Two films by Viera Čákanyová portray the momentous yet fragile landscapes of Antarctica. Frem (Slovakia 2019) depicts vast and arid vistas from the perspective of a drone whose movements are based on artificial intelligence algorithms. White on White (Slovakia 2020) was shot during the same expedition; this time the camera is held by Čákanyová. We see two quite different types of cinematography: one is a neutral, emotionally detached, machine-like view; the other is embodied, vulnerable and affective. A seal bleeding on an ice floe, a melting iceberg crumbling into the sea, a human seeking shelter in the biting cold – the scenes provide the viewer with very different potentialities for emotional responses depending on whether the camera is held by a human hand and guided by a human eye, or the gaze is that of a drone guided by computational algorithms. In this paper, I will examine the following questions: What role does imagining the non-human, the superhuman or the beyond human play in our visual culture? Does the gaze of the machine provide us with something useful? Or does it deprive us of something that is needed for us to understand our position in the world? Čákanyová’s films are my main discussion partners in investigating these topics. My conclusions are inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s redefinition of our relationship with nature. He writes about the non-human, not as a result of transcending human experience but rather as an acknowledgement of our kinship with and immersion in nature.