“Through her work spanning nearly thirty years, Hito Steyerl has become one of the most beloved and recognized artists in the world. The Stedelijk exhibition attests to how her work from the very beginning has always had a clairvoyant and penetrating understanding of society. She is unique in that she uses her well-deserved recognition to disrupt the status quo as the bedrock of her practice.”

— Karen Archey, Curator of Contemporary Art, Stedelijk Museum

In the easter break I took a trip to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Holland to see a mid career retrospective of Hito Steyerl titled, I Will Survive. Born in Germany, Steyerl is a berlin based artist who works mainly in film and installation. Her immersive environments create a space to consider what we see on the screen in not only an informative way, but also as allegory. One example of this transformative tactic is Steyerl’s reifying of the humble Ikea bag. In her work ‘Mission Accomplished: Belanciege’, we are presented with a staging. Designed in a way that takes on the circular arrangement of meetings, this staging has us sitting in a presentation. The ‘representatives’ act like they are submitting evidence to an official body. (see fig. 1)

Hito Steyerl, **Hell Yeah We Fuck Die**: Three-channel HD video file, duration 4:35 min, 2016

Depicting the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the blue livery was also the styling for the SS20 Balenciaga show. Both venues, the parliament and the Balenciaga show use blue circular elements, round buildings circular seating. Steyerl symbolizes both sites using a blue IKEA bag, drawing comparison to a Balenciaga bag that is almost identical in style. This emulation is then used to draw our attention to the practice of mimicry. It is here Steyerl uses an IKEA bag to create a Möbiuos strip. Now we have the outsides and the inside on the same plain. Therefore the inside of the circle is the outside. For steyerl, this blurring of lines and the multiplicity of meaning is how Steyerl connects us to the idea of inclusion and exclusion. Two things are happening here - aesthetic representation as a critical device, and the critical device acting as a warning. Attacks on criticality these days get traction through highlighting that the “exploited rarely require an explanation of the laws of that exploitation” [2] Yet, it might be hard to accuse Steyerl of adopting a position of mastery over an already subjugated audience. The didactical deployment here acts as a gentil polemic against systems and industries that sometimes come into contact with each other on questionable terms.

Why was this trip important? Well, I wanted to see how contemporary spaces are displaying exhibitions for artists who amongst other reasons are proving ways to rearticulate current contemporary discourses, including Cybernetics, Commodification, Experimental Film, Social Media, Media Critique, Mass Media & Entertainment, Representation, Video Art - all descriptive terms that e-flux used to categorize Steyerl’s work [3] I have found myself at a pivotal point in my career, where I need to take the work I do into the critical field. working out what does the work do? Why is it relevant? What does the work respond too? These and other explorative inquiries into work out there engaging in such way, is the next step. And Hito Steyerl isn’t too bad a signpost.

Hito Steyerl

SocialSim, 2020

Single channel HD video and live computer simulations Dancing Mania/Rebellion

Duration: 18:19 min (single channel)

Dancing Mania/Rebellion duration variable

Room dimensions (at K21): 7 x 12 m approx.

[1] Hito Steyerl, Bio, Institute of Documentary Film, <https://dokweb.net/database/organizations/about/e3c99788-5834-4db5-b07e-0ef9ffd26296/hito-steyerl> [accessed 10/04/2022]

[2] Jacques Rancière, Aesthetics and Its Discontents, trans. by Steven Cochran, (Cambridge: Poility Press, 2009) p. 47

[3] Hito Steyerl, ‘How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013’, e-flux, <https://www.e-flux.com/video/384606/how-not-to-be-seen-a-fucking-didactic-educational-mov-file/> [accessed 13/04/2022]

Hito Steyerl: A journey into the screen.