the story of human civilization is one of co-evolution with its instruments. Fire, one of the most pivotal of these innovations, altered not only the material conditions of human life but also its very biology. Fire cooked our food, extended our days, and became the foundation of ritual, industry, and warfare.

Historian Stephen J. Pyne, in The Pyrocene, identifies humans as “unique fire creatures,” shaped by their ability to control and harness combustion. He observes: “We used fire to remake ourselves, and then we and fire remade Earth.” Fire demanded care—it had to be tended, sheltered, fed—mirroring the very way we now nurture and maintain our digital infrastructures. The mastery of fire set humanity on an irreversible course, but with every technological leap, there emerges a question: Do we control our tools, or do they control us?

Philosopher Srećko Horvat articulates the paradox: our capacity to create technologies often surpasses our ability to comprehend their consequences. Yuval Noah Harari expands on this, framing the gap between power and wisdom as one of humanity’s greatest existential risks. If fire enabled civilization’s ascent but also became a force of destruction, what does this mean for artificial intelligence? Could AI be our new fire—a technology so transformative that it rewrites the human condition?

Deja situates Full Circle at precisely this moment of reckoning. Entering the gallery, the visitor is confronted with a large-scale industrial chrome “window,” its molten frame evoking a heat so intense it distorts the view. It suggests both containment and passage, a threshold between past and future. Beyond it, an uncanny choreography unfolds: metallic robotic forms enact the primitive technique of fire-making, friction generating potential ignition. In this collision of prehistory and futurism, Deja asks—have we truly advanced, or are we trapped in cyclical reinvention?

Fire has always been paradoxical: a force of communion and destruction, a catalyst of civilization and its possible undoing. In Full Circle, fire becomes an emblem of biological humanity, while Deja’s robotic sculptures speak to an emergent intelligence—one that operates beyond the limitations of organic existence. Do our machines need fire at all? And if not, what does that mean for us? With wit and incisive critique, Deja invites us into this speculative loop, where innovation meets recursion, and where the future looks ever more like the past, but with a difference.

— Zé Ortigão