Hito Steyerl the Wretched of the Screen Contents

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Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen Contents

5 Preface

9 Introduction

12 In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective

31 In Defense of the Poor Image

46 A Thing Like You and Me

60 Is a Museum a Factory?

77 The Articulation of Protest

92 Politics of Art: Contemporary Art and the Transition to Post-Democracy

102 Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life

121 Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries

138 Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy

160 The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation

176 Cut! Reproduction and Recombination individual subject. The single point, it would seem, produced by a Western worldview centered on the cal space, Steyerl shows this to be a total fiction until today as an objective representation of empiri- oped primarily in the Renaissance, and accepted back to the single-point linear perspective devel Fall” should make such nostalgia impossible: looking when things were simpler, better. Her epic “In Free temptationcertain to reflect nostalgically on a time its techniques of exploitation. Rather, it is to resist a duced by this regime is crucially not to also accept specific economic regime. of desire and exchange, which itself relies on a very the digital image is lodged in a circulatory system because just as a photograph is lodged in paper, image is not as ephemeral as one might think, of magical immediacy from its material. The digital structuresupport beneath it, and releasing a kind immaterial and abstract flows by identifying a clear It is a way of coming to terms with capitalism’s and aberrant distortions of accelerated capitalism. covers a rich trove of information in the formal shifts produced by images and screens, then Steyerl dis- and consciousness are not only reflected but also tent, but by velocity, intensity, and speed. If reality image-value as defined not by resolution and con- Withdrawal from Representation,” an essay on Image,” and extends to “The Spam of the Earth: clear in her landmark essay “In Defense of the Poor advanced in her work and writing. This is most politics of the image that Hito Steyerl has steadily can be said to revolve around a remarkably potent variety of topics, the essays gathered in this book Written over the course of the past few years on a Preface For Steyerl, to look frankly at the forms pro- -

5 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 6 modernist discourses, from their failed promises flight through the wreckage of postcolonial and pleasure of movement, of uncontrollable vertiginous By undoing the lock, we might encounter the sheer at the technology that seals in these aspirations. screens, it is precisely here that we must look frankly cal projects have been displaced onto images and the hopes and desires for coherent collective politi- gent global class of soft labor? projects? Are they not the new mines for an emer leftover ideological energy of history’s failed political dence that contemporary serves to art absorb the into cultural spaces not the most conspicuous evi- many abandoned factories that have been turned stressed-out freelancers, and unpaid interns. Are the on the passionate commitment of brilliant women, tem as a vast mine of labor extraction that survives Museum a Factory?,” Steyerl zooms sys in on the art - and the Transition to Post-Democracy” and “Is a essays such as “Politics of Art: Contemporary Art this the space that contemporary inhabits? art In coming back together, and bursting again. apart Is in unforeseen ways, bursting at their seams, apart tion, exploitation and affect, twist around each other describe a moment when politics and representa- ent, where a condition of groundlessness begins to by centralized optics fast-forwards us to the pres- as objective reality. and maskedhuman consciousness using ideology of a centuries-longpart history of sculpting space we see on the internet are not new innovations, but tion; what emerges is the idea that the poor images picture plane as a highly unstable space of projec- blows open an entire metaphysics surrounding the is not the vanishing point, but the spectator. This In Steyerl’s writing we begin to see how, even if Abandoning the safety provided and certainty -

the same without her. format and approach of e-flux journalwould not be source of inspiration, and it is fair to say that the in 2008,journal Steyerl’s writing served as a crucial commitment, enchantment and fun. grammed with playfulness and mischief, affect and for diversion, ready to be cracked open and repro- are swallowed up in indeterminacy—made available ings. Suddenly, sites of structural and literal violence and totalizing claims to their unanticipated open-

—Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle When we first an art discussed starting

7 and industrial workers—in public education, health flictive alliance between the industrious bourgeois realization. The material legacy of con- the modern dissipated by a rapid and predatory process of de- built through labor and social solidarity began to be of de-evolution, or de-civilization. What had been age of human evolution the world shifted to the age stimulation. The year 1977 was a watershed: from the passion into the world of simulation and nervous grating from the world of physical life and historical proliferation of images. of life, and started believing only in the infinite electromagnetic substances, lost faith in the reality misled by burlesque heroes made of deceptive solved, transformed into ghosts. The human race, but were transferred to another dimension, dis- peared. They were not killed by the foes of heroism, point. Heroes died, or, more accurately, they disap- some explanations. extraterrestrial to find some meaning, or at least extreme moral stupidity. This book will help the incredible mixture of technological refinement and terrestrial intelligence will be astonished by our understand what happened and why, this extra- hostage by the dogma of capitalism. In trying to upon the agony of our time on this planet taken someone from another galaxy may look with pity Representation.” her essay “The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from our wireless communications,” writes Hito Steyerl in forms of intelligence may incredulously sift through “In a few hundred thousand years extraterrestrial Introduction It was the year when heroes faded, transmi - In 1977, human history reached a turning It’s true: in a few hundred thousand years

9 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 10 threatens / That which saves from it also grows.” destruction of the future said: “But where danger these changes. As the philosopher who foresaw the for a common ground from which to understand lectual research is emerging, are and artists looking precarious activity. And yet, a new form of intel replaced by the random recombination of frantic Political awareness and political strategy have been flowing recombination of fragmentary images. future. sibilities to come, to show some traces of a possible while also trying to say something about the pos- passion, in a new form of solidarity and mutuality? the black hole, to invest their energy in a new creative the humans were, in the end, still able to come out of and to invent? Will the extraterrestrials find that ity, to sensibility and the ability to imagine, to create at the moment is this: What happened to subjectiv of financial accumulation. What is not totally clear process, real life disappeared into the black hole to the fake regime of advertising. At the end of this tovisual art viral spreading, and subjected language physical forms into vanishing images, submitted tion of nothing. algorithms, mathematical ferocity, and accumula- social civilization into abstractions—figures, intelligence, transforming the concrete reality of hundred years of industriousness and collective started to swallow and destroy the product of two final form of a financial black hole. A drainage pump century, the post-bourgeois dilapidation took the to the religious dogma of a god called markets.”“the care, transportation, and welfare—was sacrificed History has been replaced by the endless This is the question Hito Steyerl’s book asks, The seductive force of simulation transformed In the second decade of the twenty-first

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- new life after capitalism. becoming lost, and possibly also the signs of our looking down to Earth, will detect the signs of our ask the extraterrestrial forms of intelligence who, if there will be a future after the future. We must don’t know if there is hope beyond the black hole, able to escape the black hole? and confusion of dogma and falseness? Will we be able to find the way out from the present darkness may become capable of recognizing itself again. cess of reactivating sensibility, so that humankind that must mix these three different forms into a pro- take the place of art, of politics and of therapy, and forward to discover a new form of activity that must From this cartography we will know where to move also a cartography of the emerging new sensibility. ing of the wasteland of the frozen imagination, but reconnaissance mission, a cartography in the mak of solidarity started to emerge. activism. In the swirl of de-realization a new form imaginary spam, and intermingled with media emerged from the reducedashes of visual art to that Net culture and recombinant imagination acceleration when the black hole began to form, 1998), 231. Hamburger (London: Penguin Books, ed. Jeremy Adler, trans. Michael in 1 Selected Poems and Fragments, Friedrich Hölderlin,Friedrich “Patmos,” —Franco “Bifo”Berardi At the moment, it is impossible to say—we Will we succeed in this discovery? Will we be Hito Steyerl’s essays in this book are of a sort It was in the 1990s, the decade of crazy -

11 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 12 on VerticalPerspective In Free Fall:

A Thought Experiment Experiment A Thought guished by a prevailing condition of groundlessness. pointed out that the present moment is distin- Imagine you are falling. But there is no ground. of visuality arise. Perspectives are twisted and multiplied. New types are shattered. Any sense of balance is disrupted. people. Traditional modes of seeing and feeling being things, while things may sense that they are While falling, people may sense themselves as ing of confusion between the self and the aircraft. have even reported that free fall can trigger a feel and after, of yourself and your boundaries. Pilots may lose any sense of above and below, of before zon quivers in a maze of collapsing lines and you may to start play additional tricks on you. The hori- time ever moved forward. time have ended and you can’t even remember that actually feel like perfect stasis—as if history and around you may be falling just as you are. And it may suspended if you let go of them. Whole societies be low and you’ll feel weightless. Objects will stay you’re falling. If there is no ground, gravity might ing to fall toward, you may not even be aware that moving at all. Falling is relational—if there is noth- probably feel as if you are floating—or not even But why don’t we notice? tent state of free fall for subjects and objects alike. quence must be a permanent, or at least intermit- lives and philosophical aspirations, the conse- if there is no stable ground available for our social contingent, attempts and partial at grounding. But myths. At best, we are faced with temporary, base metaphysical claims or foundational political We cannot assume any stable ground on which to Many contemporary philosophers have As you are falling, your sense of orientation Paradoxically, while you are falling, you will

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13 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 14 there was only muteness and silence. Within it, munication and understanding. Beyond the horizon, element in navigation. It defined the limits of com- not. The horizon line was an extremely important that can be imagined as stable, even if in fact it is on a ground of sorts, a shoreline, a boat—a ground bility of an observer, who is thought to be located line: the horizon line. Its stability hinges on the sta- concepts of time and space—are based on a stable tional sense of orientation—and, with it, modern crucial role of the horizon in all of this. Our tradi- of groundlessness fall? and permanent could these changes be related to the phenomena flight lines, and divergent vanishing points. How tiple perspectives, overlapping windows, distorted being supplemented (and often replaced) by mul perspective. Its stable and single point of view is of visuality that long dominated our vision: linear notice the decreasing of a paradigm importance called a God’s-eye view. On the other hand, we also growing increasingly accustomed to what used to be overviews, Google Map views, satellite views. We are mation is the growing of aerial views: importance targeting. One of the symptoms of this transfor by new technologies of surveillance, tracking, and has changed dramatically in recent years, prompted and superimpose. falling, the lines of the horizon shatter, twirl around, object, of time and space, throughout modernity. In tation, which has situated concepts of subject and comes the departure of a stable paradigm of orien- of a stable horizon. And with the loss of horizon also First, let’s take a step back and consider the Our sense of spatial and temporal orientation A Brief History of theHorizon This disorientation is partly due to the loss - -

at the lower end and Polaris at the upper.” an arrow held at arm’s length to sight the horizon thumb and little finger on an outstretched arm, or [Arab navigators] used one or two fingers width, a bodily poses relating to the horizon. “In early days, to one’s surroundings, destinations, or ambitions. used for determining one’s own location and relation things could be made visible. But it could also be being that of so-called linear perspective. to define modernity, paradigm the most important construction of the optical paradigms that came market, tool but also became an important for the colonialism and the spread of a capitalist global seafarers a sense of orientation, thus also enabling The use of the horizon to calculate position gave invented in order to create the illusion of stability. a projection, horizons until artificial were eventually the first place. The stable horizon mostly remained ground on which sailors stood was never stable in obstacles with this technology was the fact that the by using the horizon and the stars. One of the main and sextant refined this way of gaining orientation determined. way, one’s own location could be at least roughly object, measurement method was known as information about the altitude of one’s position. This angle between the horizon and the Pole star gave in the development of linear perspective. thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, which culminated ous experiments in visual production between the it became available in Europe and spawned numer a book of visual theory, Haytham (965–1040), also known as Alhazen, wrote Early navigation consisted of gestures and As early as 1028, Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al- Instruments like the astrolabe, quadrant, shooting the object, or Kitab al-Manazir. After 1200, taking asight. In this sighting the 2 The

15 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 16 Hans VredemanDe Vries, Perspective 39, 1605, copperplate engraving.

17 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 18 perception. tion, and does not correspond to any subjective tive. Thus, linear perspective is based on an abstrac- itself assumed to be natural, scientific, and objec- immobile spectator this viewas a norm—and is perspective declares the view of a one-eyed and Erwin Panofsky argued, the construction of linear any horizontal plane converge.Additionally, as as an abstract flat line upon which the points on is typically disregarded. The horizon is conceived sive negations. First, the curvature of the earth horizonvirtual defined by the eye line. culminate in one single vanishing point, located on a of linear perspective, the perspective is aligned to the most ardent experimenters in the development (1465–69), painted by Paolo Uccello, who was one of But in do they all intersect in one single vanishing point. in this space do not coalesce into a horizon line, nor vanishing points are still evident. The perspectives In Duccio’s of perspective: a view onto a calculable future. As progress. This is the second, temporal meaning allows mathematical prediction and, with it, linear also introduces the notion of a linear time, which linear perspective not only transforms space, but pated, and, therefore, managed.As a consequence, the calculation of future risk, which can be antici- calculable, navigable, and predictable. It allows meaning of the Latin opening onto the “real” world. This is also the literal the “outside,” as if the image plane was a window tive creates the illusion of a quasi-natural view to space, and declares it to be reality. Linear perspec- flattened, infinite, continuous, and homogenous Linear perspective is based on several deci- This space defined by linear perspective is Miracle of theDesecrated Host(SceneI) 3 Instead, it computes a mathematical, Last Supper (1308–11), several perspectiva: to see through. spective becomes a matrix for racial and religious as homogenous and empty as space. Walter Benjamin argued, time can become just to the West Indies. also the year of Christopher Columbus’s expedition expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492, mark. The date of these panels shortly prefigures the on which parallels converge as if it were a target his wife and two small children, he is tied to a pillar Jewish merchant ends up at the stakes. Along with the second panel tries to “desecrate” it. For this, the woman sells a Host to a Jewish merchant, who in Miracle of theDesecrated Host. In the first panel, a ponents are evident in Uccello’s six-panel painting, of representation, time, and space.All of these com- its concepts—as well as for redefining standards enabling Western dominance, and the dominance of ject, time, and space was an additional tool kit for of representation. ality by subjecting it to supposedly objective laws perspective the viewer’s also undermines individu- ject by placing it at the center of vision, linear follows scientific laws. While empowering the sub- byis also undermined the assumption that vision But on the other hand, the spectator’s importance ing point gives the observer a body and a position. ishing point, and thus constructed by it. The vanish- established by it. The viewer is mirrored in the van- eyes, the viewer becomes central to the worldview whole paradigm converges in one of the viewer’s ambivalent operation the viewer. concerning As the actually quite artificial, horizon. looking out toward a vanishing point on a flat, and assume an observer standing on a stable ground these calculations to operate, we must necessarily Needless to say, this reinvention of the sub- But linear perspective also performs an 5 In these paintings, linear per 4 And for all

19 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 20 vanishing point. The sun, which is at the center of are no parallels that could converge at a single The observer has lost his stable position. There guishable at all, is tilted, curved, and troubled. slaves are beginning to go under. Turner’s painting captures the moment where the all dying and sick slaves to be thrown overboard. sea, and not those dying or ill on board, he ordered ered that his insurance only covered slaves lost at incident: when the captain of a slave ship discov Turner. The scene in the painting represents a real transformation: expressesin particular the circumstances of this nineteenth century in the field of painting. One work status as the dominant visual paradigm is changing. the point where we may have to conclude that its has been supplemented by other types of vision to several other visual paradigms. Linear perspective We seem to be in a state of transition toward one or veracity from its inception. deep suspicion was planted alongside its claims for to the truth it had so confidently proclaimed. And a heartedly and belatedly. It thus became a hostage worldviews, particularistic undermined even if half- sal claim for representation, a link to veracity that allure and objectivist attitude established a univer carries the seeds of its own downfall. Its scientific or the domination over them. ing people as other, thus legitimizing their conquest scientific worldview helped set standards for mark propaganda, and related atrocities. This so-called In this painting, the horizon line, if distin- This transition was already apparent in the But the situation now is somewhat different. The Downfall of Linear Perspective On the other hand, linear perspective also The Slave Ship (1840), by J. M. W. - - - The question of horizon to starts float, so to speak. render it inaccessible to the viewer’s perception. paintings do not negate its existence altogether, but blurred, tilted, and yet not necessarily denied. The mist, floating over an absent ground. his assumed position. He might be suspended in the of a railroad bridge. There is no clear ground under be dangling in the air on the outer side of the rails perspective of the spectator himself, who seems to to any past or future. Again, more interesting is the resolution, no vanishing point, and no clear view tive dissolves into the background. There is no Great Western Railway (1844). In it, linear perspec- was a painting called ing train for exactly nine minutes, the result of which 1844, he stuck his head out of the window of a mov explicitly to watch the horizon change. In 1843 or to the mast of a ship crossing from Dover to Calais, tives early on. Legend has it that he had himself tied face of an unpredictable sea. into mayhem on the unstable and treacherous sur by inspiring cold-blooded murder. Space dissolves through an insurance that prevents economic loss and predictable future shows a murderous side systematic constructions. The idea of a calculable tilting, taking with it the idea of space and time as jecthood—is tumbling and abandoned and starts viewpoint, the position of mastery, control, and sub- nialism and slavery, linear perspective—the central water’s surface. At the sight of the effects of colo- limbs devoured by sharks, mere shapes below the also had their bodies reduced to fragments—their sight of the slaves, who are not only sinking but have observer is upset, displaced, beside himself at the the composition, is multiplied in reflections. The In both of Turner’s paintings, the horizon is Turner experimented with moving perspec- Rain, Steam, and Speed—The - -

21 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 22 Especially in 3-D cinema, the new characteristics of But the entertainment industry is busy as well. for aerial map views. Drones survey, track, and kill. and act as aerial cameras providing backgrounds ment images’ views from above. visual culture saturated by military and entertain- teristics of modernity, the past few years has seen developments can be described as typical charac- number of aerial views of all kinds. While all these of orientation, found especially in an increasing development of new perspectives and techniques cially with the conquest of outer space—comes the diving, and crashing increase. With it—and espe- invention of aviation, for opportunities falling, nose- advertisement, and the conveyor belt. With the ity, while perception is reorganized by warfare, through quantum physics and the theory of relativ of abstraction. Time and space are reimagined perspective in cubism, collage, and different types resentation to a large extent and demolishes linear breaking down linear time. Painting abandons rep- for destabilizing the observer’s perspective and perspectives. Montage becomes a perfect device raphy of with the articulation different temporal began to take hold. Cinema supplements photog- mantling of linear perspective in a variety of areas Acceleration pull of a bottomless sea. tude, and subjects it to gravity and motion and the painter, who tears it away from- a position of certi of the sinking slaves affects the point of view of the horizon. One could say that the downward motion communication isdisabled even withinonecommon Perspectives assume mobile points of view and Aircraft expand the horizon of communication With the twentieth century, the further dis- -

markets for hardware and software. and entertainment applications produces new ware environment integrating military, surveillance, visuality. As Thomas Elsaesser has argued, a hard- hierarchies of material required to access this new are essential to each other. 3-D also intensifies worlds (prefigured in the logic of computer games) 3-D and the construction of imaginary vertical nous flights into abysses. One could almost say that aerial views are fully exploited by staging- vertigi Mbembe contends, multiplying sites of conflict and violence.As Achille community are divided from each other on a y-axis, and airspace into various layers. Different strata of ground, but also splitting ground from underground, horizontal layers, separating not only airspace from sion. Vertical sovereignty splits space into stacked has increasingly come to occupy dimen- a vertical as his example, but there could be many others— power—he cites the Israeli occupation in Palestine and defended. But at present, the distribution of map-like surface on which boundaries were drawn geopolitical power was once distributed on a planar terms of 3-D sovereignty. a vertical the spatial of turn sovereignty and surveillance in in political architecture,verticality describing lite, techniques of “hologrammatization.” assault helicopters, satel an Earth-observation naissance jets, early warning Hawkeye planes, unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), aerial recon- are mobilized to this effect: sensors aboard is done from the air. Various other technologies critical importance, since most of the policing Occupation of the skies therefore acquires a In a fascinating text, Eyal Weizman analyzes 7 He argues that 6

23 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 24 nology and screen-basednology distraction. new subjectivity safely folded into surveillance tech- floating observer and an imaginary stable ground. the perspective from above establish an imaginary an imaginary stable observer and horizon, so does up in the air. Just as linear perspective established for a distanced, superior spectator safely floating creates a perspective of overview and surveillance the first place. Retroactively, ground this virtual Instead, they create a supposition that it exists in panoramas do not actually portray a stable ground. 3-D nose-dives, Google Maps, and surveillance esis that we currently inhabit a condition of free fall? constitutes a privileged subject—link to the hypoth - representations—in which grounding effectively there is no ground to speak of? How do these aerial ical assumption that in contemporary societies sion, and representation of ground to the philosoph- Free Fall intense as extensive, both micro- and macroscopic. intrusive—as militaristic as it is pornographic, as all-knowing to the point of becoming massively observant gaze to become ever more inclusive and but new technologies have enabled the detached and mechanized with the invention of photography, objects. controlled gaze, outsourced to machines and other perspective creates a disembodied and remote- from high to low. Additionally, the displacement of way gaze of superiors onto inferiors, a looking down and subject is exacerbated into and turned the one- spective. In it, the former distinction between object not an overcoming—of the paradigm of linear per conclude that thisisinfact aradicalization—though This establishes a new visual normality—a The answer is simple: many of the aerial views, But how to link this obsessive policing, divi- 10 Gazes already became decisively mobile 9 One might - 11 collision fragments) orbiting the earth. Space debris or junk (such as rocket stages, defunct satellites, and explosion and

25 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 26 we spiral down in an imperceptible free fall. longer know whether we are objects or subjects as fact, been shattered. Time is out of joint and we no tation in a condition in which the horizons have, in of aerial imagery provide an illusionary tool of orien- ocean, for many people today the simulated grounds with the sinking bodies of slaves thrown into the carry the seeds of their own demise within them. cally, they may also—as linear perspective did— occupation, surveilled aerially and policed biopoliti- free-falling urban abysses and splintered terrains of if the new views from above recreate societies as onto a backdrop of expanded 3-D sovereignty. But delusions of stability, safety, and extreme mastery is no need for expensive renderings; a simple green- space as we can make it—for better or worse. There real representations—not of space as it is, but of indexical relation to reality, has given way to hyper the photographic lens, cursed by the promise of its curved, and collaged perspectives. The tyranny of way imaginable, organized around heterogeneous, industries. screens of military, entertainment, and information from above—seen through the lenses and on the tions in the context of an intensified class war for a more general verticalization of class rela- linear imagery. erately manipulated to create multifocal and non- incorporate multiple perspectives, which are delib- disorientation. Recent 3-D animation technologies alter, the contemporary conditions of disruption and tools of vision may also serve to express, and even linearization of horizons and perspectives, the new As linear perspective began to tumble down The view from above is a perfect metonymy The Politics of Verticality But if we accept the multiplication and de- 12 It is a proxy perspective that projects 14 Cinematic space is twisted in any 13 - recreated by ever-new of articulations the crowd. for a multiple spectator, who must be created and suppose a single unified horizon. Rather, many call duction of content. None of these projection spaces dissociated and overwhelmed, drafted into the pro- is no longer unified by such a gaze, but is rather perspective and possible points of view. The viewer which create a dynamic viewing space, dispersing things can be said about multiscreen projections, different of spatial sorts vision be created. Similar lent for most of itsexistence—only now cannew and linear perspective—and was for this reason ambiva- the first step toward a liberation from cinematic vision. While it could be argued that montage was that have normalized and limited the realm of its independence from the prescribed focal dimensions practices, drawing, and collage, cinema has gained experimental film.As it merges with graphic-design sentational freedoms of painting and structural and spaces alike. tives and implausible concatenations of times and screen collage yields impossible cubist perspec- a safe haven of being: about the panicked loss of a ground imagined to be and bottomless. For him, is not the vertiginous aged within the most violent fear of the groundless philosophy of belonging that obviously comes pack philosophy’s and origin, obsession with earth with a sion of the vertiginous, Theodor W. Adorno scoffs at we need a ground in the first place. In his discus- implicit in this thought experiment: the idea that perhaps this helps us get over the last assumption out to be a new representational freedom.And like a helpless tumble into an abyss actually turns Finally, cinema has caught up with the repre- In many of these new visualities, what seemed 15 -

27 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 28 tion that people turns into things and vice versa. Falling is corruption as well as liberation, a condi - passion and surrender, decline and catastrophe. means ruin and demise as well as love and abandon, ritorializing, and always already unknown. Falling the open: a freedom that is terrifying, utterly deter original stability and sparks the sudden shock of ing a world of forces and matter, which lacks any A fall toward objects without reservation, embrac- formation. it stable. It promises no community, but a shifting we are falling toward is no longer grounded, nor is an agonizing present, we may realize that the place with crumbling futures that propel us backward onto fallingmean a new into certainty place. Grappling falling does not only mean falling apart, it can also dropping social inequalities into sharp focus. But calized class war from above, one that throws jaw- to consider a social and political dreamscape of radi- embrace or suffer, or simply accept as reality. takes place in an opening we could endure or enjoy, never-changing realm, is true for untruth only. cannot help appearing in the frame-covered, shock of inclusiveness, the negative as which it vertigo which this causes is an to the objects A cognition that is to bear fruit will throw itself Finally, the perspective of free fall teaches us [without hope].à fond perdu[without The index veri; the 17 16 It

- our visual culture into a surveillance tion society into a control society and paradigm, which our informa is turning - and the 3-D movie are of the new part “This means that stereoscopic images informal conversation with the author: whose inspiration derives from an can be seen as blueprint for this paper, 6 1991). (London:Ambiguous Identities Verso, Wallerstein, 5 benjamin/1940/history.htm. www.marxists.org/reference/archive/ Books, 1969), 261. See trans. Harry Zohn. (New York: Schocken Philosophy of History,” in 4 664–758. al. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), Aufsätze II, ed. Wolfgang Kemp et in Perspektive als symbolische Form,” 3 . Mestre/Novemb00/H61iflan.htm see Coimbra, Portugal, October 3, 2000); the Sextant” (lecture, University of 2 freedom. lessness as a possible experience of experience of contingency and ground- ground. Ernesto Laclau describes the and ground, as well as the absence of Heideggerian metaphors of abyss physical ground and revolves around the idea of a given and stable meta- philosophers under discussion, rejects such thought, as proffered by the Press, 1997), 1–10. Briefly speaking, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University in Nancy, Lefort, Badiouand Laclau Political Thought: Political Difference introductory volume Post-Foundational in the preface to Oliver Marchart’s post-foundational philosophy are given 1 Erwin Panofsky: Deutschsprachige The following quote by Elsaesser See Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the See Erwin Panofsky, “Die Peter Ifland, “The History of Examples of so-called anti- and http://www.mat.uc.pt/~helios/ Race, Nation, Class: http:// Illuminations, politicsverticality/article_801.jsp opendemocracy.net/ecology- Politicsof Verticality,” 7 objects-rushing-towards-us.html depth/the-dimesion-of-depth-and- ausgabe-12010/the-dimension-of- filmmakersfestival.com/en/magazine/ on Digital 3-D Cinema,” The Tail that Wags the Dog. A Discourse and Objects Rushing Towards Us. Or: Elsaesser, “The Dimension of Depth and personal responsibility.” Thomas to as introspection, self-awareness, or outsource what was once referred ongoing processes, and which delegate toring, steering, and observation of are intrinsically connected to the moni- movements and behaviors, all of which encompasses an entire catalog of further to include surveillance. This tion—but the development goes even as the standard means of percep- of a newpart effort to introduce 3-D other types of military technology are into the future. Flight simulators and risks, chances, and courses of action the whole concept of projecting ideas, and Cartesian philosophy, as well as like panel painting, colonial seafaring, gave rise to a wide range of innovations years. It is this means of seeing that thought and action for the last 500 way of seeing that has defined Western seeks to replace ‘monocular vision,’ the which, of a historic as part process, united in this surveillance paradigm, society, and the military sector are all culture. The movie industry, civil com/issue/article/that_eye_the_sky/. (June–August 2010) , http://www.frieze. Allen, “That Eye, The Sky,” flux.com/journal/view/137 journal, no. 16 (May 2010), Revisited) Ten Tentative Tenets,” texts. See Dieter Roelstraete, “(Jena from different perspectives in very good Allen both describe this new normality 9 jhfc.duke.edu/icuss/pdfs/Mbembe.pdf 15, no. 1 (Winter 2003): 29, trans. Libby Meintjes, 8 See Eyal Weizman, “The Dieter Roelstraete and Jennifer Mbembe,Achille “Necropolitics,” Public Culture http://www. http://www. frieze, http://www.e- ; and Jennifer http://www.

no. 132 e-flux e-flux . .

29 Hito Steyerl In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Vertical Perspective 30 objects-rushing-towards-us.html depth/the-dimesion-of-depth-and- ausgabe-12010/the-dimension-of- www.edit-frankfurt.de/en/magazine/ entertainment complex.” See notion of the “military-surveillance- 12 control its own reproduction? powerful tool to police the world and vitality, yet persists as an undead but white males,” a worldview that lost its abysses stand in for the gazes of “dead drone perspectives, and 3-D dives into point of views? Do the aerial views, analysis of disembodied hovering be expanded into a more general single (and frankly, god-awful) movie Could these tropes allegorized in a life through the perspective of death. of necropower: necropower regulates Achille Mbembe’s powerful description of the dead man thus literally echoes digital aerial vision. The floating gaze superior bodies, remote control, and computer-animated obsession with biopolitical policing are mixed into a ary breeding ideologies. Floating and issues that link the movie to reaction- in favor of white ones. There are more dure: mixed race fetuses get aborted film is also very picky about this proce- cally wants to hijack a fetus. But the life. To this end, the protagonist basi- death, it is looking to recreate its own gaze of a drone. But instead of bringing in itself and reincarnate. The point of view body in which to biologically reproduce with unrestricted mobility, looking for a space, moving without constraint and over Tokyo. This gaze penetrates any embodied point of view endlessly drifts 2010), where, for most of the film, a dis- in the film haps nowhere asliterally allegorized as post-humanization) of the gaze is per Most recently, a dehumanization (or ing camera belongs to a dead man. 11 NC: Duke University Press, 2005). Satellites and the Televisual (Durham, 10 Enter the VoidEnter is reminiscent of the Paraphrasing Elsaesser’s In fact, the perspective of the float- See Lisa Parks, Enter the VoidEnter (Gaspar Noé, Cultures inOrbit: http:// . - notes-on-in-free-fall essays1/2010/after-before-now- www.picture-this.org.uk/library/ on In Free Fall,” August 8, 2010, reflection, “After before now: Notes 17 York: Continuum, 1972), 43. Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New 16 view/71 2009), Factory?” 15 no. 1 (January/February 2005): 76–84. Computer Graphics Applications 25, Lenses: 3-D View Deformation,” ear Perspective Projections and Magic Chen, and Mohsen Beheshti, “Nonlin - (2005):105–8; and Yonggao Yang,X.Jim tive,” of Projections with a Curved Perspec- Karan Singh, “Interactive Manipulation Nisha Sudarsanam, Cindy Grimm, and the Eurographics Workshop, 17–24; tive,” in Peroche et al., 84–95; Karan Singh, “A Fresh Perspec- and Applications 25, no. 4 (July 2004): ism, 2,” part 129–56; Andrew Glassner, “Digital Cub- Rendering (New York: ACM Press, 2004), on Non-photorealisticAnimationand of the3rdInternationalSymposium Projected,” in Rendering Your Animation Nonlinearly Coleman and Karan Singh, “Ryan: Springer-Verlag, 2000), 125–36; Patrick and Holly E. Rusgmaier (London: Techniques 2000, ed. Bernard Peroche Eurographics Workshop onRendering tion Rendering,” in Tamara Munzner, “Artistic Multiprojec- Maneesh Agrawala, Denis Zorin, and 14 keep falling. those on the bottom of hierarchies 13 Taking the cue from Gil Leung’s Theodor W. Adorno, See Hito Steyerl, “Is a Museum a These techniques are described in Assuming there is no ground, even Computer Graphics Forum 24 http://www.e-flux.com/journal/ ; and on page 60 in this book. e-flux journal, no. 7 (June IEEE ComputerGraphics NPAR ’04:Proceedings Proceedings of the .

Proceedings of Negative http:// IEEE

In Defense of thePoor Image

31 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 32 eration and circulation within the vicious cycles of ferrals, and displacement of images—their accel shores. They testify to the violent dislocation, trans- the trash that washes up on the digital economies’ of the Screen, the debris of audiovisual production, such a dilapidated image in the first place. image at all. Only digital technology could produce blur, one even doubts whether it could be called an often degraded to the point of being just a hurried the promises of digital technology. Not only is it or as a reminder of its former visual self. It mocks copyright. It is passed on as a lure, a decoy, an index, often defies patrimony, national culture, or indeed ous. Its file names are deliberately misspelled. It bastard of an original image. Its genealogy is dubi- visual idea in its very becoming. The poor image tends toward abstraction: it is a tal uncertainty, at the expense of its own substance. vaults of cinemas and archives and thrust into digi- into distraction. The image is liberated from the value into cult value, films into clips, contemplation It transforms quality into accessibility, exhibition downloaded, shared, reformatted, and reedited. resolution. The poor image has been uploaded, appearances, ranked and valued according to its JPEG, a lumpen proletariat in the class society of channels of distribution. remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is Poor images are the contemporary Wretched The poor image is an illicit fifth-generation The poor image is a rag or a rip; an AVI or a - Low Resolutions still manage to decipher it. obvious, and the unbelievable—that is, if we can or stultification. Poor images show the rare, the threats, conspiracy theories or bootlegs, resistance as gifts or as bounty. They spread pleasure or death around the globe as commodities or their effigies, audiovisual capitalism. Poor images are dragged 2007 interview, becomes immediately apparent. this system, described by Harun Farocki in a notable on resolution. Just look at any electronics store and not only based on sharpness, but also and primarily The contemporary hierarchy of images, however, is being out of focus lowers one’s value as an image. class position, a position of ease and privilege, while into a material problem. Focus is identified as a is unable to find work. His lack of definition turns acter is an actor, this becomes a major problem: he image is consistently blurred. Since Allen’s char of disease but thatsome sort has befallen him: his as the sole resoundedmedium of visual importance of pristine visuality. The insistence upon analog film esthetes, who insisted on 35 mm film as a guarantee increasingly adapting to the tastes of cineastes and rich, so to speak. Now, even consumer formats are more scary and seductive than a poor one. It is more brilliant and impressive, more mimetic and magic, as poor images. circulate as DVDs, on broadcast television, or online, More affordable derivatives of the same images products are marketed in an upscale environment. role of a flagship store. In flagship stores high-end In the class society of images, cinema takes on the acter is out of focus. In one of Woody Allen’s films the main char Obviously, a high-resolution image looks more 1 It’s not a technical problem - 2 -

33 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 34 in circulation. Public ceremony organized by the mayor of Puebla, Mexico, to destroy pirated DVDs sphere as well. Video essays and experimental peared not just from cinemas, but from the public broadcast on television. Thus they slowly disap- emas, so were they also deemed too marginal to be expensive to keep these works circulating in cin- became almost invisible. As it became prohibitively point where experimental and essayistic cinema slowly obscuring noncommercial imagery, to the liberal restructuring of media production began policies. Twenty or even years thirty ago, the neo- lent based on the consequences of neoliberal premises. But it has a much more general equiva- more or less voluntary and based on aesthetic what those images might have looked like. and video projector, the audience was left to imagine speaker’s disposal a perfectly standard DVD player projection was available. Although there was at the piece by Humphrey Jennings because no proper film ence on the film essay refused to show clips from a serious consequences. A speaker at a recent confer and more possibilities to creatively degrade it. hierarchies, with new technologies offering more duction. The rich image established its own set of film gauge dominated even independent film pro- amounted to castration of the author. The cult of structure. Resolution was fetishized as if its lack and thus are often conservative in their very cult of mostly male genius, and the original version, national culture, capitalist studio production, the were (and still are) firmly anchored in systems of that these high-end economies of film production less of their ideological inflection. It never mattered throughout discourses on cinema, almost regard- In this case the invisibility of the image was But insisting on rich images also had more Resurrection (asPoor Images)

35 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 36 out of museums are broadcast on YouTube. DVDs of platforms. Clandestine cellphone videos smuggled ten masterpieces are exchanged on semi-secret P2P the results circulate. Blurred AVI files of half-forgot- reedit or improve them if you think it necessary. And loads: you can keep the files, watch them again, even omy of poor images is about more than just down- want a retrospective, you can have it. But the econ- of Chris Marker’s film essays available online. If you and some just a pile of stuff (YouTube). forms, some of them carefully curated (UbuWeb) materials reappeared on publicly accessible plat- dramatically change. An increasing number of rare to stream video online, this condition started to of friends and colleagues. With the possibility hand, depending on word of mouth, within circles were extremely rare—tapes moved from hand to VHS copies among themselves. Sources for these and individuals, who would circulate bootlegged alive only by a network of committed organizations ground of alternative archives and collections, kept matter disappeared from the surface into an under- ries. In this way, resistant or nonconformist visual over the audiovisual countries or territo- in certain industries and the establishment of monopolies also connected to the restructuring of global media marginalization of independent filmmaking. It was of cinema, its dispersion into multiplexes, and the culture as commodity, to the commercialization to the neoliberal radicalization of the concept of of the archive. tion before disappearing again into the darkness ums or film clubs, projected in their original resolu- some rare screenings in metropolitan film muse- films remained for unseen savethe most part for At present, there are at least twenty torrents This development was of course connected

Chris Marker’s home as found virtual in Second Life, May 29, 2009.

37 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 38 circulate partly in the void left by state cinema off its contents online at astronomical prices. tion. On the other hand, even the British Library sells out of such archives through disorganized privatization and displacement. Their lack of resolution attests to their appropria- degraded grants them exemption from its criteria. the class society of images—their status as illicit or poor because they are not assigned any value within artists’viewing copies are bartered. the form of a video-rental store. Sarajevo, the national archive can find its next life in As I once observed in the case of a film museum in frameworkwithout its supporting of national culture. in many cases, a whole heritage of film prints is left created. This obviously also affects film archives— tures and traditions are invented and new histories nation-states are dismantled or fall apart, new cul states, their cultures, and their archives. While some socialist and postcolonial restructuring of nation- and digital technology; it also has to do with the post- to the neoliberal restructuring of media production online circulation as poor images. the constellation of social forces leading to their also reveals the conditions of their marginalization, content or appearance of the images themselves: it level. Their situation reveals much more than the reappear as poor images is significant on another and classical works of cinema as well as video art like it or not. have been resurrected as poor images. Whether they avant-garde, essayistic, and noncommercial cinema As Kodwo Eshun has noted, poor images Obviously, this condition is not only connected That rare prints of militant, experimental, Privatization andPiracy 5

6 Pirate copies seep 4 Poor images are 3 Many works of -

distribution infrastructure in the contemporary era. mm archive as or a to16/35 maintain any kind of organizations who find it too difficult to operate written in Cuba in the late 1960s. Imperfect Cinema,” by Espinosa,Juan García one of a classic Third Cinema manifesto, “For an Imperfect Cinema rise to the circulation of poor images. tion, also enables piracy and appropriation; it gives tent, along with online marketing and commodifica- hand, the rampant privatization of intellectual con- sponsored media production. But, on the other ally grew more than state-controlled/ important the state. Privatization of media production gradu- the production of culture was considered a task of which in many places was made possible because any experimental and noncommercial cinema, decline and degradation of the film essay, or indeed From this perspective, the poor image reveals the becoming bureaucratic. popular but not consumerist, committed without author. It insists upon its own imperfection, is between consumer and producer, audience and with life and science,art blurring the distinction the divisions of labor within class society. It merges imperfect cinema is one that strives to overcome terful—is almost always reactionary cinema.” The “perfect cinema—technically and artistically mas- for an imperfect cinema because, in his words, of the people. Like the economy of poor images, ofenable mass film some production:sort an art the elitist position of traditional filmmakers and the development of video technology will jeopardize the promises of new media. He clearly predicts that The emergence of poor images reminds In his manifesto, Espinosa also reflects on 8 Espinosa argues

39 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 40 (co)-authors of poor images. Users become the editors, critics, translators, and of content, it also drafts them into production. active in the creation participation and distribution modification techniques. While it enables the users’ it is also permeated by the most advanced com- of poor images allows access to excluded imagery, amounts of and paranoia. porn While the territory material,mental and artistic but also incredible mercial and national agendas. They contain experi- common interest and a battleground for com- thus constitute both a platform for a fragile new attempts at privatization. to massive (and, to extent, a certain successful) subjected to an ongoing original accumulation and contested markets—a zone that has long been communication has also become one of the most way through digital connections as well. Digital Hate speech, spam, and other rubbish make their areopportunities only used for progressive ends. ever before. But this does not mean that these pation of a much larger group of producers than of remix and appropriation,- enables the partici possibility of worldwide distribution and its ethics the economy of poor images, with its immediate than Espinosa had anticipated. On the one hand, cinema is also much more ambivalent and affective ship store. Butthereal andcontemporary imperfect represents rather the concept of cinema as a flag- cinema, while the description of perfect cinema corresponds to the description of imperfect mised: blurred, amateurish, and full of artifacts. art. Most of all, its visuality is resolutely compro- between author and audience and merges life and imperfect cinema diminishes the distinctions The networks in which poor images circulate In some way, the economy of poor images

into ever-newer combinations and sequences. and flexible data packages that can be integrated of the creation and dissemination of compressed Conceptual art describes this dematerializationConceptual art and simultaneous submission. up its mind, its constant readiness for transgression autonomy and creation, its inability to focus or make crowd: its opportunism, narcissism, desire for express all the contradictions of the contemporary that can be made and seen by the many. They turn, as described by Félix Guattari, capitalist deterritorialization. captions out of context into the swirl of permanent economies of knowledge that tear images and their them within a general informational turn, within concept-in-becoming of the images—positions modes of semiotic production. of but above Conceptual art all with contemporary dematerialization, shared not only with the legacy and gain speed. But they also express a condition of compressed and travel quickly. They lose matter Poor images are poor because they are heavily of value defined by velocity, intensity, and spread. exchange value, one might imagine another form new perspective for it. from Apart resolution and value of the image, or, more precisely, to create a subtitles, reedit, or upload them. them to convert them over and over again, to add of the countless people who cared enough about of countless transfers and reformattings, but also tion. The condition of the images speaks not only well as its craving for intensity, fun, and distrac- of the crowd, its neurosis, paranoia, and fear, as images present a snapshot of the affective condition Poor images are thus popular images—images This flattening-out of visual content—the In this light, perhaps one has to redefine the 13 10 9 The history of Altogether, poor Capital’s semiotic 11 plays in favor 12

41 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 42 the surface of temporary and dubious data pools. of the nation-state or corporation, but floats on public sphere mediated and supported by the frame the copy. It is no longer anchored within a classical manence of the “original,” but on the transience of around it. This aura is no longer based on the per some of its political punch and creates a new aura debates. By losing its visual substance it recovers or mistranslation, and creates new publics and It builds alliances as it travels, provokes translation global networks just as it creates a shared history. wide audiences. circulates again and reconnects dispersed world- In the age of file sharing, even marginalized content as beyond and under commercial media streams. images, an imperfect cinema existing inside as well cinema—to create an alternative economy of militant and (some) essayistic and experimental circuit, which fulfills the original ambitions of happens. The circulation of poor images creates a previews rather than screenings. sion, on intensity rather than contemplation, on attention spans, on impression rather than immer an information capitalism thriving on compressed why it also ends up being perfectly integrated into high resolution. On the other hand, this is precisely one hand, it operates against the fetish value of poor image is subject to a similar tension. On the to the conceptual of turn capitalism. adapted to the semioticization of capital, and thus dematerialized object out to turns art be perfectly the fetish value of visibility. Then, however, the objectof first the art as a resistant move against The poor image thus constructs anonymous But, simultaneously, a paradoxical reversal Comrade, what isyour visualbondtoday? 14 In a way, the - 15

pamphlets, cine-train agit-prop films, underground takes its place in the genealogy of carbon-copied image—ambivalent as its status may be—thus of nonaligned filmmaking and thinking. The poor the circuits of Third Cinema and Tricontinentalism, “visual bonds,” as Dziga Vertov once called them. together by the desires of dispersed spectators. propelled onto new and ephemeral screens stitched By drifting away from the vaults of cinema, it is to link the workers of the world with each other. This visual bond was, according to Vertov, supposed Weiss described in internationalist workers’ pedagogies that Peter ist information circuits:Vertov’s visual bonds, the chapter in the historical genealogy of nonconform- circulation of poor images thus initiates another disruptive movements of thought and affect. The confusion and stupefaction, it also possibly creates tive audiovisual economies. In addition to a lot of both capitalist media assembly lines and alterna- ously constitute dispersed audiences. between producers everywhere, which simultane- circuits—reveal erratic and coincidental links editing, file sharing, or grassroots distribution distribution. Its optical connections—collective home computers, and unconventional forms of tion of poor images based on cellphone cameras, affective attunement, and anxiety. almost in a physical sense by mutual excitement, information capitalism whose audiences are linked has come true, if mostly under the rule of a global but also organize its viewers. In a sense, his dream language that could not only inform or entertain, of He communist,imagined a sort visual, Adamic The circulation of poor images thus creates The circulation of poor images feeds into But there is also the circulation and produc- The Aesthetics of Resistance, 17

43 Hito Steyerl In Defense of the Poor Image 44 that cinema seems to have once been. It has been expelled from the sheltered paradise many former masterpieces of cinema and video art. Now! today?” asking you, “Comrade, what is your visual bond Vertov’s idea of the visual bond. ideas associated with these circuits, among others Moreover, it reactualizes many of the historical als, which aesthetically often used poor materials. video magazines and other nonconformist materi - tion just as it is about conformism and exploitation. temporalities. It is about defiance and appropria- circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible own real conditions of existence: about swarm thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its show me this real thing. is not the real thing, but then—please, anybody— images, I admit. One could of course argue that this even losing names and credits along the way. resolution and format, speed and media, sometimes in a digital no-man’s-land, constantly shifting their cial circulation, these works have become travelers arena of national culture, discarded from commer kicked out of the protected and often protectionist The poor image embodies the afterlife of You might answer: it is this link to the present. Imagine somebody from the past with a beret In short: it is about reality. The poor image is no longer about the real Now many of these works are back—as poor 18 After being -

Semiotext(e),2004). and Andrea Casson (Los Angeles: Isabella Bertoletti, James Cascaito, Contemporary Forms of Life, trans. the Multitude: For anAnalysis of 9 Burton, Imperfect Cinema,” 8 author via e-mail. 7 transversal/0608/steyerl/en. versal (March 2008), Archive: Translations in Film,” 6 Uncertainty,” able. See Hito Steyerl, “Documentary catastrophe—and are extremely valu- ated with urgency, immediacy, and (mainly news), where they are associ- mainstream media environments with low resolution also appear in 5 ing this out. 4 e-flux.com/journal/view/75. aspect of poor images. See (May 2009), drew my attention to this Moving Images,” “Viewing Copies: On the Mobility of 3 June 14, 2007. FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung , Harun Farocki and Alexander Horwath, Museum,” conversation between will, geht ja schließlich auch ins 2 structing Harry, 1997. 1 See PaoloSee Virno, Espinosa,Julio García “For an From correspondence with the See Hito Steyerl, “Politics of the Of course in some cases images Thanks to Kodwo Eshun for point- Sven Lütticken’s excellent text See “Wer Gemälde wirklich sehen See Woody Allen, dir., Jump Cut, no. 20 (1979): 24–26. A Prior 15 (2007). , no. 8 8 e-flux journal, no.

trans. Julianne http://eipcp.net/ A Grammar of Decon- http:// trans-

nostalgic delusion. 18 Ibid. 17 52. University of California Press, 1995), trans. Kevin O’Brien (Berkeley: Dziga Vertovof , ed. Annette Michelson, Radiopravda,” in 16 pirate_bay_buys_island. www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/12/ The Register, January 12, 2007, “The Pirate Bay plans to buy Sealand,” its servers there. See Jan Libbenga, platform of Sealand in order to install tried acquiring the extraterritorial oil 15 Politics of Publicity. 14 1999), 181–92. Jessica Evans (London: Routledge The Reader, ed. Hall and Stuart Labour and Capital,” in Archive:an Photography between 13 sheikh.html www.artandresearch.org.uk/v2n2/ Research 2, no. 2 (Spring 2009), Remarks Research,” on Artistic or Commodification of Knowledge? by Simon Sheikh, “Objects of Study cussed in detail in an excellent text 12 (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 1996), 202. Subversions, ed. Sylvère Lotringer Integral of Power Formations,” in 11 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). Art and thePolitics of Publicity 10 At least from the perspective of Dziga Vertov,Dziga and “Kinopravda The Pirate Bay even seems to have See Alberro, See also Alan Sekula, “Reading All these developments are dis- Félix Guattari, “Capital as the See Alex Alberro, . Conceptual Artand the Kino-Eye: Conceptual Visual Culture: The Writings http://

http:// Art & Soft

45 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 46 A Thing Like You andMe

carnations and declares: album cover delivers its own giant wreath of red Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan Carl Raspe, The Stranglers’ the funerals of RAF members Andreas Baader, Shakespeare are dead. In 1977, as leftists flock to the obvious: heroism is over. Trotsky, Lenin, and a crystal clear analysis of the situation by stating even if this will only become clear much later. already lost all credibility, beyond rehabilitation— come crumbling down. The figure has on the contrary it is not 1977 that sees the myth of the leftist hero personality have come to dominate the scene. Yet posing, pithy slogans, and an embarrassing cult of political sectarianism. Gratuitous violence, macho the Red Faction Army (RAF) have descended into violently comes to an end. Militant groups such as 1. —The Stranglers, 1977 No more heroes anymore. Whatever happened to the heroes? They watched their Rome burn. All the Shakespearoes? Whatever happened to all the heroes? Whatever happened to the heroes? The great Elmyra, and Sancho Panza? Whatever happened to dear old Lenny? He got an ice pick, that made his ears burn. Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? In 1977, the punk band The Stranglers delivers In 1977, decade of the the Newshort Left no

more heroes

. Anymore.

47 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 48 around 1972. Ad for David Bowie’s record Ziggy StardustZiggy Manifests toAll as published in the press an image. with post-human beauty: an image and nothing but he is not even an icon, but a shiny product endowed rying out exemplary and sensational exploits, and hero is no longer a larger-than-life human being car it has to be with this material aspect of the image, cisely my point: if identification is to go anywhere, they’d actually like to be a JPEG file. And this is pre- is always with an image. But ask anybody whether Who can we identify with? Of course, identification 3. the thing is its finitude, not its eternity. its substance will be untouched. of The immortality Destruction will alter its form and appearance, yet its ability to be xeroxed, recycled, and reincarnated. the strength to survive all possible ordeals, but from and unfazed post-gender look as product. anything, a fetish that packages Bowie’s glamorous travels effortlessly through commercials for almost be reproduced, multiplied, and copied, a riff that cloned, he has above all become an image that can tripling his image; not only has Bowie’s hero been three simultaneous angles, with layering techniques why: the clip shows Bowie singing to himself from own demise. desire, resurrected from beyond the squalor of its image, a splendid fetish—a commodity soaked with is no longer a subject, but an object: a thing, an hero is dead—long live the hero! Yet Bowie’s hero hero, just in time for the neoliberal revolution. The single “Heroes.” He sings about a new brand of 2. What happens to identification at this point? This hero’s no longer immortality originates in Just look at a 1977 video of the song to see But, also in 1977, David Bowie releases his 2 1 Bowie’s

49 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 50 brilliant remark. Elisabeth Lebovici once made this clear to me in a become this thing—an object—in the first place? this point later. seductively phrased it: other things? “A thing that feels,” as Mario Perniola thing? An object without a subject? A thing among object for a change? Why not it? affirm Why possibility emerged. How about siding with the became mired in its own contradictions, a different subjecthood. worked toward claiming autonomy and full until quite recently (and for a number of reasons), order to become subjects. The feminist movement, strived to get rid of patriarchal objectification in generations of feminists—including myself—have being subjected to power relations. Nevertheless, gests a degree of control, its reality is rather one of subjected. Though the position of the subject sug- subject can be tricky. The subject is always already an object was bad. But, as we all know, being a sovereignty, agency. To be a subject was good; to be a subject carried with it the promise of autonomy, of history, of representation, or of politics. To become Emancipation was conceived as becoming a subject tice has been tied to a desire to become a subject. instead becomes participation. then it perhaps ceases to be identification, and with the image as thing, not as representation. And nerstone in the encounter between philosophy radical and extreme experience that has its cor itselfasserts today on contemporary feeling, a a thing that feels is the new experience that To give oneself as a thing that feels and to take But first of all: why should anybody want to But as the struggle to become a subject 4 Traditionally, emancipatory prac- 3 I will come back to not be a

mulates. How about acknowledging that this image image as well as in the desires and forces it accu- This would in the materialmean participating of the identify with it—could perhaps abolish this relation. version—a barrage of commodified intensities? really a massage? Or actually—in its corporate media in its material configuration? What if the medium is sented nor in the representation? What if the truth is its own, quite realist, paradigm. form of representation, but without questioning paign was thus unleashed to find a more accurate an authentic image exists in the first place. A cam- most problematic of which being, of course, that got tangled in a whole web of presuppositions, the ity? Was groups, for example—actually correspond to real as well. Did the public image—of women or other authenticityconcerning came into the equation matter over there. Slightly paranoid assumptions subject—there object. The senses here—dumb here thing—there image. Here I—there it. Here was based on a sharp split between these levels: actually converge within images. ment, speculation and power, desire and matter tation. Senses and things, abstraction and excite- image—is the upshot of the struggle over represen- A desire to become this thing—in this case an inseparable and are often indistinguishable. the most unrestrained excitement are almost to which the most detached abstraction and one another but have struck an alliance thanks and the senses are no longer in conflict with and sexuality. [...] It would seem that things To participate in an image—rather than merely But what if the truth is neither in the repre- The struggle over representation, however, it stereotyped? Misrepresented? Thus one 5

51 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 52 human-rights violations. role with cases ofconcerned witnesses in court and the fetish, objects increasingly take on the remark in a fascinating conversation on forensics tory’s impact. As Eyal Weizman and Tom Keenan bycerned its bruises, which mark the site of his- splash all over the place. are a thing of the past, and vital drives happily in which desire flows freely, negativity and history prophets—if we are to believe them—extol an age have reached the age of unlimited positivity, whose becoming a thing doesn’t necessarily mean that we face it and get on with it. leged site for emancipation, we might as well just acknowledge that subjectivity is no longer a privi- of the independent subject. But then if we are to the economy of this trauma constitutes the remnant simultaneously invites and resists foreclosure. And the masses—an apparently private property that But trauma is also the contemporary opium of inaccessible trauma that constitutes subjectivity. consequences. There might still be an internal and other—a thing like you and me. a fragment of the real world. It is a thing just like any without expression. to use yet another phrase of Walter Benjamin’s— own conditions of existence? As such, the image is— our wishes and fears—a perfect embodiment of its fetish made of crystals and electricity, animated by simultaneously couched in affect and availability, a is not some ideological misconception, but a thing them to additional violence. The field of forensics Things are made to speak—often by subjecting deciphered, and then subjected to interpretation. No, the negativity of the thing can be dis- On the other hand, the increased appeal of This shift in perspective has far-reaching 6 It doesn’t represent reality. It is 7 The bruises of things are

means to take in all of this.part Reviled and revered. To participate in the image are bought, sold, leased. Manipulated and adulated. stolen, cropped, edited, and re-appropriated. They subjected to interrogation and probing. They are and transfers. Images are violated, ripped apart, are its glitches and artifacts, the traces of its rips with an ice pick in his head. The bruises of images image is like a clone of Trotsky walking around show him); rather, the material of articulation the digital manipulation (though of course it could carbon copy of Trotsky brought back to life through with politics and violence. It is nothing like, say, a outside history. It bears the bruises of its crashes itself. On the contrary, not even the digital image is of the digital image as a shiny clone of immortal “image”? It is a complete mystification to think and decay. desires, so does it also accumulate destruction Just as a thing accumulates productive forces and positions. Things condense power and violence. female body tied up with ropes, fixed in obscene Gaza. A film reel lost or destroyed in civil war. A into catastrophe. A thing is the ruin of a house in scrap inside a hangar after its unexpected nosedive be its wreck, painstakingly pieced together from Boeing taking off on its virgin flight. Rather, it might in its collision with participating history. to tell their full story. To the thing also means affirm dissolved in acid, cut apart, or dismantled in order interrogated. Things often have to be destroyed, are expected to tell all, just as when humans are can be understood as the torture of objects, which So then how about a specific thing called Because a thing is usually not a shiny new

53 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 54 the protest “Art Strike 1990–93.” Chuck Welch, Art Strike Mantra, 1991, cassette tape.A mail-art edition developed for

forces. things could speak to one another through these 4. things. Benjamin emphasizes the liberating force within and objectification? image? Why should one accept alienation, bruises, sation of social forces. is understood not as a simple object, but a conden - sical materialist take. Because the commodity, too, invested with supernatural powers, it is also a clas- on magical thought, according to which constantly exchanged. While this opinion borders sist of tensions, forces, hidden powers, all being objects, passive items, or lifeless shucks, but con- of forces are petrified. Things are never just inert just an object, but a fossil in which a constellation modity fetish. In this perspective, a thing is never of awareness or twist grotesquely into the com- sions of a historical moment materialize in a flash They are understood as nodes, in which the ten- social relations lay congealed and in fragments. abject objects are hieroglyphs in whose dark prism this symphony of matter. For him, modest and even primitivism—claims that it is possible to join in partly subversive take on early twentieth-century to tap into these forces. the dream-filled sleep of capitalist production” forces, to awaken slumbering collective from“the fantasizes about igniting these compressed intersect with affect and desire, and Benjamin —Aleksandr Rodchenko comrades. Our things in our hands must be equals, In writing about the Surrealists, Walter So, what’s the point of becoming a thing or an 11 9 In the commodity fetish, material drives Benjamin’s idea of participation—a 12 10 He also thinks that 8 are things are

55 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 56 already beenexplored to someextent. images are concerned, this potential agency has in the transformation of everyday reality. and dead, but should be free to participate actively Things should no longer remain passive, uncreative, enslavement of its status as capitalist commodity. claims that the object should be liberated from the Life and the Culture of the Thing,” Boris Arvatov alternative relations to things. In his text “Everyday bers of the Soviet avant-garde also tried to develop fetish.” attempts to return a kind of social agency to the animated from the commodity fetish[...] Arvatov Activating the thing means perhaps to create an interesting idea of the object and objectivity. 5. pile of scrap. We are not the angel. We are the rubble. We are this the point of view of Benjamin’s shell-shocked angel. rubble. Only we are not staring at it any longer from history. History, as Benjamin told us, is a pile of bruised and damaged, just as everything else within And it will never be full and glorious, as images are purpose. It is vigorous and sometimes even viral. beneficial, as it can be used for every imaginable potential agency—an agency that is not necessarily in the image as thing means to participate in its coworkers, potentially friends, even lovers. releasing the energy stored in them, things become on things to become comrades and equals. By —Bruce LaBruce, The revolution is my boyfriend! From a slightly different perspective, mem- “By imagining an object that is differently We have unexpectedly arrived at quite an 15 In a similar vein, Aleksandr Rodchenko calls Raspberry Reich 17 To participate 14 16 Where 13

dead. Long live the thing. Because they love the pixel, not the hero. The hero is worse than Bowie, but is much more desirable for it. leftisties of dodgy pinups. This bunch looks much They become bruised images: sixth-generation cop- do not identify with heroes, but rip their images. called “transgressivity.” The point is that the actors ofor pornness the film, and certainly not in its so- Che. But the point is not to be found in the gayness elated photocopied wall-size images of Baader and each other’s playthings. They masturbate on pix reincarnated as gay actors porn who enjoy being 1977. In it, the former heroes of the RAF have been us how by presenting a completely different view on LaBruce’s film queer porn emancipation opens up somewhat differently. Bruce From this “objective” perspective, the idea of us as things mutually acting upon one another. Objectivity thus becomes a lens, one that recreates ing the forces congealed within the trash of history. objective—not as a fact, but as the task of unfreez - Raspberry Reich shows -

57 Hito Steyerl A Thing Like You and Me 58 medium of reflection, moreover, the on to quote Benjamin directly: “In the object known.” Ibid., 327. Bracken goes necessarily a human being, with the subject of knowledge, which is not ‘absence of relation,’ merges the 321–49. “Participation, which is the Semiotica, no. 138 (February 2002): Walter Benjamin’s Primitive Thought,” Bracken, “The Language of Things: explained in detail in Christopher 3 (Spring 1989): 4. trans. Rosalind Krauss, Warhol, or The Machine Perfected,” be consumed.” Thierry de Duve, “Andy these desires narcissism. And to desire to outlive desires of for the fantasies and a magnet for the face, is to want to be nothing but image, sur the is to desire to be nothing, nothing of intensity and awareness Warhol did, but the glamour of the star—with desire fame—not the glory of the hero duced this amazing quote to me: “To Can’t tell at all”), them apart and intro- my wall / Andy Warhol, Silver Screen / Warhol looks a scream / Hang him on in Bowie’s song “Andy Warhol” (“Andy tion to Andy Warhol’s work, especially 2 intention here. by pantomime!). But this is not my West divide (the Berlin Wall indicated post-gender narcissism onto the East– superimposing its specific take on of Bowie’s video would have a ball from that, any psychoanalytic reading explicitly mentioned in reviews. Apart considered new at this point and is Michael Jackson. This technology is layering techniques to show a tripled You Get Enough,” which uses similar Jackson’sMichael “Don’tStop ‘Til note the 1979 video forconcerning watch?v=ejJmZHRIzhY version: video. I am referring to this 1977 production details for Bowie’s 1 human, the interior, the profound. It The concept of is participation David Riff pointed out the connec- Elsewhere, I have come across a I tried unsuccessfully to find

a bit of light on a screen, a mirror http://www.youtube.com/ others—a thing of absolute there as a thing not to . 48 October the - speak, objects are treated as “material When evidence is given the capacity to objects in professional or legal courts. the forum,” and implying the speech of in Roman times) meaning “in front of frame of rhetoric (where it originated based on putting forensics back in the 7 Writings, 1:340. of the true world.” Benjamin, into a thing of shards, into a fragment “completes the work, by shattering it sionless is a critical violence that 6 2004), 1. Verdicchio (New York: Continuum, of theInorganic, trans. Massimo 5 The Sex Appeal of theInorganic. Juhl, who suggested Mario Perniola’s through this issue was made by Carsten great proposition by which to think of the inanimate in cinema. Another which both authors investigate the role (London: British Film Institute, 2004), in Cinema, Aesthetics, Subjectivity Dutoit’s propositions in interpretation of Leo Bersani and Ulysse 4 but participate in it. Things are not being represented by it in which senses merge with matter. resented by it. The image is the thing an image is not the same as being rep- 327–28.Accordingly, in participating in Bracken, “Language of Things,” 1996), 1:146, emphasis added, quoted Eiland (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, Michael W. Jennings, trans. Howard Writings, ed. Marcus Bullock and “The Concept of Criticism,” in absence of relation.” Walter Benjamin, not a relation within knowledge but an subject. The term ‘object’ designates absolute, or, if one prefers, in the is an immanent connection in the a subject. Every instance of knowing in fact no knowledge of an object by unities of reflection. Thus, there is into each other. Both are only relative thing and the knowing being According to Weizman, their idea is According to Benjamin, the expres- Mario Perniola, This comment was based on her The Sex Appeal Forms of Being: merge Selected Selected

translate Hito Steyerl, “The Language of Things,” 12 Selected Writings, 1:69. as Such and the Languages of Man,” in 11 10 Things,” 346ff. 9 (Winter 1996): 3. “Rodchenko in Paris,” 8 sess the capacity to lie. witnesses”; they also therefore pos - form and reality. Wall represented, but to its material love was not directed to the things the and agony. She also claimed that her would love it through its destruction violently on the object she desired. She come down, after history had impacted continue to love it long after it had Wall while it was functional but would lover would not just love the Berlin convincing case for object-love. The Berlin Wall, makes a strong and very about a Swedish lady who married the amazing video 16 15 14 (Summer 1997): 119–28. trans. Christina Kiaer, the Formulation of the Question),” and the Culture of the Thing (Toward 13 eipcp.net/transversal/0606/steyerl/en. The last paragraph is taken from: Walter Benjamin, “On Language Ibid., 347. See Bracken, “The Language of Quoted in Christina Kiaer, Lars Laumann’s touching and Ibid., 111. Ibid., 110. See Boris Arvatov, “Everyday Life (June 2006), Berlinmuren Berlinmuren 75 October 81 October http://translate. (2008), mine things.” also material relations, which deter transforming the social, historical and is a matter of presencing and thus realism, but rather of relationalism—it present. And to do so is not a matter of whatever the things have to say in the resentation at all, but about actualising representing them. It is not about rep- not equivalent to using realist forms in the realm of the documentary form is “To engage in the language of things in or Steyerl, “The Language of Things”: representations/lazzarato01_en.htm; 2003), trans. Aileen Derieg, Lazzarato, “Struggle, Event, Media,” 17 See, for example, Maurizio http://www.republicart.net/disc/ republicart (May -

59 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 60 Is aMuseumFactory? fication. neocolonialism, has a brilliant installation speci- Furnaces, 1968), a Third Cinema manifesto against The film tional Fordist factory is, for the most part, gone. white cube. space.the gallery—the art That is, in any of sort factories. factories, of course. political action. And where was this film shown? In author and producer, and thus create a sphere of the distinctions between filmmaker and audience, coward or a traitor.” ing with text reading: “Every spectator is either a cinema and video art. Is this audience sick of media and crouching in order to catch glimpses of political ing desire. Crowds of people can be seen bending tion notwithstanding, these works catalyze surpris- The sound is almost always awful. in fortresses, bunkers, docks, and former churches. are shown in black boxes set within white cubes— works. Now, political and experimental films alike never the space for formally more experimental ematic space is rather recent, and the cinema was films sought refuge elsewhere. Their return to cin- influence. Before cinema’s recent demise, political as neoliberalism becamehegemonic initsreach and and sequelized, as well as rapidly commercialized cally as the factory. It’s been multiplexed, digitized, cinema has been transformed almost as dramati- mers and started working from home. Secondly, the for further retraining, or become software program- off to China. Former workers have been retrained been emptied out, machines packed up and shipped How did this happen? First of all, the tradi- Now, political films are no longer shown in But terrible projections and dismal installa - 1 La hora deloshornos (The Hourof the A banner was to be hung at every screen- 3 They are shown in the museum, or 4 2 It was intended to break down

5 It’s

61 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 62 staffed by eager interns who work for free. distance. A flagship store of Cultural Industries, Of entertainment plus gravitas. Or of aura minus Of exhibition value, speculation value, and cult value. production. Of images, jargon, lifestyles, and values. which also has become a hotbed of contemporary tion. Which will certainly show political films. But space,art a white cube with abysmal sound isola- today, more often than not, museums. A gallery, an as they always were: in former factories, which are are very often screened in the exact same place museum never took place. In reality, political films This is because the displacement from factory to to Lacan in order to contest Godard’s accusation. optimistic vein—there is no need to have recourse interior. the blank horror and emptiness of the bourgeois to that the white assert cube about inverting this claim, somewhat polemically, white cube and its display technologies? How of course that they in fact were. shouldn’ttion artists be “afraid of reality,” assuming Jean-Luc Godard reportedly said that video installa- tized, sequestered, cut off from “reality.” Indeed, isolated inside this elitist cordon sanitaire—sani- tower of high culture. The works are thought to be It deplores their internment in the bourgeois ivory is to assume that they are thus losing relevance. political films (or video installations) to the museum looking for these answers spaces? in art obvious crisis of everything? And why should they be monopolies? Are they trying to find answers to the On the other hand—and in a much more Where is reality then? Out there, beyond the The conservative response to the exodus of Afraid of theReal? is in fact the Real: 6

being a “social factory.” the new museum in its productive toward turn computer monitors. factories. Now: people working at home in front of of monitors.TV Before: people working in these Now: people spending their leisure time in front looks like this. Before: an industrial workplace. Productive Turn of factory is this? changed almost beyond recognition. So what sort common discussion. At the same time, it has a space of physical meeting and sometimes even exploitation and even of political screenings. It is It is still a space for production, still a space of social factory abound. bloggers alike. performed by cleaning ladies and cellphone-video place of worship whose reproductive work is simultaneously a supermarket—a casino and a in cycles. space is a factory, An art which is betting on rising values, and networking alternate carpentry, viewing, discussing, maintenance, continues to be produced. Installation, planning, hyperproduction. public spheres get entangled in a blurred zone of formally unofficial forms of creation. Private and effect. It integrates intimacy, eccentricity, and other not art. It is an a-factory, which produces affect as transforms everything it touches into culture, if well as perception, affection, and attention. It else. It pervades bedrooms and dreams alike, as boundaries and spills over into almost everything A factory, so to speak, but a different one. Andy Warhol’s Factory served as model for The typical setup of the museum-as-factory In the museum-as-factory, something 8 It exceeds its traditional 7 By now, descriptions of the

63 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 64 Contemporary Museum, Art built on the grounds of a former factory, 2006. 3-D rendition of Office for Metropolitan Archtecture’s design for the Riga contemporary surveillance footage. from the original silent version(s) by Lumière to cinematic versions of are headed. Farocki collected andinstalled different makes clear where the workers leaving the factory sector of life. take it along with them and disperse it into every mean that they have left labor behind. Rather, they even if they leave the factory building, it doesn’t workers from industrial modes of production. But thus symbolically marks of the start the exodus of the industrial workplace. The invention of cinema factory. At the beginning of cinema, workers leave made by Louis Lumière show workers leaving the into factories. a cinema, cinema now museum spaces back turns history of political filmmaking the factory became this obviously includes the museum. While in the and its successors has now become a factory, and In that sense, any space that integrates cinema thetic faculties and imaginary practices of viewers. into production, the media capitalize upon the aes- than the industrial one. The senses are drafted But this type of production is much more intensive belt, now spreads the factory wherever it travels. the logic of Taylorist production and the conveyor Now, look is to“to labor.” and so on) are factories, in which spectators work. cinema and its derivatives (television, Internet, formed into workers. As Jonathan Beller argues, simultaneously: from different eras and in different streaming out of factories on several monitors A brilliant installation by Harun Farocki It is quite curious that the first films ever Workers Leaving theFactory In this economy, even spectators are trans- Workers Leaving theFactory, 9 Cinema, which integrated 11 Workers are

65 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 66 brunches, cocktails and dinners.” location loaded with history and emotion for your a reception space to be rented by companies: “a produce photographic film, is today a cinema with of culture. The Lumière factory, which used to a historical monument and developed into a site In 1995, the ruin of the former factory was declared cinema and Fordist factory are organized as to the dispersed space of the social factory. Both of the industrial factory, the museum corresponds the classical space of cinema resembles the space between classical cinema and the museum. While look inside this new factory? ing emotion and attention. How do enter is one of cinema and cultural industry, produc- spectacle inside it. space. They only left the factory to reemerge as a tured on the screen of the cinema within the same who left the factory in 1895 have today been recap- Factory trayed in the original the former Lumière factory, whose gates are por the museum. the factory have ended up inside another one: of the factory into space. the art Workers who left on the level of form it points to the spilling over archaeology of the (non)representation of labor; Factory, on the level of content, a wonderful installed. streaming to? Into space, the art where the work is cinematic styles. At this point, a decisive difference emerges Cinema andFactory As workers exit the factory, the space they It might even be the same factory. Because Not only is Farocki’s is today just that: a museum of cinema. 12 But where are these workers Workers Leaving The Lumière Workers Leaving the 14 its spectators The workers The

separation, and difference. spread out in space, connected only by distraction, multiscreen installations address a multitude multifocal space. While cinema is a mass medium, perspective, multiscreen projections create a tional cinema setup works from a single central newer works explode into space. While the tradi- focusing the gaze and organizing time, many of the traditional cinematic works are single-channel, format of many newer cinematic works. Whereas overstimulation. and atomized, struggling between passivity and in time and space—a silent crowd, immersed coherent crowd of people. People are dispersed of confinement. spectator. Both are disciplinary spaces and spaces factory arrests its workers, the cinema arrests the released at regular intervals. As the traditional disciplined and controlled in time, assembled and Spectators leaving the cinema—a similar mass, control. Imagine: Workers leaving the factory. locations of confinement, arrest, and temporal but a multitude. of time and space. This second crowd is not a mass, queuing to get in). An entirely different constellation Spectators trickling out of the museum (or even public space. it will also affect the question of the museum as space. This distinction,is a very important because between cinema space and museum installation persion, between homogeneity and multiplicity, arises on the line between confinement and dis- This spatial transformation is reflected by the But now imagine: Workers leaving the factory. The difference between mass and multitude 15 16 The museum doesn’t organize a 17

67 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 68 Visitors entering the museum. Edo-Tokyo Museum, 2003. Harun Farocki, Workers Leaving theFactoryinEleven Decades, 2006, video still. any sausage factory. formed there is just as publicly invisible as that of visibility can itself not be shown—the labor per a museum predicated on producing and marketing outside its walls. A paradoxical situation arises: the works on display in a museum cannot be shown in the factory cannot be shown outside it, most of remaining bourgeois public sphere. cinema in the museum might constitute the last Thomas Elsaesser, for example, asks whether museum as public sphere is an animated one. sion of cinematic works complicate this picture? museum as a public space? And how does the inclu- invisibility then say about the contemporary the museum as a public space. What does this rather uncomfortably alongside the perception of bitant shooting fees. reasons. Museums prohibit filming or charge exor is more like a cacophony—installations blare exploited.” “The exploiter doesn’t show the exploitation to the productive activity in France is rendered invisible: museums, and airports, effectively 80 percent of out that, because filming is prohibited in factories, different. In a lucid 1972 interview Godard pointed one-way gaze. Paradoxically, a museum is not so visibility is policed, and surveillance produces a is traditionally more or less invisible in public. Its Public Space matters. and transparent discourse surrounding public togetherparticipating in the same rational, equal, which people and othersspeak in turn respond, all outlined the conditions in Habermas this arena in This extreme control over visibility sits The current discussion of cinema and the It is obvious that the space of the factory 21 In actuality, the contemporary museum 18 This still applies today, if for different 19 Just as the work performed 20 Jürgen

69 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 70 Groys’ essay “Politics of Installation.” This state of exception is also addressed in Boris legality that allows the suspension of the law itself. exception or (at least) a temporal suspension of custody is no simple arrest. It refers to a state of is taken into “protective custody.” cinema is preserved at its own expense when it or even holding it under a suspended sentence— cinema—suspending it, suspending its license, space. By, as he dramatically phrases it, arresting addresses a less democratic dimension of this Sovereign Subjects represents its unfulfilled reality. manifestation, the contemporary museum rather sible. A bourgeois public sphere? Instead of its ideal shared impressions then becomes next to impos- co-curating the show. Rationally conversing about ing, zapping, combining fragments—effectively through the space, spectators are actively montag- traitors of cinematic duration itself. In circulating the museum, spectators indeed become traitors— installation situation. In the installation space of it lasts—becomes standard behavior in any spatial betrayal in a cinema—leaving the projection while simply them. desert What would be seen as an act of around them; if works are too long, spectators will installation works precludes a truly shared discourse ters worse, the time-based mode of many cinematic simultaneously while nobody listens. To make mat- tion’s public sphere. assumes a role as sovereign founder of the exhibi- space in the form of an installation. thenThe artist violently establishes his own law by “arresting” a ereign to who—in a statethe artist of exception— back to Carl Schmitt, Groys assigns the role of sov In his choice of words, Elsaesser also 22 Protective 23 Harking - its consistent museum is not a public sphere, but rather places not impossible. informed, inclusive discourse becomes difficult, if ment. Under these circumstances, a transparent, be ignored by casting oneself as master of judg- ture. The true labor of spectatorship can no longer impossible. Partial impressions dominate the pic- in the museum renders overview, review, and survey sible to reconfigure yourself as its subject. Cinema point of sovereign judgment. It also makes it impos- cinematic duration means to blow the vantage apart of films and video in documenta 11? To multiply time. Remember the vitriolic attacks on the length archival shows and their abundance of cinematic Many—primarily critics—are thus frustrated by gain an overview of the whole process of production. involvedparties to the role of workers—unable to this subject position unavailable. It reduces all value. But, unfortunately, cinematic duration makes its meanings, to pronounce a verdict, and to assign master the show, to tame the unruly multiplicity of traditional bourgeois subject, who aims to (re)- to assume the compromised sovereignty of the sovereign. In judging an exhibition, many attempt curators, spectators, artists, critics. museums is composed of competing sovereigns: bourgeois dictator)? After all, the multitude inside everybody tries to behave like a sovereign (or petty- how about the idea that inside the museum, almost standard practice in any social factory. So then, well mode ofas an artistic production, it becomes bourgeois dictator. But the point is: if this works as crazyartist genius, or more precisely, as petty- The question of cinema makes clear that the Let’s have a closer look at the spectator-as- At first glance, this repeats the old myth of lack on display—it makes this lack

71 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 72 geois sovereign spectator of the white cube with the preaching to it. They replace the gaze of the bour reconfiguration. They organize the crowd without then orchestrate their dispersion, movement, and in time. They submerge invisibility it in partial and produce it. They articulate the crowd in space and sentational. They do not educate the crowd, but triggers of action. revelation, of gains in consciousness, or as potential measured in terms of efficiency, of revolutionary tion” in order to achieve its effects in “reality.” It was cate—it was an instrumental effort at “representa- Traditionally, political cinema was meant to edu- into a question of cinematic politics in a factory. sion of political cinema in the museum has turned cinema has been inverted. What began as a discus- Rupture seen are missing. itself or any vantage point from which it could be of the screening, the sound doesn’t work, the screen is always something missing—people miss parts full picture, so to speak, remains unavailable. There cannot be contained by a single point of view. The spatially dispersed multiscreen arrangements that Cinema itself explodes into multiplicity—into the sovereign gaze cloud over to become opaque. within clandestinity. Transparency, overview, and access, fragmented realities—of commodification invisibility,the condition of partial incomplete to be realized in its place. displays its conserves its absence. But it also simultaneously public, so to speak. Instead of filling this space, it Today, cinematic politics are post-repre- Without notice, the question of political As a multitude, the public operates under potential and the desire for something

installations? this. What else is missing from these cinematic vision of the spectator-as-laborer. incomplete, obscured, fractured, and overwhelmed its point of rupture on the paradigm of productivity. It isn’t even a product of common labor, but focuses eign (even if “just for one day,” as David Bowie sang). ter, nor, more precisely, of the self-deluded sover no longer the gaze of the individual sovereign mas- various sequences and combinations. This gaze is is distracted and singular, but can be edited into common, which is incomplete, but in process, which multiple gaze, which is no longer collective, but it to another level. (orthe artwork treat it as mere pretext), but takes other inside exhibitions—it does not simply ignore narcissistically gazing at themselves and each ity is completely different from that of spectators must meet to make sense of it. This shared activ- understand what (and how) they are watching, they rial of documenta 11 be viewed. But in order to worked together in shifts could the cinematic mate- Only if the night guards and various spectators which then supplements the impressions of others. seen by a multiplicity of gazes and points of view, of spectators. In fact, the exhibition could only be of such a volume of work, it calls for a multiplicity since no single spectator can possibly make sense is obvious what is missing from this arrangement: exhausted the meanings in this volume of work. It to have even seen everything, much less to have to the public. No single spectator could even claim person in the 100 days that the exhibition was open cinematic material than could be seen by a single documenta 11, which was said to contain more But there is one aspect that goes well beyond Cinema inside the museum thus calls for a 24 Let’s return to the liminal case of -

73 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 74 rently missing, of course. could this exit take place? On the one that is cur museum-as-social-factory. But on which screen the screen through which people could leave the productivity. Political cinema could then become to leave it—there is no way to escape relentless everywhere, then there is no longer a gate by which museum-as-factory? An exit. If the factory is completely different. mightarticulation try to come up with something become indistinguishable. But a political cinematic after all, and in which and exploitation participation setup: a projection of a public, which is not public cinematic work will try to reproduce the existing politics? The answer is simple. Any conventional any difference between different forms of cinematic works have become political? Or, rather, is there still Cinematic Politics ously activate a desire for this subject. displaying its absence and its lack, they simultane- interpellate this missing, multiple subject. But by The museum-as-factory and its cinematic politics What else is desperately missing from the But does this now mean that all cinematic - Vishmidt (London: NODE.London, 2006). Reader,A NODE.London ed. Marina Practice,”litical Art in “From Systems-Oriented to Art Biopo- production and communication.” public and private life, of knowledge penetrates every sphere and aspect of of production which touches on and and Negri: “The ‘social factory’ is a form 8 archives/001177.php www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/ ARTicles, August 8, 2004, Semiotic Production,” the Rising Sun: Art, Subcultures and 7 godard/ (blog discontinued). de-conversations-avec-jean-luc- wordpress.com/2009/03/10/debrief- (blog), March 10, 2009, Godard,” de conversations avec Jean-Luc dispositifs in exhibitions. See “Debrief use of what he calls technological artists, whom he reprimands for their apparently—with young installation is a conversation—a monologue, 6 5 ing all these spaces as similar. 4 require another text. (which exist and are would important) tions. To properly make the distinctions 3 shown clandestinely. was of course banned and had to be Wretched of theEarth (1963). The film 2 Cinema. of Third work is one of films the most important Argentina,de loshornos,1968. The E. Solanas, Octavio Getino), dir., 1 Sabeth Buchmann quotes Hardt See Brian Holmes, “Warhol in The context of Godard’s comment At least in Western countries. I am aware of the problem of treat- Or videos or video/film installa- A quote from Frantz Fanon’s Grupo Cine Liberación (Fernando Sans casserdesbriques . Media Mutandis: 16 Beaver http://bbjt. http:// La hora The

itself, which no longer exists. Thus, through the former location of the gate to go around this obstacle, and leave the early film. Leaving spectators have glass pane to indicate the framing of gate is now blocked by a transparent museum, the opening of the former in the rebuilt scenery of the Lumière difference between cinemaandfactory: 15 location.html institut-lumiere.org/francais/location/ “Nos espaces de location,” 300 personnes],” Institut Lumière, personnes ou formule debout jusqu’à cocktail, dîners. [Formule assise 250 d’émotion pour tous vos déjeuners, de réception chargé d’histoire et 14 hangar/hangaraccueil.html. www.institut-lumiere.org/francais/ “Le Hanger du Premier-Film,” http:// lieu de son invention,” Institut Lumière, les spectateurs vont au cinéma, sur le les ouvriers et les ouvrières de l’usine, cinéma de270fauteuils. Làoùsortirent film est sauvé et abrite une 13 generali.at/index.php?id=429. noch nie” (2005). See Generali Foundation show‚“Kino wie 12 farocki_workers.html sensesofcinema.com/contents/02/21/ Cinema Web site, 2001), reprinted on the Ibrahim (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, Texte/Writings, trans. Laurent Faasch- the Factory,” in see Harun Farocki, “Workers Leaving 11 10 2002), 61. Nicholas Mirzoeff (London: Routledge, World,” inThe Visual CultureReader, ed. 9 There is however one interesting Hangar,“La partie spacieux hall “Aujourd’hui le décor du premier My description refers to the For a great essay about this work Ibid., 67. Jonathan L. Beller, “Kino-I, Kino-

. Nachdruck/Imprint: http://archive. http://foundation. . Senses of http://www. salle de

75 Hito Steyerl Is a Museum a Factory? 76 “Perspectives on the Public Sphere: International Film Studies Conference, Sphere?“ (paper presented at the the Museum: Our Last Bourgeois Public 20 OpenDocument&L=2. D3A7D1BDB820C125707C004512D4? Pompidou/Communication.nsf/0/3590 Video,” a flash or stand.” See “FAQ: 7. Photo/ have a red dot, and you may not use however, photograph or film works that your own personal use. You may not, 5 and in the Atelier Brancusi) for (which you will find on levels 4 and works from collections permanent confusing: “You may film or photograph Policy at the Centre Pompidou is more tate.org.uk/about/media/filming/ filming and photography,” atstarting £200 an hour. See “Location mercial basis, with location fees filming there is welcomed on a com- procedures/gallery-rules. However, about/who-we-are/policies-and- gallery rules,” http://www.tate.org.uk/ not permitted at any time.” See “Tate or ticketed events and screenings is recording within paying exhibitions 19 v=hnx7mxjm1k0 http://www.youtube.com/watch? 18 arrangements. 17 2004). Casson (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), Bertoletti, James Cascaito, and Andrea of theMultitude, trans. Isabella multitude, see Paolo Virno, generally quite idealized condition of 16 See photographs at ibid. tory, which have now partly vanished. exit through the former walls of the fac- intoturned a glass screen; they have to by the former opening, which has now of the former one: people are blocked the current situation is like a negative Thomas Elsaesser, “The Cinema in “Photography, filming, or audio “Godard on As do multiple single screen For a more sober description of the http://www.centrepompidou.fr/ Tout vabien (1972),” . http://www. A Grammar

of screen-content combinations. installation with trillions of possibilities an unsynchronized, multiscreen Democracies (2009) by Artur 24 com/journal/view/31 (January 2009), Installation,” 23 Museum.” 22 1991). Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Burger with the assistance of Frederick of Society, Bourgeois trans. Thomas Sphere: AnInquiryintoaCategory Structural Transformation of thePublic 21 2009). ‘We,’” Berlin, Germany, April 23–25, Cinematic Configurations of ‘I’ and A good example would be Boris Groys, “Politics of Elsaesser, “Cinema in the See Jürgen Habermas,See Jürgen , no. 2 2 e-flux journal, no. http://www.e-flux. . The Żmijewski,

The Articulation ofArticulation Protest

77 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 78 At this level, designates articulation the form of of the political that reinvents itself again and again. combinations of interests, organized in a grammar There is also a form of montage at the political— even indifference are articulated in this structure. or groups. Alliances, coalitions, factions, feuds, or NGOs, political parties, associations, individuals, tions or conjunctions of different interest groups, protest movements are articulated as concatena- priorities, and blind spots. In addition, though, sions and exclusions based on subject matter, This also involves montage—in the form of inclu - demands, self-obligations, manifestos, and actions. on many levels: on the level of their programs, organization. tion of its expression—but also the expression of its the question the organizaof concerns articulation - ments unfolds on both levels. In relation to protest, contradiction and the convergence of different ele- of desire and refusal, attraction and repulsion, the other at the level of political forces. The dynamic of concatenations: one is at the level of symbols, the ments. In other words, there are two different kinds structure or internal organization of protest move- level, however, also shapes the the articulation the visualization of political protest. On another for protest, the vocalization, the verbalization, or one level, entails finding a the languagearticulation What does it articulate and what articulates it? on their position. So how is protest articulated? make and sense depending within this articulation articulated moments depends on this. They only mas—in time and space. The significance of the ments—voices, images, colors, passions, or dog- Every is a montage articulation of various ele- Naturally, protest movements are articulated ofThe articulation protest has two levels. On articulation arearticulation addressed. Both of thesesequences a sequence in which the conditions of their own pared from a very specific perspective: both contain form of their articulation. The films will be com- implicit or explicit political thinking based on the basis of two film segments, and to address their from this form of articulation? what kinds of political significance could be derived other words, how is the political field edited, and the theory of montage, to the field of politics? In versely relate a form of production, artistic namely as its ornament. What happens, though, if we con- in the field of political theory, often and art appears tionship between and politics is usually art treated montage or film cuts. This is also because the rela- very specificfield of theory, namely the theory of With these thoughts about articulation, I refer to a between individual elements of political linkages? movement’s forms? Or the invention of new relations forms of depiction? Is it the reflection of a protest it pictures of confrontations and marches? Is it new heads” from the individual groups added together? Is a protest movement? Is it the sum of the “talking another in some other way? What is the image of simply added together—or are they related to one Are they placed next to one another—in other words, protest movements mediated through one another? global conjunctions represented? How are different level of the expression of their organization? How are of the organization of their expression and at the that are critical of globalization—both at the level what rules is this montage organized? the internal organization of protest movements. By I would like to discuss these issues on the Chains of Production And what does this mean for articulations

79 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 80 tion on their own forms of articulation. aspect ofparticular them, namely their self-reflec- on the films per se, but rather illuminates only one the films is therefore not to be read as a statement lyzes its organization and staging. My comparison of place information in the foreground, but rather ana- rassing process of reflection. The latter film does not while functions in the register of counter-information, first is a quickly produced utilitarian document that films are not really comparable on the surface—the ductive linkages of emancipation in general. The two cal critique of the poses, stagings, and counterpro- with Palestine, particularly in the 1970s, and a radi- other hand, is the fluctuations of French solidarity diverse interests.ailleurs, The theme of Iciet on the of these protests as a heterogeneous combination of negotiations in Seattle and the internal articulation in Seattle documents the protests against the WTO circumstances of political articulation. Both deal with transnational and international 1975 entitled Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville from Television. The second segment is from a film by pendent Media Center and broadcast by Deep Dish in Seattle, produced in 1999 by the Seattle Inde- political implications of forms of montage. and political demands, I would like to explain the creation of chains and montages of aesthetic forms their manner of producing political significance, the And on the basis of the self-reflexive discussion of procedures through which these films were made. present the chains of production and production Ici etailleurs captures a long and even embar The first segment is from the film Ici et ailleurs ( Ici et ). Here and Elsewhere). Showdown Showdown - production plans, and so forth. What is portrayed and sounds—is conducted:there is a video desk, how the work of organizing information—pictures telephone, Internet, satellite, and so forth. We see through which publicity is carried out, such as fax, and so forth. Various media are listed, in which and are excerpted, how they are edited into new footage, the studio, how it is viewed, how useable sections footage from countless video cameras comes into different from a commercial studio.TV We see how nal organization of the Indymedia office is not very considerable logisticalAccordingly, effort. the inter gram was broadcast every evening. This requires a the course of the five-day protests. A half-hour pro- impressive. The entire film was shot and edited over the studio setup in Seattle. What is seen there is on a tour through the production site of the film, film there is a segment in which the viewer is taken logical sequences and uniform spaces. “homogenous” and “empty,” organized by chrono- could be described in Walter Benjamin’s terms as strates a specific notion of filmic space-time, which conventional reportage.Along with this, it demon- extraordinarily stirring and employs the style of The film (which consists of five half-hour is parts) also indigenous groups and farmers’ organizations. diverse political groups, especially unions, but ments are given by a multitude of speakers from about the work of the WTO. Numerous state short - street are grounded with background information order.At the same time, the developments on the protest and their events are edited in chronological the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999. sioned document of the protests revolving around The film Toward the end of the two-and-a-half-hour Showdown inSeattle Showdown inSeattle is an impas- 1 The days of

81 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 82 the corporate media, only the content is different, Seattle In this way, the form employed by together in the conventional chain of media montage. same way that pictures and sounds are strung which adds the political demands together in the transformed into a chain of formal equivalencies, language of form, the different statements are thus made comparable. At the level of the standardized their diverse positions are standardized and thus shots of these talking heads are formally similar, of the film in the form of talking heads. Because the and positions are articulated across broad segments groups, NGOs, unions, and so forth. Their demands sum of the voices of individual speakers from protest of the people”—is used unproblematically: as the of. In also what this voice of the people actually consists voice of the people is articulated and organized, but ity of which is never called into question. the resonator of a filmic space-time, the homogene- different political groups, and it reverberates within people is conceived as the unity of differences, of and this voice must be heard. The voice of the described as truth. It is the “voice of the people,” to be disseminated is counter-information that is message across,” “getting the truth out.” What is metaphors: “getting the word across,” “getting the albeit for a different purpose. of the corporate media’s manner of production— What this involves, then, is a faithful reproduction the information circulated by the corporate media. which is negatively defined by its distance from the terms of the producers, “counter-information,” is a chain of the production of information, or in Showdown inSeattle, this expression—“voice Yet we must not only ask ourselves how this This different purpose is described by many is completely analogous to the form used by Showdown in Promotion for Deep Dish TV’s first transmission series, produced by Paper Tiger TV.

83 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 84 more closely. They note of that the statements parts ailleurs, Godard and Miéville inspect the material anti-imperialistic fantasy. Four years later in lencies in which every image is forced to express an tion, in a formally almost senseless chain of equiva- of exercise and shooting, and scenes of PLO agita- War—Until Victory.” It showed battle training, scenes Work,” “The Will of the People,” and “The Extended with titles such as Battle,”“The Armed “Political and was never finished. It consisted of several parts about the people’s battle was called in 1970. This heroizing propaganda film that blusters film on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Godard/Jean-Pierre Gorin) shot a commissioned produced film fragment. The Dziga Vertov Group Their film consists of a self-critique of a self- position with respect to the terms of the popular. the editors) of Ici et the concept of the voice of the peopleailleurs itself. voice of the people is severely criticized—along with of the mere addition of demands resulting in the In principles of its adversary. which unquestioningly adopts the organizational positions—and an aesthetic form of concatenation, and political addition—of shots, statements, and takes the place of this missing mediation is a filmic clear how these demands can be mediated. What minorities, feminist groups, and so forth. It is not environmentalists and union members, different radically contradict one another, such as those from the speakers’ different political demands sometimes the voice of the people—regardless of the fact that namely an additive compilation of voices resulting in Godard and Miéville, the directors (or rather Ici etailleurs, on the other hand, this method Ici etailleurstake a radically critical 2 Until Victory Ici et Ici et

parison between different positions or establish are thus: On what basis can we draw a political com- will of the people” mean? instead of? And what does an empty phrase like “the What if the ignore, or even mutually exclude one another? not only do not join, but actually hinder, contradict, tage is far from innocent and unproblematic. conclusion:important the additive equation not work? Godard and Miéville arrive at an the pretext of the voice of the people? Why did this and aesthetic notions are added together under the way butter is smearedWhat political on bread? Internationale” into any and every picture, rather like contradictions? What does it mean to edit “The people” function here as populist noise to eliminate How did the adjuring formula of the “voice of the they organized the pictures and sounds. They ask: all on their own in this, participation in the way and the blatant lies of the material—but most of staged to begin with. They reflect on the stagings of PLO adherents were never translated or were a subtraction? Palestine, does not represent an addition but rather and sion, or no relation at all? Specifically, what if the addition, but rather grounds a subtraction, a divi- wrong? Or if the additive causalities. For what if the model of addition is reduced to unproblematic additions and pseudo- to binary oppositions of betrayal or loyalty and terns in which conflicts and solidarity are reduced cal is the problematizing of the concepts and pat- East conflict. On the contrary, what makes it so topi- not in the sense of offering a position on the Middle in this Transposed to a political level, the questions Today the film is shockingly up to date, but Here and Elsewhere, in this France and and 4 What if two political movements should really be and does not represent an or , and because, or even of the mon-

85 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 86 mechanics. Here, Godard and Miéville translate following the logic of the assembly line and camera tures of the “battle” is linked together by a machine, aside at the same time. A row of people carrying pic- as thoughonaconveyor beltandpushing each other of people holding pictures, wandering past a camera kind of scene than Indymedia—they show a crowd sounds, although they choose an entirely different with the chaincerned of production of pictures and also the reason why Godard and Miéville are con- so it has to be broken up and problematized. This is templates of its masters, according to their thesis, principles of mass culture will blindly reproduce the Fordist organized articulation according to the sounds are organized, edited, and arranged.A nent of this problematic issue is Both are closely connected. An essential compo- tion—but also to the organization of expression. in other words, the expression of internal organiza- tique solely to the level of political articulation— people”? constitute “the interests are added up, at some point the sum will presumes that if sufficient numbers of different principle of unproblematic addition, a blind chain of equivalencies? Is this a simple case of the together at antiglobalization demos, in a dispiriting Nazis, religious groups, and reactionaries all line up protectionists, anti-Semites, conspiracy theorists, for of the articulation protest today, if nationalists, list mobilization? And what does this question mean is functionalized specifically for the sake of a popu- equivalencies? What if this are leveled for the sake of establishing a chain of together, and which differences and opposites made comparable? What is added together, edited equivalencies or even alliances? What exactly is Godard and Miéville do not relate their cri- and of political montage how pictures and and that voice and a picture of Golda Meir, My Lai and Lenin. songs, Hitler’s voice and a picture of My Lai, Hitler’s tures from concentration camps and Venceremos we see that incongruous concatenations occur: pic- through their concatenation. But more importantly, that the pictures naturally attain their significance left-wing contexts. This produces the impression that invoke people”“the from both right-wing and combined with a number of folk songs or songs and other places are mixed together wildly—and Nazi Germany, Palestine, Latin America, Vietnam, relationally organized. Pictures and sounds from situation of concatenation, in which pictures are generated in this way? Here we see an experimental tion and what kinds of political significance are chained together? What organizes- their articula do the pictures hang on the chain? How are they of production. is marked by its adoption of conventional schemata the production sequence from organized from the start—just as the principle of of pictures and sounds, whose concatenation is The montage is the result of an industrial system the conditions of representation in film in general. in this sequence makes it possible to think about on the chain of production of pictures and sounds the logic of machine production. This reflection problematized in this way and set in relation to in the montage as an often invisible addition is the principle of their concatenation. What appears of attention onto their framing. What is revealed is the pictures next to one another and shift the focus but rather are shown at the same time. They place chains of pictures do not run one after the other, a spatial arrangement. It becomes evident that the temporal arrangement of the film images into In contrast, Godard and Miéville ask: How Showdown inSeattle

87 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 88 Promotional image for auser-friendly Cinepress filmsplicerdeveloped by Hama, 1972. structured around, the empty inclusivist chain of equivalencies displays is the void that it is addition of political desire. For what this populist sheer dread—everything except an unproblematic traries instead of equations, and even provokes say—of the identity relationship. It produces con- the silent coercion—as Theodor W. Adorno would cover up. It generates sharp discrepancies within tradictions that the voice of the people strives to this sequence expose the radical political con- in fact a basis for creating equivalencies. Instead, we hear in its wildly diverse articulations, is not It becomes clear that the voice of the people, which an tion of a protest movement based on the model of to be legitimized by invoking the people. the political measures and goals that are supposed a lacuna, specifically the lacuna of the question of The empty topos of the voice of the people covers up tion and a suppression. Yet what does it suppress? ously the organizing principle of both a concatena- inclusivity. The voice of the people is thus simultane- tive does not go beyond an unquestioned notion of breaks; itconceals the fact that its political objec- nizes the chain of equivalencies without allowing itself as a kind of cover. The voice of the people orga- entire field of the visible but only becomes visible which, according to Jacques Lacan, constitutes the people functions here like a blind spot, a lacuna, the gaze, it is never problematized. The voice of the principle in Seattle, the principle that constitutes role in the two films. Although it is the organizing the voice of the people assumes an entirely different of any political criteria. keeps blindly adding and adding, outside the realm and So what are the prospects for- the articula In summary, we can say that the principle of —as though inclusion at any cost were its and that

89 Hito Steyerl The Articulation of Protest 90 that would not represent a compromise, but would outside these two images/elements, something elements would produce something beyond and differently, what kind of montage of two images/ ducing the status quo? Or to phrase the question of a mere addition of elements for the sake of repro- would result in oppositional articulations, instead as it was before. unfolds in these figures—only to leave everything ment of blind inclusion. A tremendous dynamic positions are linked without reflection in a move- moving through the crowd. Images, sounds, and ing the homogeneous empty time like a wave seamlessly from one element to the next—travers- along the way. The energy of the movement glides tering fragmented identities like bone splinters are radicalized in breathless transgression, scat- movements are those in which existing conditions be called reactionary, if not outright fascist. Such themselves protest movements but should rightly tional one? For there are many movements that call a network at all costs? to break the chains than to organize everyone into trary desires? Is it not therefore sometimes better of blind faith in the power of the addition of arbi- conditions that are to be critiqued, a populist form conventional form mean a mimetic clinging to the using picturesideology and sounds? Does not a much more radical critique of of the articulation be very popular? And does there not have to be a have to be formulated—even if they might not concatenation organized? What goals and criteria primary goal? Why and for whom is the political What kind of movement of political montage So what a movement turns into an opposi- Addition orExponentiation

question of this articulation. spark of the political, can be created at all is a Whether this spark, which one could also call the stones together to create a spark in the darkness? way someone might tenaciously pound two dull instead belong to a different order—roughly the are in France? burning mean now, in 2002, when synagogues 4 Seine: Gaumont, 1975). and Anne-Marie Miéville (Neuilly-sur- 3 replaced by simple adjurations. film could insist that this cannot be this work of mediation. However, a there is any film that could take on 2 Dish Television,1999). Showdown inSeattle (New York: Deep 1 And what does Ici etailleurs, dir. Jean-Luc Godard This is not intended to imply that Independent Media Center, Here and Elsewhere

91 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 92 Democracy andthe Art Transition to Post- Politics of Art: Contemporary

place of work. perspective: the politics of the field as a of art or another. But there is a much more interesting representsthat art political issues in one way A standard way of relating politics to assumes art above. ducted by means of an ongoing class struggle from tribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, con- on the crumbs of a massive and widespread redis- within disaster capitalism? Contemporary feeds art It is also about function. What is the function of art is, how can capitalism be made more beautiful? tion. If contemporary is the answer, art the question world confused and collapsed by dizzying deregula- ing school education, a licensed playground for a bined with the stern pleasures of upper-class board- extreme makeover, the suspense of gambling com- new creative imperative for places in need of an onto almost anything, a quick face-lift touting the brand name without a brand, ready to be slapped and bygone bull markets. Contemporary is a art economies tied to Ponzi schemes, credit addiction, hype embodies the affective dimension of global policies usedto defibrillate slowing economies. Such the hype around contemporary from art the shock the neoliberal thick of things. We cannot dissociate ivory tower. On the contrary, it is squarely placed in unworldly discipline nestled away in some remote with bling, boom, and bust. Contemporary is no art most closely linked to post-Fordist speculation, what it shows. metropolis. Today, deconstructivist contemporary arehubs of art no longer only located in the Western has grown much more decentralized—important postconceptual razzmatazz. Additionally, its reach But contemporary isnot only art aboutbeauty. Among all other forms of art, has been fine art 2 It lends primordial accumulation a whiff of 1 Simply look at what it does—not

93 Hito Steyerl Politics of Art: Contemporary Art 94 and the Transition to Post-Democracy upgrading and reeducating the surplus population. the countless international biennials tasked with for a set of post-democratic oligarchies, as are on the Gehry gallery! racy.A country with human-rights violations? Bring museums pop up in anyart self-respecting autoc - potentially—and dangerously—as form. an art image of wannabe autocrats who see government artist’s role corresponds all too well with the self- to see himself. The traditional conception of the any oligarch aspiring to dictatorship might want moody, guided by inspiration and genius. Just as unpredictable, unaccountable, brilliant, mercurial, nant political post-Cold War paradigm. It seems hypercapitalism that look set to become the domi- ents a mirror image of post-democratic forms of attractive? One guess: the production pres of art - rounds of rapturous applause. to toe with blood and dirt, it triggers off rounds and finally dragged into Gagosian dripping from head contemporary is everywhere. art And when it is of Mongoliathe deserts to the high plains of Peru, then suddenly walks off, breaking your heart. From gentrifies, and ravishes. It seduces and consumes, raw materials for dual-core processors. It pollutes, T-Mobile plants its flag. It is involved in mining for unevenly advancing semiocapitalism wherever post-Cold War world order. It is a major player in actively intervenes in the transition toward a new shock-and-awe policies. oppression, class war from above, and radical predatory economies are often fueled by internal polar distribution of geopolitical power whose thus facilitatesArt the development of a new multi- The Global Guggenheim is a cultural refinery Why and for whom is contemporary so art Contemporary thus not only art reflects, but 3

art also means work,art more precisely, strike work. lerinas and overdrive content providers. Because and conceptualjpeg impostors, virtuosos as gal many of the nouveaux poor, trying their luck as production is simultaneously of art a workshop for tion, expropriation, and speculation. But the actual model for the nouveaux riches created by privatiza- art: it’s just what works for him. why the contemporary oligarch loves contemporary balances! Good governance? Bad curating! You see it to taste? Checks and balances? Cheques and mafia chapter. Rule of law? Why don’t we just leave structures that are as democratic as your local able. Both models operate within male bonding It is opaque, corrupt, and completely unaccount- to this erratic type of male-genius-artist behavior. Post-democratic government is very much related in all possible sizes and variations. Intensity or ers churn out feelings, perception, and distinction to the paradigm of hyperproductivity. Strike work Stalinist model brigades brings an additional edge tion and impact. Its historical origin as format for productionartistic creates punch and glitz, sensa- chatting, and posing. This accelerated form of molding, strike artistic work consists of ripping, sion of shock. Rather than painting, welding, and factories, strike work relates to the sensual dimen- blow”). Now, transferred to present-day cultural tive, enthusiastic labor” (udar for “shock, strike, from the expression ers in the early Soviet Union. The term is derived hyperactive, and deeply compromised. is affective labor at insane speeds—enthusiastic, you-can-work conveyor belts. Strike or shock work It is produced as spectacle, on post-Fordist all- Thus, traditional production art may be a role Originally, strike workers were excess labor for “superproducudarny trud - - 4 - -

95 Hito Steyerl Politics of Art: Contemporary Art 96 and the Transition to Post-Democracy lums ready to be hired as colonial mercenaries and described by Arendt, the urban pimps and hood- of all classes.” These dispossessed adventurers Arendt once spitefully formulated—of the “refuse fragile constituency may well consist—as Hannah Google Translate. a reserve of army imagination communicating via deterritorialized and ideologically free-floating: ask whether they are not global lumpenfreelancers, as multitude or crowd, it might be less romantic to easy way out would be to classify this constituency able enough to be identified as a class. While the stubbornly resist settling into any entity recogniz- correspond to any traditional image of labor. They of people who, despite working constantly, do not implicated in transforming global power patterns. Nothing but the ways in which contemporary is art it. But what does this situation actually indicate? the transition to post-democracy, the former image contemporary politics of art. While the latter manage elites and oligarchies equal the framework of the matter that keeps the cultural sector going. labor and rampant exploitation are the invisible dark much every level and in almost every function. Free unpaid interns and self-exploiting actors on pretty around. It sustains itself on the time and energy of is the industrywork—art with the most unpaid labor tion. I’d guess from that—apart domestic and care and fine print. It also thrives on accelerated exploita- on deadlines and curatorial bullshit, on small talk all they never knew they wanted. made reality—strike work supplies consumers with evacuation, sublime or crap, readymade or ready- Instead of shaping up as a new class, this Contemporary art’s workforce consists largely Free-floating strike workers plusnew (andold) Strike work feeds on exhaustion and tempo, Hito Steyerl, Strike, 2010, 1’, HD video.

97 Hito Steyerl Politics of Art: Contemporary Art 98 and the Transition to Post-Democracy sumption, distribution, marketing, etc.) takes on a of representation at large, production art (con- which focused institutions, onart oreven thesphere in contrast to the age of an institutional criticism, need a quite extensive expansion of it. ally been interested in similar issues. But today we much contemporary political art. even say that arethe politics of art the blind spot of display remain pretty much unexplored. One could titution, the conditions of its own production and the globe, and routinely packages injustice and des- to represent so-called local situations from all over selves political. Even manages though political art on the agenda of most who consider them- artists one peripheral region or another—is a taboo even bribes to get this or that large-scale biennial into as well as the blatant corruption within it—think of Addressing the intrinsic field,conditions of the art shies away from discussing all these matters. international is over. Now let’s get on with the global. dancing to a viral Lady Gaga imitation video. The ever going to march in unison, except perhaps while but its inherent structure. That this workforce is not competition are not a deviation of this form of labor organization for labor. artistic That and opportunism no automatically available road to resistance and ambivalent picture of labor emerges. artistic capitalism—a decidedly un-heroic, conflicted, and ing grounds—the opaque disaster zones of shock current strike workers might inhabit similarly shift- today world. as the art pelled into the global sphere of circulation known rored in the brigades of creative strike workers pro- exploiters, are faintly (and quite distortedly) mir Of course, institutional critique has tradition- Here is the bad news: routinely political art We have to face up to the fact that there is 5 If we acknowledge that 7 Because 6

- and social engineering. embedded in rhetorics of city marketing, branding, predatory banks traders or arms and completely is nowadays very often sponsored by the most but also common phenomenon, is that radical art globalization. One example, which is a quite absurd different and extended role within post-democratic ethnicization, pithy gestures, and militant nostalgia. which is in many cases content to offer exotic self- this condition is rarely explored within political art, supersonic translators, PhD interns, and other salesmen of self, tech whiz kids, budget tricksters, arena populated by mobile strike workers, itinerant In its best iterations it is a terrific cosmopolitan site of commonality, movement, energy, and desire. massive and crooked manipulation. But it is also a mongering, speculation, financial engineering, and and phenomenal exploitation. It is a place of power global and the local. times devastating misunderstandings between the of capital and of extremely entertaining and some - … fun—a site of condensation of the contradictions days: its function as a place for labor, conflict, and missing what makes intrinsically art political nowa- nities in whose name no one can speak, we end up else, always belonging to disenfranchised commu- is thought of as the Other, happening somewhere and-sickle into souvenir art the dustbin. If politics cer social engineers. It’s time to kick the hammer- situationists, or Jamie Oliver-meets-probation offi- instead of safely parade as Stalinist realists, CNN more relevant if they were to confront these issues But I do think that could political artists become other selling point. Most of all it is very boring. innocence. I am certainly not arguing for a position of The art field is a The space art of wild contradiction 9 It is at best illusory, at worst just an- 8 For very obvious reasons,

99 Hito Steyerl Politics of Art: Contemporary Art 100 and the Transition to Post-Democracy eyes, ready to embrace. and embark on a politics that is there, in front of our surpass the plane of a politics of representation tion, and its reception. If we take this on, we might politics resides within its production, its distribu- pening elsewhere. is not outside politics,Art but of trying to represent a politics that is always hap- try to understand its space as a political one instead messy, embedded, troubled, irresistible. We could because it is entangled into all of its aspects. It’s temporary reality. affects Art this reality precisely contradictions. All of this makes it relevant to con- controlled by capital, woven tightly into its multiple A hive of affective labor under close scrutiny and mism of loads and loads of hardworking women. flirtatious, mesmerizing. beauty-queens. It’s HDMI, CMYK, LGBT. Pretentious, with charming scumbags, bully-kings, almost- darity remains the only foreign expression. Peopled monplace where competition is ruthless and soli- thin-skinned, plastic-fantastic. A potential com- digital vagrants and day laborers. It’s hardwired, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Harvey, priation since the 1970s. See David global and ongoing process of expro- 2 Taipei Museum, Fine Arts 2010), 10–11. Guidebook (Taipei:10TB Taipei Biennial Lin,Hongjohn “Curatorial Statement,” in statement for the Taipei Biennial 2010. Lin in oped his bycuratorial Hongjohn 1 This has been described as a I am expanding on a notion devel A Brief Historyof Neoliberalism This mess is kept afloat by the sheer dyna-

- en_GB/05-12-2006/ events/past-events/2006-events/ See owned 1 percent of global wealth. half of the world’s adult population percent of global assets. The bottom 1 percent of adults alone owned 40 found that in the year 2000, the richest Nations University (UNU-WIDER) Economics Research of the United World Institute for Development wealth, a study by the Helsinki-based As for the resulting distribution of http://www.wider.unu.edu/ . Critique (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, and Blake Stimson, eds., 7 myself may bow my head in shame, too. and great exceptions, and I admit that I 6 sharing but about sponsoring. mon but about the patron. Not about about the collector. Not about the com- of taste are not about the collective, but bibliographies. Let’s face it: the politics metamorphose into art-historical cate machinations, which—whoops— engineering reputation, and other deli- matter of manufacturing consensus, following Kant. In this context, it is a a matter of the common, as she argued, matter of taste. Taste is not necessarily 5 Ural Industrial Biennial, 2010. Costinaş, and David Riff for their 1st developed by Ekaterina Degot, Cosmin 4 cally relevant perspective. image production from another histori- the connection between oligarchy and and Max Jorge Hinderer, highlights Alice Creischer,Andreas Siekmann, “The Potosí Principle,” organized by at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, elected fascists). The 2011 exhibition growing fondness for democratically zenship (not to mention the Old World’s of the population excluded from citi- popular vote and a substantial section political institutions not legitimized by democratic rule, with a whole host of area is a brilliant example of post- Western phenomenon. The Schengen consider post-democracy to be a non- transitional countries, we shouldn’t to Shanghai and many of the so-called biennials span from Moscow to Dubai nyregion/28trustee.html www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/ New York Times, April 27, 2010, Member Caught in Russian Intrigue,” Andrew E. Kramer, “Museum Board involvement, see Kate Taylor and 3 As is also argued in Alex Alberro There are of course many laudable Arendt may have been wrong on the I am drawing on a field of meaning For just one example of oligarch . While such Institutional http:// magazin/marco-polo/s-camnitzer.htm. http://www.universes-in-universe.de/ der Welt in Berlin (April 11, 1995). See a symposium at Haus der Kulturen context of the “Marco Polo Syndrome,” of Corruption,”the Art published in the Camnitzer, “The Corruption / in the Arts on this situation can be found in Luis irrelevant. An interesting comment but a moral one, and thus politically consider innocence a political position, I would like to emphasize that I do not shows. At the risk of repeating myself, that these ads may well flaunt my own furthermore complicated by the fact ment supplement. The situation is placement - on e-flux as an advertise 9 review/11th_istanbul_biennial/ 2009), frieze, no. 127 (November–December Zolghadr, “11th Istanbul Biennial,” com/journal/view/107 12, journal, no. ‘Survive’?”Art Socio-Critical Money and Run? Can Political and Rosler,See also Martha “Take the net/correspondence/1145970626. 25, 2006), Private Institution,” Journey into the Cultural Policy of a the State Secretary and the Bank:A Therese Kaufmann, “The Foundation, Another case study: Beat Weber and University of Nevada Press, 2003). Architecture, and CityRenewal (Reno: Museoa:Guggenheim Bilbao Museums, vilma.cc/2G/ detail in a case study. See the Guggenheim effect analyzed in Guggenheim franchise system, with partly indigenist) scenes and the art the tensions between local (and and Gediminas Urbonas that unpacked very interesting project by Nomeda Guggenheim Visibility StudyGroup, a Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo was 8 transform.eipcp.net/transversal/0106. of the online journal 2009). See also the collected issues This is evident from this text’s Recently on show at Henie http://www.frieze.com/issue/ http://transform.eipcp. . Also see Joseba Zulaika, http://www.e-flux. transform (April transform: ;and Tirdad http://www. e-flux . http://

101 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 102 an asOccupation:Art Claimsfor Autonomy of Life

occupation. used to be work has increasingly into been turned this for one month, every day. Now stop. Listen. zoom. Use effects only if they are built in. Keep doing No cuts. You are allowed to move around, to pan and Record whatever you see for a couple of seconds. I want you to take out your cellphone. Open the video. economy. Instead of being seen as a means of often-described shift from a Fordist to post-Fordist activity. It marks a transition far greater than the in the most different areas of contemporary daily Occupation body seeking distraction or engagement. time-wasters, and bystanders—in essence, any- includes consumers, reproducers, even destroyers, itself. It is not centered on a producer/worker, but temporal framework except the passing of time thought to contain its own gratification. It has no assume remuneration either, since the process is of subjectivity. An occupation doesn’t necessarily traditional alienation, nor any corresponding idea has no necessary conclusion. As such, it knows no labor. keeps people busy instead of giving them paid also produces a subject by means of alienation. reward, or a wage. It is an instrumental relation. It primarily seen as a means to an end: a product, a ning, a producer, and, eventually, a result. Work is also its implications for space and temporality. work to occupation—the economic framework, but In fact, almost everything changes on the way from 2 Lets with a simple start proposition: what The shift from work to occupation applies An occupation is the opposite. An occupation If we think of work as labor, it implies a begin- This change in terminology may look trivial. An occupation is not hinged on any result; it 1

103 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 104 from within it. if it sounds the same, the force of similarity works other. There is a magic affinity within the word itself: different meanings and draws them toward each mimetic force of the term operates in each of the senses of the word—are not the same. But the occupied and the occupier. and its connotations are completely different for the aspect occupation is both and uneven— permanent tion, colonization, and extraction. In its processual outcome or resolution. It also refers to appropria- the blurring of spatial divisions. It has no built-in eternal process, indeterminate negotiation, and autonomy. also neutralization, stranglehold, and the quelling of not resist it. The objective is often expansion, but by the occupier on the occupied, who may or may tial complication, and 3-D sovereignty. It is imposed occupation refers to extreme power relations, spa- to conquest, invasion, and seizure. In the military, distraction, therapy, and engagement. But also is in many cases an end in itself. means to an end, as traditional labor is. Occupation sions to an entangled and complex territory. even idled away, from a space defined by clear divi- by waste, from time progressing to time spent or economy based on production to an economy fueled resources. It clearly accents the passage from an earning, it is seen as a way of spending time and tradition, interest, and privilege. that are otherwise segregated and hierarchized by difference to uncomfortably approximate situations Of course occupations—in all the different Occupation often implies endless mediation, Occupation is connected to activity, service, Perhaps most importantly: occupation isnot a 3 The force of naming reaches across avatars as a means of protest against its ongoing Second Life campaign. French Front political party National is violently attacked in Second Life by

105 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 106 acter in Marquis de Sade’s 1791 book Portrait of an intern as found online. The intern is named Justine, like the main char Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue. - space. Recently, a professor at the University of of the guard or attendant—to create a contradictory occupation unexpectedly intersect here—in the role again processual (and ill- or unpaid). guards—all of whose conditions of occupation are ever-more educators, mediators, guides, and even ment, and planes of relationality. It also produces processes, forms of knowledge, fields of engage- of occupation, which yield fewer “works” but more education nowArt takes longer—it creates zones from the pressure of (public or private) markets. art post-graduate programs shield prospective artists education.of art More and more post- and post- there are now occupational schemes in the guise were in many cases working for free. Additionally, of occupations (and distractions) for people who that functioned by producing an increasing number ture industry provided an example of an economy in the cultural workplace. The paradigm of the cul tion and needs no remuneration is quite accepted scheme. The idea that it contains its own gratifica - denotescountries art a quite popular occupational busy—spectators and many others. In many rich a process—as an occupation. work has been largelyof art supplemented by as art attention spans will allow. Today the traditional These can be as endless as strained budgets and now tends to appear as activity or performance. exclusively as object or product—as (art)work— too transform into an occupation? happens to the work in this process?of art Does it to occupation has additional implications. What The professional and militarized meaning of is an occupation in Art that it keeps people In part, it does. What used to materialize In the context of art, the transition from work Occupation asArt 4

107 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 108 project). (in a museum, a gallery, or, most likely, an isolated topology of occupation is the figure of the intern potential violence. museum or gallery into a sequence of stages of security mutates the sites and inscribes the of art whom may already be military veterans. Intensified control in the figure of the museum guard—some of time intersects with the military sense of spatial What’s more, occupation as a means art of killing he folded First World locations into his appeal. but by citing potential breakdowns of civic order and other states in the midst of political upheaval, guards in (formerly) occupied countries like Iraq be armed. Chicago suggested that museum guards should and exclusion, managing access and flow. It may sides: forcefully seizing and keeping out, inclusion moreparts mobile. Occupation works on both autonomy denied and quelled in order to keep other plex. are Some parts forcefully immobilized, their information. Its architecture is astonishingly com- levels, and close management of movement and pointed system, complete with gatekeepers, access The schematics occupation of reveal art a check one another, yet interlocked and interdependent. intensity. These zones are very much shut off from space with varying degrees of occupational own occupation. simultaneously. As a result, she works to sustain her that includes the outside and excludes the inside labor but outside remuneration: stuck in a space system, yet is excluded from payment. She is inside voluntary. She is supposed to be on the inside of the confinement, and detention, whether involuntary or Another prime example in the complicated Both examples produce a fractured time- 6 The term “intern” is linked to internment, 5 Of course, he was referring primarily to

inhabitants after the area becomes fashionable. status as urban ruins and drives out long-term poorer neighborhoods by aestheticizing their who use misery as raw material. Art “upgrades” and urban squalor can again be exploited by artists from labor stripped of rights. tions within capitalism and even profit concretely more powerfully serve the larger ideological deflec- lessen. in these places But canart-as-occupation world, the immediate might grip of seem to art economy. not always follows fault lines of class and political not come as surprise that this pattern often but specialized in an industrial world marked by an and overlap. and the boundaries between both areas interlock of the world,parts while overdeveloping others— global system, one that underdevelops some uploader of cellphone videos to a museum website. the figures of artist, audience, freelance curator, or para-productive activity; and it divvies up roles in distraction or committed pursuit of largely unpaid wasting, or simply consuming time through vague seizing, up- or downgrading of space; in organizing, assists in the Thus structuring,art hierarchizing, tion from life. but on separation—more precisely, on art’s separa- omy was traditionally predicated not on occupation, a small detour autonomy. on artistic auton Artistic - life as such. occupying people, space, or time. It also occupies In poorer and underdeveloped of the parts But beyond all this, doesn’t art stop at Life andAutonomy Generally speaking, of an unevenis part art Why should that be the case? Let’s with start 9 As artistic production As artistic became more 7 Here, migrant, liberal,

109 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 110 divorced from direct functionality. increasing division of labor, it also grew increasingly the following questions applies to you: How can my life be occupied by it? Perhaps one of exposure, I have nothing to whatsoever! do with art Checklist and gaping absence—both of which impact daily life. a complex topology of both overbearing presence it’s omnipresent. Itjust means that ithasestablished invades life, but occupies it. This doesn’t mean that aestheticization of politics. aesthetic project, and it coincides with an overall but the incorporation of is nowlife an within art once a political project (both for the Left and Right), paradigms. The incorporation within life of was art recasting the old order within its own aesthetic incorporated all that it broke from in the first place, cion. But this incompletely segregated area then distance it from rules of efficiency and social coer production, and instrumental reason—in order to routine—from mundane life, intentionality, utility, was meant to separate from art the zone of daily not the exception, but the rule. autonomy Artistic occupation. Nowadays, the invasion of life by is art into routine incursions, and then into constant back into life and daily practice gradually turned has beenoccupiedby art, because art’s initialforays pened was rather the contrary. To push the point: life to be infused with a revolutionary jolt. What hap - recreate its relation to life. gardes set out to break the barriers and to of art lost social relevance. As a reaction, different avant- ently evaded instrumentalization, it simultaneously But, you may respond, from apart occasional On all levels of everyday activity, not only art Their hope was for to art dissolve within life, 10 While it appar

- - as-innovator, the technician-as-entrepreneur, the biopolitical designer was overtaken by the clerk- self-performance? division of labor. in many occupational fields started to reverse the recent advances in neoliberal modes of production contributed to claims for autonomy, artistic more required by other professions. While in its time this somehowartists refused to follow the specialization tus within the bourgeois capitalist system because According to Peter Bürger, acquired art a special sta- cal development at the root of autonomy. artistic One of the reasons has to do with a rather paradoxi - tion of the border between and life on their own.art avant-gardes could never have achieved the dissolu - from circulation. completely invades life, it also cuts off much art tion. While, on the one hand, occupation artistic region privatized by predatory banks? exhibition?a one-off art from Is conceptual art your redirects of a huge its cultural portion budget to fund Is labor in this field unpaid? Do you live in a city that erished, andhidden behindinsurmountablebarriers? production) being withdrawn, slashed, cut off, impov designed by your iPhone? Have your feelings been designed, or do you feel relocated into that dilapidated building next door? your rent doubled because a few kids with brushes or attempted to do this to anyone/thing else? Has tiple? Are you on constant auto-display? Does art possess youDoes art in the guise of endless Of course, even if they had wanted to, the Division of Labor All of these are symptoms of occupa- artistic Or, on the contrary, is access to (and its art Have you beenbeautified, improved, upgraded, 12 The artist-as-dilettante and 11 Do you wake feeling like a mul -

111 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 112 from workers. its own version of autonomy: the autonomy of capital than traditional alienation. oppression, which arguably could be much worse suggest takes on the form of a more pervasive self- own gratification. But the relief from alienation they ated lifestyle are somehow believed to contain their contemporary occupations that promise an unalien- factory. claiming autonomy from labor and the regime of the nists, started and youth movements of the 1970s ing new political meanings as well. Workers, femi- ogies of flexibility and self-entrepreneurship, acquir to the point where it tipped into new dominant ideol expansion. In this way, the logic of autonomy spread duction to set free potentials dormant for financial now been reintegrated into neoliberal modes of pro- and subjection that accompany it), this refusal has refusal of the division of labor (and the alienation specialized labor. tantism and overexertion in order to save money on legitimate the universalization of professional dilet- polymath now serves as a role model (or excuse) to their confusion. The example of as creative the artist division of labor: the fusion of professions, or rather occupation, multitasking marks the reversal of the As a template for many forms of contemporary (worst of all) the administrator-as-revolutionary. laborer-as-engineer, the manager-as-genius, and tion. narcissism and overidentification with one’s occupa- overcome alienation was transformed into serial a self-entrepreneurial business model, the hope to Desire for self-determination was rearticulated as the capitalist reinvention of labor relations as such. of those various struggles became a catalyst for

Only in this context can we understand why If the origin of autonomy artistic lies in the 13 Capital reacted to this flight by designing 14 The rebellious, autonomous force 15 - - like fucking in a cemetery. oppressive, and narcissistic to the bone. of life that are all-encompassing, passionate, self- one of the templates for new occupational forms of labor and leads an unalienated lifestyle. This is of as a personthe artist who refuses the division have seen, this transition is based on the role model into the transition from work to occupation. As we capital’s response to them are thus deeply ingrained fied space of occupation means to rearticulate their To unfreeze the forces that in the petrilie dormant - Occupation, Again to feel unable to fuck anywhere else. life: as the gallery/cemetery invades life, one begins become even worse as the gallery spills back into immobilizing a specific area: time and space, instead of simply blocking and intervene into the governing forms of occupational 2008 emphasized, this type of occupation tries to recent years.As the occupiers of the New School in taken on in countless squats and takeovers in next meaning of occupation: the meaning it has make it inoperative, communize it? exits? How can one disalienate it, disidentify it, strategist, asking: What are its holes, entrances, one must engage with space topologically, as a by the logic of the commodity. In an occupation, it is a plane of potentiality that has been frozen tion is not merely the container of our bodies, dard dimensions of space. Space in an occupa- Occupation mandates the inversion of the stan- To paraphrase Allan Kaprow: life in a gallery is The struggles around autonomy, and above all This might be the time to exploring start the 16 We could add that things 17 18

113 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 114 of affect, materially supported by ripped reality. It within any existing occupied territory. It is a space physical place, and is certainly not to be found can it be claimed? that we occupy this space. But where is it? And how also where lives are being occupied. I am suggesting unpredictable territory of occupation, and this is lives. kids from child care, and otherwise get on with their called labor: wipe off the tear gas, go pick up their pation the day, people might have to leave the site of occu- and spaces by which we are occupied. At the end of and articulate the incoherent accumulation of times adjacent to the incongruent territories that stitch up of occupation. The realms remain of art mostly is strictly coexistent with our own multiple spaces again, and forever. But again, none of these spaces that; all these spaces should be occupied, now, occupied. There is absolutely nothing wrong with museums, galleries, spaces toand other art be Of course, at this moment suggestions abound for non-productive way. operate in a non-efficient, non-instrumental, and difficult to imagine how any of these spaces might traditional gallery. On the other hand, it is also not task, especially spaces extend when art beyond the space from seems a paradoxical art-as-occupation to then militarize it differently. Now, to free an art demilitarize it—at least in terms of hierarchy—and ties as tools for social coercion. It also means to instrumental, and non-intentional in their capaci- functional uses, to make them non-efficient, non- 19 The territory of occupation is not a single The Territory of Occupation But which is the space we should occupy? Because these lives happen in the vast and

in order to go home to do the thing formerly exhaustion. effect to border detention, child care, and digital to spam filters, SIM cards, nomad weavers; spiral mass graves, zebra wipe to shopping malls, mosaic ing the pursuit of spring. gas, heartbreak, transition. and permanent Record- lated in my cellphone. A sequence powered by tear was violently kept at bay, this sequence accumu- spring. But it remained elusive. And while spring geously, desperately, passionately fought to achieve drowned in gas, shot at. In that year people coura- pations came and froze, were trampled under, again, yet spring wouldn’t draw any closer. Occu- in summer, nor in autumn. Winter came around able. But spring didn’t come this year. It didn’t come spring.A spring that feels necessary, vital, unavoid- phones. Sharing hope with crowds yearning for insurrections sustained and amplified by mobile tion, for months on end. lated in my phone; walking the territory of occupa- cellphone. Well, this is the sequence that accumu- asked you to record a few seconds each day on your do I know? Remember the beginning of this text? I labor, revolving glass doors, duty-free stores. How tills, aerial viewpoints, body scanners, scattered sampled checkpoints, security checks, airport cash and montaged sequence of movements through possible experience. It may consist of a composite can actualize anywhere, at any time. It exists as a early, arrested, overwhelmed, lost, falling. it encourages a condition that is always too late, too surveilled, deadlined, detained, delayed, hurried— constant harassment, of getting pushed, patronized, tion is a place of enclosure, extraction, hedging, and rise buildings. Exasperation. The territory of occupa- Jump cut to Cobra helicopters hovering over Walking through cold winter sun and fading 20 Gas clouds dissolving between high-

115 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 116 Colin Smith, Poster for theOccupy Movement, 2011. fixed, a faceless pixel composition. have faced his aim. He will have been framed and you film the sniper that shoots at you, the phone will tion, it means you’ll retroactively have had one. If It is witness and informer. If it gives away your posi- motion as a blur.A digital eye as your in hand. heart scanned, you turning into transparent digits, into endless communication. It is being tracked and accumulates love letters, insults, invoices, drafts, purpose, but do have impact, punch, and speed. It pictures that have no meaning, no audience, no copy-pastes your life to countless unintelligible for time, space, attention, credit card numbers. It ening, maddening, embarrassing, outrageous claims baby, purring like a lover, bombarding you with dead- driving you mad, extracting value, whining like a other like unrendered digital effects. Both temporal echo, past and future, day and night nest within each and desire running wild. space; accumulating by spasms of capital, despair, Dolby Surround. Time asynchronously crashes into an sovereignty because it governs from the virtual, and but 4-D sovereignty because it occupies time, a 5-D It is a space governed not only by 3-D sovereignty, in, ripped, ripping apart, breaking lives and heart. ping, copy-paste operations, incongruously keyed territory, madly assembled and conjectured by zap- recording, interrupting. still grinning at you, shattered, dictating deadlines, of your hand, ready to be slammed into a wall and uct, the Apple of your eye. your brain in corporate design, your as a prod heart - n -D sovereignty from above, beyond, across—in Your phone is driving you through this journey, Here and elsewhere, now and then, delay and The territory of occupation isa green-screened Your life condenses into an object in the palm 21 Your phone is

117 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 118 Accelerate. Inhabit. Occupy. Rearrange. Wreck. Articulate. Alienate. Unfreeze. own corporate enclosure. Let’s reedit them. Rebuild. fully kept from apart each other, each in his and her ing spring. Build suspense. Pause. Countershoot. Keep chas - continuity. Juxtapose. Edit in parallel. Jump the axe. our scenarios ofand rip occupation.apart Break re-montaged, rearticulated, reedited. Let’s merge other sequences, many sequences, see it being phone. See it spreading. See it become invaded by steer, shock, and seduce. They trigger full stops and passionate abandon. They they catalyze resistance, opportunism, resignation. As material condensations of conflictive forces, occupation. They also subject them to occupation. are sequences that create individuals by means of of individual or subjective movements. Rather, they emphasize that these are not just passive remnants lending flow to material reality. to It is important and real. A matter in motion, made of poor images, can be recorded, objectified, and thus made tangible of production and augmented military realities. They ualized timelines, intensified by fragmented circuits and spatial occupation intersect to produce individ- These are our territories of occupation, force- I might have sent something to you from my

the developing world.” training in crowd control. And not just in site wardens and others given thorough also like to see museum attendants, town of Amelia. Rothfield said he would over the weekend in the central Italian into (ARCA), Crimes Against Art held ference of the Association for Research speaking in advance of the annual con- not under their direct control.’ He was the national police or for other forces from carrying away items is just one for looters and professional thieves art brutal policing job required to prevent authorities ‘should not assume that the that ministries, foundations and local cultural policy center, told the director of the University of Chicago’s “Professor Lawrence Rothfield, faculty arm-museum-guards-looting-war. guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/jul/10/ Guardian, July 10, 2011, http://www. to prevent looting, says professor,” John Hooper, “Arm museum guards 5 the making-ofturning into commodity. result of production by immediately bypassesArt-as-occupation the end up in a complex system of valorization). is tied to the idea of a product (bound 4 2: 694–711, esp. 696. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), W. Jennings, trans. Howard Eiland eds. Marcus Bullock and Michael the Similar,” in 3 rather than trying to create jobs.” Ibid. keeping the active population ‘busy’ interesting semantic shift towards ‘employment,’ marking a subtle but promoting ‘occupation’ rather than 2 on-free-labour/ http://carrotworkers.wordpress.com/ Collective. See their “On Free Labour,” liant observation by the Carrotworkers’ 1 Lawrence Rothfield as quoted in One could even say: the work of art Walter Benjamin, “Doctrine of “The European Union language I am ripping these ideas from a bril

Selected Writings, . Guardian -

“Producing oneself is becoming the terms for occupational performativity: 11 commodities. the form and structure of capitalist the same time mimetically adapting interested and dispassionate, while at Its autonomy presented itself as dis- or overt representational function. became more divorced from religious and bourgeois subjectivity even as it lar division of senses, class distinction, major function in developing- a particu obvious, evidently since art retained a 10 special edition of soon as a “Black Box” version in a tial version of this text, to be published Lütticken also commissioned the ini- (Porto: Serralves, 2010), 146–67. eds. Óscar Faria and João Fernandes Autonomy,” in ToArts, The Citizens! , on the Omnipresent Frontiers of Lütticken’s excellent text “Acting due to the pervasive influence of Sven 9 2011); and no. 25 (May 2011). no. 21 (December 2010); no. 23 (March Creativity, Urbanism,” three-part essay, “Culture Class:Art, 8 workers-rights/. must-be-built-on-a-foundation-of- why-the-guggenheim-abu-dhabi- news/story/37846/walid-raad-on- June 9, 2011, http://www.artinfo.com/ Guggenheim Abu Dhabi,” “Interview with Walid Raad About the related labor issues. See Ben Davis, Dhabi Guggenheim franchise and Raad in the building of the Abu 7 Labour.” Carrotworkers’ Collective, “On Free between Education, Work and Life.” ates the collapse of the boundaries this context paradigmatic as it negoti- 6 The Invisible Committee lay out the The emphasis here is on the word These paragraphs are entirely Central here Rosler’s is Martha As critiqued recently by Walid “The figure of the intern appears in OPEN magazine. e-flux journal, ARTINFO,

119 Hito Steyerl Art as Occupation: Claims for an Autonomy of Life 120 Caccia (Rome: Castelvecchi, 1996), negata (1989–1995), ed. Giovanni è finito: Scrittisullatrasformazione caso del Nord-Est italiano,” in Negri, “Reti produttive e territori: il ponents. See, among others, Antonio its self-perpetuating narcissistic com- subjective identification with labor and emphasized the new conditions of of coercion. More recently Berardi has flexibilized, and entrepreneurial forms the was recaptured into new,’70s youth, and workers’ movements in of labor and the rebellious feminist, tendencies expressed the refusal both emphasize that the autonomous Paolo and FrancoVirno “Bifo” Berardi labor force after the 1970s, while restructuring Italian of the northern 14 Semiotext(e), 2007). Political Politics (Los Angeles: Marazzi, eds., in Sylvère Lotringer and Christian of autonomist thought as collected at this point to classical key texts 13 Minnesota Press, 1984). Garde (Minneapolis: University of 12 Semiotext(e), 2009), 16. The ComingInsurrection (Los Angeles: performance.’” The Invisible Committee, and therefore to a better economic ships, to sharper intellectual focus, ity, to smoother and more open relation- ‘will lead to increased emotional stabil “self-improvement,”’ says one guru, ‘manage conflicts’—‘the most intimate ‘self-improvement’ in order to better take courses in leadership or practice married to move up the ladder, who their careers, who get divorced or spirit, who learn English to advance go to nightclubs to boost the company whitened to give them an edge, who job interviews, who have their teeth All these young people smiling for their about hammering and sawing himself. from his shop and in desperation sets like a carpenter who’s been evicted production no longer has an object: dominant occupation of a society where Antonio Negri has detailed the It is interesting to make a link Peter Bürger, Autonomia: Post- Theory of theAvant- L’inverno

- cellphones in recent Syrian uprisings. Pixelated Revolution,” on the use of by Rabih Mroué’s terrific lecture, “The 21 ent imagery. makes it!, from Imri Kahn’s lovely video 20 limited spatially and temporally. contrast to other types of occupation is 19 pied: The Logic of(2009), Occupation 11. 18 eighteenth centuries. completely during the seventeenth and with,” which fell from usage almost mism for “have sexual intercourse centuries occupy”“to was a euphe- During the fifteenth and sixteenth nately defunct meaning of occupation. 17 43–51. York: New York University Press, 1979), The Writingsof Robert Smithson (New no. 9 (1967), reprinted in Jack Flam, ed., with Robert Smithson,” 16 hood that goes along with it. as the status of objectivity and object- but on the contrary embrace it as well should not seek to escape alienation 15 Angeles: Semiotext(e)), 2010. Work: FromAlienationtoAutonomy (Los and Franco “Bifo” Berardi, University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Hardt and Paolo (Minneapolis:Virno in Italy: APotential Politics, eds. Michael Counterrevolution?,” in 66–80; Paolo Virno, “Do You Remember This description is directly inspired I copied the form of my sequence In the sense of squatting, which in Inoperative Committee, Remember also the now unfortu- In “What Is a Museum? Dialogue I have repeatedly argued that one where it appears with differ Radical Thought Radical Thought Museum World The Soul at The Soulat Preoccu- Rebecca - Freelancers andMercenaries Freedom from Everything:

121 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 122 paradise of opportunity. Instead, different. For him, freedom was not some liberal make his own fortune. trials and tribulations of a rich man’s son trying to Wall of “Looking for Freedom,” a song describing the Hasselhoff’s live rendition from on top of the Berlin abysmal of all these sing-along songs was David democracy after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most people thought was the final victory and of liberty Scorpions’s “Winds of Change,” celebrating what singing along with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” or the ’90.” It was a time when everybody was deliriously In 1990, George Michael released his song “Freedom or the freedom of worship. the freedom to pursue happiness and opportunity, something; thus there is the freedom of speech, as primarily positive—the freedom to do or have everything. contemporary state of freedom: the freedom from bygone age of the end of history. It describes a very contemporary than all the odes to from liberty a persona. And this is why the song feels much more the destruction of all props suggesting his public in exchange, the absence even of the author and ized by absence, the lack of property and equality thing. It is rather a negative freedom. It is character defined by an ability to do or say or believe some- describe? It is not the classic liberal freedom ofWhat freedom sort does George Michael’s song and political crisis, the flipside of liberal ideas of is shifting. Especially in the current economic But it feels like the road to hell. It looks like the road to heaven But George Michael did something entirely We are accustomed to regarding freedom 2 But now the situation 1 - common as such. negative freedom. They articulate the loss of the demands, because they express the conditions of have no positive focal point or clearly articulated have emerged around the world—movements that propel the very diverse protest movements that and unpredictableuncertain future. experienced by many who are thrown into an view has it, but rather like the freedom of free fall, ment of civil liberties, as the traditional liberal Contemporary freedom is not primarily the enjoy- freedom that people in many places share today. another word for nothing left to lose.” This is the many places, the freedom from the rule of law. the loss of standards of public responsibility, and in education, healthcare, pensions and public culture, ability and sustainability, the freedom from free means of making a living, the freedom from account- freedom from social security, the freedom from the exaggerated cultural alterity that promotes: the and they apply across a carefully constructed and and political situation. They are negative freedoms, equally to everybody, but depend on one’s economic around the globe nowadays. They do not apply transport, education, or anything public at all. employment or labor, freedom from culture, public from or predictability, certainty freedom from from social bonds, freedom from solidarity, freedom form of universal freedom that exists: the freedom expense of everyone else’s—has become the only to relentlessly pursue one’s own interest at the from any form of regulation, as well as the freedom freedom—namely, the freedom of corporations These negative freedoms are also those that sang,As Janis Joplin “Freedom’sjust These are the only freedoms that we share

123 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 124 A Seriesof Evenings withtheGreatestPoets of theEnglishLanguage, 1876. The romantic free lance as portrayed in the book A Festival of Song: simple definition. the freelancer. dition of negative freedom today: the condition of rampant deregulation. have become free agents in a world of free trade and ing new forms of relationships between people who tion, oppression, and cynicism. This means explor more negative freedoms: the freedom from exploita- negative freedom opens the possibility of claiming things.certain However, to insist on speaking about will be the one who forbids you to buy, say, or wear traitor to the nation or culture—whoever fits the bill damentalist, the communist-atheist, the feminist up constructing an Other, whether the Islamic fun- wear this or that. These discussions usually end sions away from the freedom to do, buy, say, or opposition in a very welcome way. discus- It diverts the same time, it also reshapes the character of devastating for those who are subject to it, but at nothing wrong with this condition. It is of course 1832) in The term was first used by Sir Walter Scott (1771– or government and can be hired for a specific task. soldier who is not attached to any master particular term for a mercenary soldier, a “free lance,” that is, a The word “freelance” derives from the medieval 3. A medieval mercenary.3. or social life. An uncommitted independent, as in politics 2. without a long-term commitment to any of them. 1.A person who sells services to employers What is a freelancer? Let’s look at a very aspect ofOne particularly pertinent the con- Now it’s time for the good news. There is Negative Freedom asCommonGround Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary

125 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 126 are living in neo-feudal times. forms of feudalist labor could mean that, indeed, we though by no means universal, reversal to historical indentured and day labor.And this widespread, that produce under conditions that are not far from into autonomous and subcontracted microunits as well—the factory now seems to be dissolving Jobs. But perhaps labor conditions have changed of writers—has most likely been designed by Steve lance itself. Today, that lance—at least in the case not appear to have changed as dramatically as the digital hardware—the conditions of employment do baby bottles, and machine guns to any form of different forms—from stone crushers, shovels, freelance), as well as the noun “freelancer.” nalist who freelances) and an adverb (she worked an adjective (a freelance journalist), a verb (a jour has the term morphed from a noun (a freelance) into the as a verb in 1903 by authorities in etymology such as and wasrative recognized noun around the 1860s not sworn to any lord’s services. It changed to a figu- warrior” or “free-lance,” indicating that the lance is the West because it was adapted as a so-called Yojimbo skills nevertheless. lumpensamurai, downsized, degraded, but with key are his fighting skills, which he rents out. He is a warfare of all against all. The only thing he has left now faces a world characterized by the Hobbesian lost the privileges of serving a single master and samurai who knows master. no permanent He has This character is called the “ronin,” a wandering of portraying the figure of the itinerant freelance. Oxford EnglishDictionary . Only times in modern While today’s lance-for-hire takes on many The classicfreelancerAkira filmisKurosawa’s In Japanese cinema, there is a long tradition (1961), which also became popular in 5

4 - especially during the second Iraq War, which—as mercenary forces has made a surprising comeback, Indeed, we are living in an age in which the use of historical figure—it is a very contemporary one. lancers, the mercenary is not just an allegorical or allegory for the conditions of contemporary free- The Mercenary each other and liberates the villagers. the scene. He manages to pit the warlords against in town. In this situation, the freelancer appears on from textile production, seem to be the main industry valuable commodities, as are coffins, which, apart personnel to whom they cater. Sex and security are to housewives. Hookers abound, as do the security development of capitalism—is being outsourced a profession deeply associated with the creation and At the same time,and agents. textile production— their manufacturing businesses to become brokers by two rival warlord-capitalists. People are giving up tion- and speculation-based one. The village is ruled from a production-based economy to a consump- with a human hand in his mouth. shot of the introduction is of a dog who strolls past degrees of anguish and destitution. The closing approaches a village and meets people in different through a windswept and barren landscape, he contemporary situation. While the freelancer walks opening sequence, we are faced with a surprisingly Japanese version is much more interesting. In its before decisive shoot-outs. But the original usually of sweaty males staring each other down Eastwood and the superwide super-close-up, A Fistfulof(1964) launched Dollars both Clint spaghetti western by Italian director Sergio Leone. While the story of the ronin is a fitting In Kurosawa’s film, the country is transitioning

127 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 128 by Sergio Leone to be a cowboy in his spaghetti western Dollar Trilogy. Eastwood. Clint Eastwood’s character, originally a freelance samurai, was adapted The hollywood adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film Yojimbo starred Clint the market; free game for the forces of deregulation beautiful expression goes: free game. Free game for everything, the freedom to be outlaws or, as the to freelancers and mercenaries: the freedom from political institutions only give negative freedoms tion becomes an empty promise, since traditional negotiation. Thus, democratic political representa- loyalities that are subject to economic and military like nation-states. They engage in free-floating giance to traditional forms of political organization, occupational sense. cenary or private security contractor in the military freelancer in an occupational sense and the mer nently in the scenario of negative freedom: the which complement each other and figure promi- tracted sovereignty.” We thus have two figures, replacing it with what has been called “subcon- on violence state and undermines sovereignty, calls into question the state’s so-called monopoly accountability and the ruleundermines of law. It a sign of a loss of control over military power, which weakening of the structure of the nation-state— privatization of warfare is a symptom of an overall these private soldiers. and the lack of state control over the actions of highlights the increasing privatization of warfare about 20,000 such personnel during the occupation according to the Geneva Convention, the use of satisfy all the criteria for being called mercenaries War.While US military contractors perhaps did not international law was hotly debated during the Iraq contractors can be called mercenaries under “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” we may have already forgotten—started out as Both freelancers and mercenaries lack alle- As many political scientists have noted, the The question of whether private security -

129 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 130 He says that Global Cities are places that, marized in a recent lecture by Thomas Elsaesser. the “Global City.” This concept was beautifully sum- are related to the rise of what Saskia Sassen calls lation of liberal democracy itself. of states, and, in the last instance, also the deregu- the freedom not to be represented by traditional and nationalism. unrestrained forces of both economic liberalism tative democracy has been deeply corrupted by the digitized surveillance. The liberal idea of represen- nation-state through emergency legislation and and, on the other hand, inflated the power of the nation-state by rolling back economic regulations, has, on the one hand, the power undermined of the the system of political representation itself, which some culturally alien Other. It was brought about by crisis was not brought about by the interference of democratic representation are deeply in crisis. This democracy. This means that traditional modes of its political institutions, such as representative tially transformed the role of the nation-state and and its many consequences, which have substan- that is intrinsically linked to economic globalization Global Citiesthusexpress anew geography of power post-nationality. nation, thus suggesting transnationality or whose reach and reference go beyond a single that come together points, at certain in cities thinking of the world in terms of networks The idea of the Global City therefore implies nodes in the global important economic system. due to a number of distinct factors, have become Arguably, both freelancers and mercenaries At thispointanew negative freedom emerges: 6 adaptation of the novel. copyrights for the mask, now property of Warner Brothers since the film studio’s Anonymous hacker movement. A cutout mask allows users to avoid paying character Guy Fawkes has been used by protesters since 2008 in reference to the express it politically? even oneself as a subject? And how could we even subjectivity, property, loyalty, social bonds, and complete freedom from anything, from attachment, differently? How can we express a condition of other private security services. perhaps by using private military contractors or but still try to control and micromanage your life, institutions, which refuse any responsibility for you This layout for a do-it-yourself paper mask of Maybe like this? So what is the freedom to be represented

Vfor Vendetta’s graphic novel

131 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 132 also triggers counteractions: kind of corporation they protest against. But this buy the official version of the mask help enrich the for Vendetta. So anticorporate demonstraters who mask is licensed by Time Warner, which released government of the future. This explains why the masked rebel named V who fights a fascist British mask first appeared in by a big corporation and pirated accordingly. The object: a mask. It is a commercial object, licensed free from everything—is no longer a subject, but an the mercenary. tainly unconscious reinterpretation of the role of ness by Anonymous shows an interesting if cer pealing, the reappropriation of his abstracted like- persona is more than dubious and frankly unap- over the European continent. While his historical cenary, fighting for the cause of Catholicism all British Parliament. He was also a religious mer got executed because he wanted to blow up the appropriation of the face of a mercenary. dissent. But it is virtually unknown that this is an has spread as a viral visual symbol of contemporary face for a protest against Scientology. Since then it ated by the hacker group Anonymous as its public better.” beer fund rather than to Warner Brothers. Much goes “straight into the pockets of the Anonymous 1,000 copies from China, and the distribution He claims that Anonymous UK has imported ing to counter Warner Bros.’ control of the imagery. [One] London protester said his brethren are try- But the new mercenary—who is supposedly Guy Fawkes was not only the person who In 2008, the Guy Fawkes mask was appropri- Lose theFace Now, I’ve Got to Live… 7 Vfor Vendetta, a film about a - -

V against them, in other cases they reorganize this of mercenaries and paramilitary groups deployed While in many cases their structure is similar to that ments along these lines—they are much too diverse. it is not possible to characterize all guerrilla move- las usually do not get paid for their efforts. Of course share similar spaces, except for the fact that guerril the region. In some sense guerrillas and mercenaries proxythe dirty wars to maintain US hegemony in against guerrilla movements in Latin America during But paramilitary “advisors” were also deployed world, particularly in postcolonial conflicts in Africa. were unleashed on insurgent groups throughout the second half of the twentieth century, mercenaries historically both are intimately linked. During the the mercenary into the figure of the guerrilla. Indeed, the Zapatistamovement. unofficial spokesperson for the EZLN, also know as decades: the pipe-puffing subcomandante Marcos, famous icons of good-humored militancy of recent faces, the balaclava also references one of the most its use value in (at least temporarily) concealing terms toin no uncertain go packing. from Apart Square in Moscow, where they told president Putin faces during highly publicized appearances on Red Riot used neon-colored balaclavas to conceal their be taken even further. The Russian punk bank Pussy personas to see how the trope of the mercenary can they themselves are free-floating commodities. because, whether free lances or even mercenaries, only be represented by objects and commodities, need not only anonymity to be represented, but can provides a generic identity for people who feel they not to be represented. A disputed object of copyright This overdetermined object represents the freedom And this also shows us how to flip the figure of But look at other uses of masks or artificial

133 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 134 and surveilled. this subject who is always already framed, named, it creates the necessity to change, to refuse to be road to heaven—but it feels like the road to hell, and almost everything remain. Freedom looks like the alienation, commodification, and freedom from separated from each other. Only masks, anonymity, session, no identity, no brand, with voice and face system. There is nothing left. No subject, no pos- has been pawned and nothing remains but a sound like a foreclosed house in which even the furniture the British Parliament blown apart. The set looks guitar—are destroyed in explosions, as if they were persona—the leather jacket, the jukebox, and the they were human mics. All the insignia of his stage and supermodels, who lip-synch his song as if Instead, he is represented by supercommodities now as it did when it was first released. heteronormative celebrities, the video looks as silly With its unabashed and over-the-top veneration of ments mentioned above are vividly expressed. Michael. In the video for “Freedom ’90,” all the ele- The Mask tive freedom, even this is possible. village from bandits. In situations of complete nega- (1954). Seven free lancers team up to protect a trayed in Kurosawa’s masterpiece or to put it more modestly, as the gang of ronin por from their employers and reorganize as guerrillas— mercenaries and free lancers are free to break free occupation in all its ambiguous meanings. dom and trying to break free from dependency; from paradigm and reverse it by taking up negative free- George Michael never appears in the video. And now we can come back to George As figures of contemporary economic reality, Seven Samurai -

you take. are free of everything. ism, there is something we are free to do, when we tions of Hobbesian warfare, feudalism, and warlord- naries, who form bonds of in situa- mutual support good thing we got. you down. Have some faith in the sound. It’s the only Not even in this situation will I give you up. Will I let (except banks). We don’t even belong to ourselves. ized nightmares—nobody belongs to anybody In our dystopia of negative freedom—in our atom - solidarity. It says clearly: hardship and catastrophe—but it doesn’t exclude may be terrifying like a new dawn over a terrain of opportunity, will the new freedom open up to you. It tion of self-entrepreneurship and delusions of Hasselhoff paradigm of freedom, with its glorifica- you accept that there is no way back into the David what you take. Freedom: I will not give you up. You got to give Freedom: I won’t let you down. The new freedom: you’ve got to give for what Just like Kurosawa’s free lancers and merce- So here is the final good news. Only when

135 Hito Steyerl Freedom from Everything: Freelancers and Mercenaries 136 got to change, oh yeah But today the way I play the game has For the boys on MTV I went back home got a brand new face We won the race, got out of the place We were living in a fantasy on the run boy We had every big-shot good time band What a kick just a buddy and me boy Heaven knows we sure had some fun You’ve gotta give for what you take Freedom, freedom, freedom You’ve gotta give for what you take Freedom, freedom, freedom And you don’t belong to me, yeah yeah Is that I don’t belong to you All we have to see somehow Is take these lies and make them true All we have to do now the man Sometimes the clothes do not make I just hope you understand Take back your singing in the rain Take back your picture in a frame There’s someone else I’ve got to be There’s something deep inside of me I think it’s time I told you so know I think there’s something you should Think I’m gonna get myself some happy No way the same But today the way I play the game is not On your rock and roll TV Brand new clothes and a big fat place To win the race?A prettier face! And I guess it was enough for me pride and joy I was every little hungry schoolgirl’s Didn’t know what I wanted to be Heaven knows I was just a young boy stick around, oh yeah Because I would really, really love to So please don’t give me up I won’t let you down It’s the one good thing that I’ve got Gotta have some faith in the sound I will not give you up I won’t let you down 1

George Michael,George “Freedom ’90”:

I’ve got to live. Lose the face now Just the way it’s got to be May not be what you want from me yeah You’ve gotta give for what you take, Freedom, freedom, freedom You’ve gotta give for what you take Freedom, freedom, freedom And you don’t belong to me, yeah, yeah to you All we have to see is that I don’t belong And make them true somehow All we have to do now, is take these lies the man Sometimes the clothes do not make I just hope you understand And after all this time That’s what you get, that’s what you get your mind I say that’s what you get for changing you get That’s what you get, I say that’s what That’s what you get, that’s what you get And some mistakes were built to last notice fast But when you shake your ass, they Everybody’s got to sell Posing for another picture I took the knife as well buttered When I knew which side my bread was But it feels like the road to hell Well it looks like the road to heaven You’ve gotta give for what you take Freedom, freedom, freedom You’ve gotta give for what you take Freedom, freedom, freedom the man Sometimes the clothes do not make I just hope you understand Take back your singing in the rain Take back your picture in a frame There’s someone I forgot to be There’s something deep inside of me I think it’s time I stopped the show know I think there’s something you should Now I’m gonna get myself happy

Associated Press. Occupy protests,” November 4, 2011, “‘Vendetta’ mask becomes symbol of 7 December 2011. presented at the 3rd Athens Biennale, with Asymmetries,’” unpublishedpaper Benjamin, Global Cities, and ‘Living 6 Press, 2006), 27 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University From Medieval toGlobalAssemblages Sassen, in globalization scholarship.” Saskia one of the prevalent interpretations private global regimes. This is, indeed, supranational institutions, and novel lapping jurisdictions of national states, order resembles today’s emerging over eted political geography of the feudal 5 See 4 com,s.v. “freelance.” 3 this essay. concept is different than the one in as defined by Charles Taylor, whose of debate around negative freedom Liberty” (1958). There is also a tradition Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of positive and negative freedom, see 2 Tamara Lush and Verena Dobnik, Thomas Elsaesser, “In as abstract sense, the multifac- See http://www.thefreedictionary. On the distinction between Wikipedia,s.v. “freelancer.” Territory, Authority, Rights: “Walter

137 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 138 as Sites of Indeterminacy Superposition, andExhumation Missing People: Entanglement,

actively shaping reality is one of the main achieve- form and freeze it as an individual chunk of matter. its existence as an indeterminate interlocking wave- two possible but mutually exclusive states. We end its object. By looking at the cat, we fix it in one of sure and identifying, it interferes and engages with observation is an active procedure. By taking mea- the state of indeterminacy. In quantum physics, because we lookatit. The act of observation breaks the cat then actually dies or comes to life, but dead or a live cat decisively emerges, not because the live cat abruptly ends. At this point, either a the entanglement (Verschränkung) of the dead and even more disorienting when the box is opened and a so-called state of indeterminacy. mutual exclusivity with an impossible coexistence— Schrödinger’s thought experiment boldly replaced situations. Someone is either dead or alive. But remained closed. another. This peculiar state lasted as long as the box is, copresent and materially entangled with one locked into a state of so-called superposition, that were actually two cats: one dead, one alive—both just one cat inside the box, dead or alive. There setup. According to quantum theory, there wasn’t situation was much more shocking than the initial probable. not be killed at all. Both outcomes were equally a deadly mixture of radiation and poison. Or it might cat inside, which could be killed at any moment by ous thought experiment. He imagined a box with a 1. To acknowledge the role of the observer in But that’s not all. The experiment becomes Macrophysical reality is defined by either/or But the consequence of thinking through this In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger devised an insidi-

139 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 140 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy mostly Republicans from the Civil War period—as suspected murder of around 113,000 people— opened investigations into the disappearance and Franco himself, for crimes against humanity. He officials of the Franco regime, including General years prior, he had brought charges against leading brushed up against the state of superposition. 3. a grave. the “box” of indeterminacy. Which is, in many cases, interlaced in limbo—as long as no observer opens coexistence of life and death. Both are materially logic. Perhaps it reaches out to an impossible Euclidian physics, human biology, or Aristotelian cannot be understood with the conceptual tools of missing speaks of a paradoxical superposition that move on and keep hope alive? Perhaps the state of dread the truth at the same time? The urge to both understand its conflicting desires: to want and to speak? Is it being both dead and alive? How can we Does it take place inside Schrödinger’s box, so to remains are identified? happened to her? up or When when she her turns only apply at the moment when we find out what is either dead or alive. But is she really? Doesn’t this 2. state of limbo. the second death of the cat: the one that ends its assessed. Being subject to observation provokes the fact that it is identified, seen, described, and gas that ultimately decides the fate of the cat, but ments of quantum theory. It’s not radiation or poison In 2010, Spanish prosecutor Baltasar Garzón But what, then, is the state of missing itself? According to common logic, a missing person 1 Two Two yer Carlos Slepoy argued, any disappeared person, the legal status of many of the disappeared.As law- ted the accused perpetrators. It also determined the Franco period could continue. potentially alive, investigations into the crimes of could take place.As long as Franco was at least position, until proper observation and measurement had to be assumed that he was in a state of super Franco, for instance, had to be proven dead. If not, it tion between life and death had to be assumed. alive, and until this happened, a state of superposi- determine whether the defendants were dead or able to open Schrödinger’s box. Only then could one have argued that one had to get to the point of being derived from Schrödinger’s paradigm. Garzón could since a potential legal argument in this case can be and guilty in the second. investigate whether they were dead in the first place to that the dead wereassert still alive in order to tion. He found himself in a legal deadlock: he had law, if they were dead then Garzón had no jurisdic- Franco himself, were dead. And, according to the challenged was that many of the accused, including troversy. One of the many points on which he was situation. Predictably, it ran into immediate con- made legal by a so-called amnesty law in 1977. ecuted legally in Spain. And total impunity had been by starvation or exhaustion had ever been pros- disappearances, summary executions, and killings volunteers. None of the thousands of kidnappings, patiently dug up by relatives of the disappeared and around the country, which at that time were being Many of the disappeared ended up in mass graves well as the forceful appropriation of 30,000 children. But the state of superposition not only affec- This is where superposition comes into play, Garzón’s case was the first to challenge this

141 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 142 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy to remain open and investigations to proceed. state. This state of indeterminacy enabled the cases son were entangled in a paradoxical legal quantum missing person and a potentially living missing per box remained closed and both a potentially dead nacy. While the crime was lingering, Schrödinger’s they were in a state of superposition and indetermi- proven dead—as long as they were still missing— statute of limitations. As long the victims weren’t the crime was ongoing. It could not fall under any state of having been kidnapped and not yet found, assumed to be alive. As long as he or she was in a regardless of the date of disappearance, had to be The metaphor of film can illustrate the two possible states of Schrödinger’s cat in time. - and eternal life are superposed. power incorporated within a body, in which death developing the concept of sovereignty—ruling of the king became one of the defining factors in ness, infancy, and death. The idea of the twin body material body that was subject to passion, foolish- politic that and immaterial. was immortal on his body. He incorporated the nation in a body king was in power, both states were superimposed and justice of the realm, was immortal. While the body politic, which represented the mystical dignity body politic. medieval kings were split into a natural body and a Ernst Kantorowicz described how the bodies of idea of the two bodies of the king. In 1957, historian nacy echoes another famous thought image: the 4. the cat’s life in 1935: hydrocyanic acid. In 1939, mention the name of the poison gas that threatened the quantum list of WMDs. explosives, which Einstein Albert eagerly added to gas—as in Schrödinger’s original setup—or by tion or mass extinction by radiation and poison Schrödinger’s “box” became a site of lethal deten- forms of government. and death became a standard feature of various cide, racism, and terror—the superposition of life physicist could foresee. sovereignty. The result was a state that no quantum echoed by new experimental forms of asserting tieth century, his thought experiment was uncannily preters took into account the fact that in the twen- Neither Schrödinger nor his numerous inter In addition, the king also possessed a natural, Schrödinger’s mental exercise in indetermi- Schrödinger even went as far as to explicitly In the twentieth century—the age of geno- 2 While the natural body was mortal, the 3 In these experiments, 4

143 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 144 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy between salvation and damnation, bliss and mild. The solution was the limbo of infants. was thought that their punishment should be rather babies haven’t had time to commit many sins, so it to go to hell after they die. On the other, deceased On the one hand, unbaptized people are supposed tion, since their original sin isn’t purged by baptism. whether unbaptized infants can be granted salva- Church since the days of Augustine. The question is been a subject of discussion in the Roman Catholic are) believed to go to limbo. The limbo of infants has that babies who died unbaptized were (or even still murdered Republican? The archaeologist explained indicator of a violent demise. a wound sustained around the time of death and an bone of this person revealed perimortem trauma— of a person, who was most likely executed. The arm grave in which a baby’s coffin sat on top of the bones to participate in the excavation. I was assigned a within days, so every volunteer was given equipment Francoist militias. Funding was going to be cut off to be buried there, who were summarily shot by possible from the roughly 250 people suspected Volunteers rushed to recover as many remains as exhumed on the site of a children’s playground. where a mass grave from the Civil War was being 5. Socialist empire. of all the major extermination camps of the National called Degesch and employed in the gas chambers produced industrially as Zyklon B by a company in Poznan to kill disabled people. Later on, it was hydrocyanic acid was used in a Nazi gas chamber The limbo of infants—an intermediary state But why would a baby be buried on top of a In 2011, I was in the Spanish town of Palencia,

mirror(s) of the universe”: ture of the universe. He calls them “perpetual living monads, each of which encloses the whole struc- monad. According to Leibniz, the world is made of belonged to the philosopher. Hannover. But many doubt whether the skull really to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was put on display in 6. executed supporter of the Republic. bone remained, which mixed with the remains of the were moved to a new location. Only a tiny finger when the bones of the richer people in the cemetery empty. Its remains had possibly been taken along the second. Spanish republic shines uncomfortably through superposed on a children’s playground, as the first Things superposed onto other things in a cemetery bodies of people shot as terrorists and insurgents. unresolved things themselves, dumped onto the establishing a different vision of things—being even ascend to a state of ultimate happiness by and hopelessness. In limbo the children might torture—is thus not just a place of eternal boredom things extends to any distance, however great. adjoining itself. This inter-communication of happens to them, but also is affected by bodies in some way feels the effect of everything that affected by those which are in contact with it and their distance, so that each body not only is an effect upon distant bodies in proportion to together) and in the plenum every motion has All is a plenum (and thus all matter is connected In 1714, Leibniz developed the idea of the In 2011, a plaster cast of a skull said to belong The baby was gone. The crumbling coffin was

145 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 146 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy as Leibniz’s was really his. doubted whether the skull triumphantly presented Already at the time of its “recovery,” many people Leibniz’s skull, as well as to the story of its retrieval. eriality. This also applies to the plaster cast of and snap them back into one distinct state of mat- that produce them as durable and individual objects, these objects condense the forms of observation monad—or more simply, as an image. But equally, tograph. In this way, we can understand a bone as a universe and conserve it, as in a long exposure pho- each monad capture a specific relation to the layers of monads. The strata of crystallized time in God is in all things. blurry to ours.As the only being able to read them, transparent to his gaze alone and remain vague and Leibniz, only God is able to read all monads. They are history of their relations to the world. According to that fossilize not only their own history, but the everything else as well. They are like hard disks history, but—in an opaque and unresolved form— objects of evidence condense not only their own some less. Like monads, bones, skulls, and other tion. Some are more clear in storing information, But monads also have different degrees of resolu- had been lost. Eventually, on Friday 4 July 1902, the church documents relating to Leibniz’s burial These doubts were exacerbated by the fact that is far off as well in time as in place. shall happen, observinginthepresent that which ing everywhere, and even what has happened or who sees all might read in each what is happen- all that takes place in the universe, so that he And consequently every body feels the effect of But humans are also able to decipher some 5

lows. And whatever emerged wouldn’t be a cat, but opened, this probability would drop to extreme the metaphorical box of political laboratories was emerge from the box wasBut whenever 50/50. experiment, the probability that a live cat would and Schrödinger’s experiment. In Schrödinger’s between the experiments in political sovereignty 7. the skull was both his and not his? belonged to him. But could he have imagined that might have computed the likelihood that the skull Leibniz, the coinventor of mathematical probability, enance of the cast seems better established: While the origin of the skull is contested, the prov remains were indeed those of Leibniz. Nevertheless, and thus left not a clue as to its original occupant. pied the grave was by then entirely rotted away of one Herr Waldeyer. Whatever casket had occu- examined by one Professor Dr. W. Krause, by order exhumed. On Wednesday 9 July 1902, they were the remains under the Leibnitian marker were beginning of 1944. was opened between the end of 1943 and the Hannover, which indicates that Leibniz’s grave Science of the [Third Reich] district capital of the Institute for and Race Ethnology Germanic racial science. Indeed, there is a report from twenty years ago, along with 3,000 books about year-old widow offered it for sale fifteen to estate of a former NS civil servant. His ninety- According to records, the cast came from the Probability became the crucial difference

Krause concluded that the skeletal 7 6 -

147 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 148 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy torship. It made perfectly clear that the “community” the body politic of fascism and other forms of dicta- extermination and genocide. The nation (race, state) had to be painfully realized by reality.Any idea of a natural “organic body” of the of the desired incorporation—and its only tangible ture a “perfect” and homogenous body politic. which were deemed necessary to violently manufac- thousands of mass graves—the porated within a single body was radically denied by died as well. The idea of a state, nation, or race incor body politic, which was supposed to be immortal, and outside the insidious boxes of sovereignty. The body politic. Not only were natural bodies killed in dead bodies: not only the natural body, but also the dead, one immortal. Now one had to imagine two the political idea of the two bodies of the king, one entered the box died when the box was reopened. ing were radicalized to make sure that anything that that determined life or death. Michel Foucault described the stochastic calculus Economies of death. Inhislectures aboutbiopolitics, Phrenology. Statistics. Medical experimentation. ment and identification became tools of murder. fected observation as a method of killing. Measure- millions and millions? planet. Why stop at two dead creatures? Why not it inside out so turned it would spill all over the weapons of mass destruction. It took the box and radically advanced the development of all kinds of ing multiplication of victims. The twentieth century death upon death, and a factory for the breathtak The box became a site for the superposition of humans—more precisely, corpses upon corpses. The mass graves thus formed a negative image This development also signified the death of Additionally, the twentieth century also per 8 Counting and observ fosses communes, fosse commune was - - - -

Vasily Vereshchagin, The Apotheosisof War, 1871, oil on canvas, 127 × 197 cm.

149 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 150 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy connected to the precarious political situation in with DNA testing. This lack of funding is of course University of Madrid for lack of funding to proceed anthropology at the Autonomous department The remains of some of them are stored in the over them ceased. duced into language and history, the spell of the law bones were retransformed into persons and reintro- were reburied or returned to relatives.And as the Missing persons were identified and their remains it was—overwhelmingly fell on the side of death. of death, which—the twentieth century being what ing decisions between the state of life and the state excavated, states of indeterminacy ended too, forc- be missed.And as mass graves were successively tionally window of made short—a to opportunity entanglement is transitional. It can even be excep- 8. on existing. any world other than the one that miserably dragged eration of possible deaths and the impossibility of realities coexisted was transformed into the prolif- dream of parallel worlds in which incompossible and entanglements of humans and things. And the that violently ended many possible superpositions experiment came to presence the mass graves into a matter of probability. Schrödinger’s thought deadly superposition, transforming death certain were created in which law and exception blurred in ratories of sovereignty. Here, gaping political limbos state of indeterminacy was echoed in political labo- plete and disastrous fake vying for legitimacy. that produced it was a “fausse commune,” a com- But many of the missing remain nameless. As quantum theory predicts, the state of Schrödinger’s innocent if eccentric quantum tification. nutrition, but this doesn’t necessarily lead to iden- trauma and indicators of stature, gender, age, and their names and identities. They show perimortem fied skulls and bones speak about anything but which this investigation finds itself in. The unidenti- order of knowledge, and human rights alike. transgress the realms of civil identity, property, the of potentially being both dead and alive. They thus be named and known—things that claim the state beings. They insist on being things that decline to refusing to be identifiable in the register of human anthropologists, they staunchly remain things, even as their bones are carefully handled by forensic mix with the dust of the universe? from the world of naked matter in which they freely knowledge intact? Why should they want to return in order to keep the realm of belonging, faith, and bodies? That had to execute them in the first place tained and strengthened itself over their dead Why should they want to reenter an order that sus- race and rank instead of love and decomposition. and measure, in which skulls are forced to speak of of relatives, family, and property, the world of name what is the thing they refuse to betray? seem to say. I’m not telling. I will not give it away. But interrogators either. Shoot me all over again, they As if they chose not to answer to their last final face of sympathetic scientists and waiting relatives. They maintain an obstinate opaque silence in the and their silence determines their indeterminacy. of shoes. Their indeterminacy of their silence,is part bullets, watches, other people, animals, or the soles remain generic, faceless, all mixed up with combs, This is what the unidentified missing teach us: Perhaps the bones refuse to reenter the world 9 More than anything, the unidentified

151 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 152 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy 10. order of family and belonging wide open. remains universalizes family relations. They rip the are his brothers and sisters. The indeterminacy of recovered, but also the thousands more missing Yıldız has declared that not only the fifteen people of his brother are among them. In the meantime, tests, Yıldız still doesn’t know whether the remains recovered, but as authorities have not initiated DNA was finally excavated. Fifteen sets of remains were grave where his brother was suspected to be buried dead. Sixty-four days into Yıldız’s hunger strike, the investigations or even recover the remains of the authorities have for refused the most part to open more mass graves are discovered every day, Turkish waste dumps, and other places of disposal. believed to have been dumped into shallow graves, most warkilled ofduring the dirty the 1990s, are Kurdish region of Turkey. Thousands of bodies, hundreds of other nondescript mass graves in the His grave had been located in early 2011 among peared in 1997 while fighting as a leftist guerrilla. to force the exhumation of his brother, who disap- 9. where they thought their relatives were. So they cemetery, they went to dig in the common grave and then the relatives with an undertaker of the from the cemetery of Toledo, a city near Madrid, LR – This is a complex case because this came HS – Can you show it to us? LR – Yes this is ... remains. HS – I see one box which does not contain 00:15:08:05 In 2011, Hüsnü Yıldız went on a hunger strike 10 As be waveforms leaving behind individuality and egories of identification and possession. We would would become entangled matter, outside of any cat- macy, or matter in embrace. locked in indeterminate interaction—material exti - we would no longer be separate entities but things their own dead bodies, but with our living ones.And hood—one inwhich they wouldn’t beentangled with senses; things superposing on ourselves as things. tity, pure language, and the utter overwhelming of would be living things outside the registers of iden- their voices, touch their breathing skin. In which they in a state of entanglement. In which we could hear potentially, but actually. Paradoxically alive, as things state in which the missing would still be alive—not other quantum state involved in superposition, the have almost always waited in vain to access the 11. from skeleton sixty. buckle. So for example all this came from one, have found, this is the … for the belt? Yes, the some coins … well, metal objects and … But we shirts, the buttons, some other buttons and LR – This is the heel of a shoe and that is for the ofHS – What objects? sort Shoes? in the excavations. it’s very common to find, to find personal objects went to the common grave … But this, we found, or to other, like, mortality, normal and they also we don’t know if they belong to the people killed So we have a mess of bones and of these shoes, plastic bags … did that with a shovel and put all the bones in big They would drag us to this place, where we They would form a state beyond any state- But in the twentieth century and beyond, we 11

153 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 154 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy fascist monument. MoyaLuís Blanco, Architectonic Dream, 1938. Proposal for a post-Spanish Civil War from being evident. possible. On this site, even blatant evidence is far beyond the realm of the speakable, the visible, the suspension of the rule of law and aerial supremacy, ing rules of political realism, constructed by the incompossible place, incompatible with the exist- because they have not been authorized. It is an position, not because there were no observers, but ever took place. No experts went on site. buried in the mass grave. No official investigation nor to identify the roughly forty people supposedly attempts to investigate this suspected war crime, after having been taken prisoner, there have been no fighters in the PKK were extrajudicially executed forward stating that Andrea and some of her fellow Even though several witnesses have come late 1998. happened during the battle that took place there in roll I found on site may be the only witness to what many fragments of human bone. A charred photo is littered with rags, debris, ammunition cases, and the mountains south of Van, Turkey. The gravesite the remains of my friend Andrea Wolf is located in 12. objectivity of quantum realities. subjectivity to become locked in the paradoxical from a different perspective: as poor images, things and analyze them are unavailable. knowledge, and political motivation to investigate a zone of zero probability. photo roll remain unavailable for now, pushed into is the main reason why the pictures on the charred structed and maintained by epistemic violence. This No authorized observer can break super- The mass grave that is supposed to contain But these illegible images can also be seen 12 Its invisibility is politically con- 13 Technical means, expert

155 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 156 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy ashes, or lost and unintelligible pieces of evidence. tons, bones and bullets, photo burnt rolls, dispersed blurred 3-D scans, cakes compressing of dirt but- they expand into fractional space. and repression. becoming fact, subject to disavowal, indifference, object, excluded from legitimate discourse, from plainly visible: it is a subaltern and indeterminate is obscured, the conditions of its own visibility are posed to represent. But if whatever it tries to show a comprehensive account of the situation it is sup- captured under risky circumstances. or because of hasty and incomplete recordings denial, because of a lack of technology or funding, and inconclusive because of neglect or political is an image that remains unresolved—puzzling wrecked by violence and history. A poor image up in flames, doused with unknown chemicals, 35 mm roll shows what happened to itself as it went passed on, or ignored, censored, and obliterated. form shows how the image is treated, how it is seen, mation, which is not about content but form. This poverty is not a lack, but an additional layer of infor bear the traces of their own marginalization. Their demonstrations that they might have recorded, they judicial executions, political murders, or shootings at them into being. Even if they cannot show the extra - lence—poor images of the conditions that brought fossilized diagrams of political and physical vio- many cases literally materially compressed objects, indeterminate objects are low-resolution monads, in resolution of the objects buried beneath it. These earth’s surface, so do these interests define the define the resolution of satellite images of the Just as commercial, political, and military interests Poor images take on another dimension when Even if its content is destroyed, the charred 15 They may be 14 It cannot give 16 -

the task. unlimited authority? Whoever he is, he is not up to text? Is he the ultimate observer endowed with clear piece of official evidence. once as an anonymous poor image, once as a crystal- same bone can be seen in two different resolutions: that which is far off as well in time as in place.” happened or shall happen, observing in the present what is happening everywhere, and even what has universe, so that he who sees all might read in each body feels the effect of all that takes place in the is connected together) [...] And consequently every suspended, and “all is a plenum (and thus all matter things and humans, of life, death, and identity, is resentation and into a world where the order of poor images reach far beyond the sphere of rep- stateparticular of indeterminacy. bodies. It shows the violence of maintaining this incinerated along with the photographers’ dead and interpreted until its mysteries are solved. HD or 3-D, highly resolved, investigated, tested, TVs, could be overexposed in others, scanned in trash and dumped into landfills alongside broken of the world,some parts a poor image mixed with paradigms.A bone that would be abject debris in tion is managed by legal, political, and technological monopolies, and persistent indifference. Its resolu- twilight, by class privilege, nationalism, media and military violence, by the fog of war, by political cases man-made, and maintained by epistemic able, is not a metaphysical condition. It is in many image/objects are blurred, pixelated, and unavail to. The zone of zero probability, the space in which reads and knows everything. And we do not need to some obscure monotheist idol, who supposedly But who is the ominous reader in Leibniz’s Through their material composition, these 18 We cannot leave the task of observation 19 17 The

157 Hito Steyerl Missing People: Entanglement, Superposition, 158 and Exhumation as Sites of Indeterminacy that the impossible can and indeed will happen. tectonic profile, feeling their bruises, fully confident monads left in fractional space, registering their rifts of rugged and glossy images, of low-resolution carefully runs her fingers over the edges, gaps, and impotent, then justice is blind to resolution. She cannot reign in contingency. everything could be different and that probability It also shields itself from the unsettling thought that zero probability and gaping limbos in the rule of law. only denies the existence of expanding pockets of resolution, is sloppy and convenient thinking. It not solution, when it is just proof of superior epistemic to establish facts. But mistaking this privilege for a hi-tech tools of measurement and are authorized privilege, assumed by official observers who control 4 Foucault on biopower. of Exception and 3 Princeton University Press, 1997). Political (Princeton, Theology NJ: King’s Two Bodies: AStudyinMediaeval 2 discussions with Eyal Weizman. first of the text part owes very much to and for their generous hospitality. This all information relating to this issue Luis Posadas, Marcelo Esposito for Luis Ríos, Francisco Etxeberria, José Emilio Silva Barrera, Carlos Slepoy, 1 In a letter written in the 1950s. See Giorgio Agamben’s See Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Thank you to Jenny Gil Schmitz, If Leibniz’s omnivisionary male observer is Positivism is thus another name for epistemic Homo Sacer. See also The State The Palgrave, 2008). trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke: France, 1978–79, Biopolitics: Lecture attheCollège de 8 translation). Morgenpost, September 12, 2011 (my Leibniz im Visier der Nazis,” 7 niz_skull.html. gwleibniz.com/leibniz_skull/leib- 6 Oxford University Press, 1898), 251. 5 Michel Foucault, Grau,Michael “Universalgenie “Leibniz’s Skull?,” http://www. G. W.G. Leibniz, ed. Michel Senellart, (Oxford:Monadology The Birth ofThe Birth Berliner Berliner

Dancer.pdf. assets/Uploads/Toufic-The-Subtle- at http://d13.documenta.de/research/ sional, but between the two.” Available two-dimensional nor three-dimen- Dancer,” 24: “A space that is neither 15 steyerl03_en.htm. republicart.net/disc/representations/ Republic Art (May 2003), http:// “Documentarism as Politics of Truth,” “Images malgré tout,” in Hito Steyerl, Georges Didi-Huberman’s essay documentary pictures, mainly from 14 evidence. gives other examples of low-resolution “The Pixelated Revolution,” which tions, especially in his brilliant text deeply indebted to Rabih’s contribu- “Probable Title: Zero Probability.” I am performance with Rabih Mroué called been redeveloped into of a joint part 13 whose names cannot be mentioned. Necati Sönmez, 12 September 12, 2011. 11 2011. Turkey,” “Mass-graves and State Silence in 134797.html; and Howard Eissenstat, of-kurdish-mass-graves-115640409/ turkey-facing-past-with-discovery- http://www.voanews.com/content/ Voice of America, February 8, 2011, Graves Leads Turkey to Face Past,” 10 2010). Science International 199, no. 1 (June from the Spanish Civil War,” “Identification process in mass graves Ovejero, and Jorge Puente Prieto, 9 See Jalal Toufic,Jalal See Subtle “The I discussed some examples of In the meantime, this text has Thank you to Tina Leisch, Ali Can, Interview with Luis Ríos, See “Discovery of Kurdish Mass Luis Ríos, José Ignacio Casado Human RightsNow, March 15, Şiyar, and many others Forensic

at all. Turkish cases were barely investigated interdisciplinary teams, whereas the by world-class military specialists and Anfal mass murders were investigated during the civil war of the 1990s. The by Turkish forces armed and militias ordered by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or killed during the Anfal operations ment according to whether they were which get extremely different treat- bones of murdered Kurdish individuals, 19 worlds anyway. necessarily the best of all possible 18 Leibniz, 17 excavation. disappeared-get-lost-again-after- english/128282-bones-of-the- 2, 2011, http://bianet.org/english/ after Excavation,” the Disappeared Get Lost Again 16 This applies particularly to the For him, whatever is the case is Ayça Söylemez, “Bones of ,Monadology 251. ,Bianet March

159 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 160 Withdrawal from Representation The Spamof theEarth:

numbers the human population by far. It’s formed perhaps even how it sees us now. architecture of the desires and fears of our times. messages drift away from in rings, earth a tectonic official communications, broadcastsTV and text second. Our letters and snapshots, intimate and Dense clusters of radio waves leave our planet every quins. spam showing manne- enhanced advertisement our contemporary dispatch to the universe is image woman and man on the outside—a family of “man”— Instead of a modernist space capsule showing a odontic braces. degree-holders with jolly smiles enhanced by- orth image spam, humanity consists of scantily dressed degrees. According to the pictures dispersed via items, body enhancements, penny stocks, and attention. around the globe, desperately vying for human file. An inordinate amount of these images floats by filters by presenting its message as an image of the digital world; spam tries to avoid detection are, it would look like image spam. somehow made from this digital rubble. Chances and ourselves. Imagine a human reconstruction legacy and our likeness, a true portrait of our times rian—in this world or another—will look at it as our actually spam. Any archaeologist, forensic, or histo- pictures inadvertently sent off into deep space is at the material. Because a huge percentage of the plexity of those creatures when they actually look our wireless communications. But imagine the per forms of intelligence may incredulously sift through In a few hundred thousand years, extraterrestrial 3 In terms of sheer quantity, image spam out- Image spam is our message to the future. Image spam is one of the many dark matters And this is how the universe will see us; it is 2 They pharmaceuticals, advertise replica 1

161 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 162 Medical spam image retrieved from corporation Symantec Intelligence’s blog. itself; it speaks to them. ered expendable and superfluous—just like spam them. It does not represent those who are consid- vast majority of humankind, but it does not show crisis and hardship. Image spam is addressed to the a tiny sign, a rainbow at the other end of permanent their in-boxes every day waiting for a miracle, or just a neoliberal point of view. People who might open whose organic substance is far from perfect from nor have recession-proof degrees. They are those not look like those in the ads: they neither are skinny rapture of consumption. pushing, and blackmailing people into the profane demons and angels of mystic speculation, luring, tally enhanced creatures who resemble the minor cas, too improved to be true. A reserve of army digi- The models in image spam are photochopped repli- not by showing actual humans—quite the contrary. spam might tell us a lot about “ideal” humans, but capitalism. body parts. They are the dream team of hyper- on knockoff antidepressants, fitted with enhanced family of men and women: a bunch of people of their replica watches. This is the contemporary always on time for their service jobs, courtesy with recession-proofarmed college degrees, and which in this context means horny, super skinny, They are imagined to be potentially “flawless,” are improvable, or, as Hegel put it, perfectible. temporary humanity? potential extraterrestrial recipients about con- advertisement? And what could their images tell people portrayed in this type of accelerated a silent majority, indeed. But of what? Who are the Image spam is addressed to people who do But is this how we really look? Well, no. Image From the perspective of image spam, people

163 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 164 Ed Ruscha,

PRODUCTS –SPAM ,

1961/2003, gelatin silver print, 33.02 x 25.4 cm.

tion. spreads its values by way of mundane representa- this view, hegemony infiltrates everyday culture and become like the products represented in them. In trigger mimetic desires and make people want to is too well known to elaborate on here: images ity is actually not. It is a negative image. contrary, it is an accurate portrayal of what human- spam thus has actually nothing to do with it. On the techno clubs, someone declining interviews, Greek camera-free zones in gated communities or elitist tance from the lenses of cameras. Whether it’s representations, surreptitiously taking their dis- actively avoiding photographic or moving-image already I have noted that many people have started people from representation? a record of a widespread refusal, a withdrawal of kind of portrayal? What if image spam thus became deficiencies but had actually chosen to this desert becausespam advertisements of their assumed and nonhorny ones—were not excluded from trination? What if actual people—the imperfect more than a tool of ideological and affective indoc- dering to both. tion, and leads to the oblivious pleasures of surren - coercive persuasion as well as of insidious seduc- Studies—views image spam as an instrument of perspective—one of more traditional Cultural steroid overdose, and personal bankruptcy. This up creating a culture stretched between bulimia, for the production of bodies, and ultimately ends 4 Image spam is thus interpreted as a tool Why is this? There is an obvious reason, which Mimicry andEnchantment The image of humanity articulated in image What do I mean by this? For time a certain But what if image spam were actually much 5

165 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 166 and a political privilege for a long time representation—which was seen as a prerogative Within a fully immersive media landscape, pictorial identified, photographed, scanned, and taped. sively, refuse constantly being monitored, recorded, LCD TVs, people have started to actively, and pas- anarchists smashing cameras, or looters destroying mainstream representation. largely manage to keep it away from the grounds of simply melt away via starvation, derision and rancor mainstream media outlets. As intelligence doesn’t which has become a dogma within all but a very few sion is coupled with an intellectual regression, and caused substantial material losses. This reces - recession, which realityhas become a permanent obviously the metonymic equivalent to an economic emaciated or made to shrink or downsize. Dieting is ish, as anorexic beauty standards imply. People are man-made disasters, they seem to physically van- the world. If people aren’t trapped within natural or of live broadcasts from zones of conflict around peril, warfare anddisaster, or intheconstant stream life-threatening situations, extreme emergency and often caught in the act of vanishing, whether it be in themselves. spectators, and, in many cases, also the tortured ber—including the guilty pleasures of torturers, is the contemporary equivalent to a torture cham- fessions, inquiries, and assessments. Morning TV and subjected to countless invasive ordeals, con- lower classes. Protagonists are violently made over inextricably linked to the parading and ridiculing of to a situation in which has become a medium TV ing presence of trash talk and game shows has led like a threat. Additionally, in mainstream media people are There are many reasons for this. The numb- 7 6 —feels more

mainstream media, but also in reality? aggression and invasion performed against them in people be vanishing, given the countless acts of it’s gradual disappearance. And why wouldn’t the people it exemplifies the vanishing of the people: even starved or killed. Rather than representing to enter: you may be derided, tested, stressed, or largely one of exception, which seems dangerous constant exposure? desire to escape this visual territory of threat and actually withstand such an onslaught without the long ago. Now many people want the contrary: to world-famous for fifteen minutes had become true sure to represent and be represented. the pressure to conform and perform, as is the pres- Hegemony is increasingly internalized, along with with substantial shifts in modes of self-production. earlier regimes of representation. This goes along disciplining, which is even harder to dislocate than regime of (mutual) self-control and visual self- corporate media is supplemented by a down-down cultural hegemony exercised by and advertisement of shame and malevolent gossip. The top-down candidates; social media and blogs become halls influential. Employers google reputations of job of horizontal representation has become quite The social control associated with these practices pictures and publishing them in almost real time. routinely surveilling each other by taking countless of institutional surveillance, people are now also tracking and face-recognition software. On top networks of control, such as CCTV, cellphone GPS surveillance, which adds to the ubiquitous urban cameras have created a zone of mutual mass Thus the zone of corporate representation is Additionally, social media and cellphone Warhol’s prediction that everybody would be 8 Who could

167 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 168 tion; they are at present tools of disappearance. derstanding that cameras are tools of representa- surgery.need of orthodontic In fact, it is a misun- pear, shrink, and render you naked, in desperate drain away your life. They actively make you disap- (digital natives replaced this with iPhones) but environment, cameras do not take away your soul carnated in the world of digital natives. But in this greet the aliens. and is already traveling into deep space, waiting to more resilient than even the sturdiest of mummies, image will survive you and your offspring, prove naked? Congratulations—you’re immortal. This will never be deleted again. Ever been photographed and, moreover, once these images are online they hardware monopolies and conversion conundrums, jail you or shame you forever; they can trap you in affect, productive forces, and subjectivity. They can images are dangerous devices of capture: of time, intelligence) tell them that photographic or moving from visual representation. Their instincts (and their Walkout represented to pieces. nates—we end up not exactly amused to death but and our snapshots are tagged with GPS coordi- as our cellphones reveal our slightest movements register at cash tills, ATMs, and other checkpoints— peopleturns into victims, celebrities, or both.As we voyeurism. The flare of photographic flashlights paparazzi, of the peak-o-sphere and exhibitionist seconds would be great. We entered an era of mass be invisible, if only for fifteen minutes. Even fifteen them in reality. The more people are represented the less is left of The old magic fear of cameras is thus rein- This is why many people by now walk away 9 10

less linked than originally anticipated, and that the lead to more political and economical equality. more nuanced realm of representation was seen to of culture would hark back to the field of politics.A environments. It was hoped that changes in the field tion into the “soft” politics inherent in everyday site of culture became a popular field of investiga - contestation for both politics and aesthetics. The think that representation was the primary site of For a long time my generation has been trained to tion between political and pictorial representation. frame of representation. represented is the people’s monument of resistance to being Rather than a document of domination, image spam survived without major reduction and downsizing. a field of power relations that are too extreme to be document of an almost imperceptible exodus from tographic and moving-image representation. It is a a subtle strike, a walkout of the people from pho- Thus image spam becomes an involuntary record of leaving behind only enhanced crash-test dummies. walking away from this kind of representation, of its constituency because people are boldly assume that image spam is a negative image of efficiency, attractiveness, and fitness. No. Let’s correction in trying to reach unattainable standards making them invest in their own oppression and tries to impose a forced mimicry on people, thus Studies approach would argue—because ideology ency, but how? It is not—as a traditional Cultural used before—it is a negative image of its constitu- But gradually it became clear that both were This shatters many dogmas about the rela - Political and Cultural Representation To return to the example of image spam I like this. They are leaving the also actively given

169 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 170 occasional uprisings. surveillance, evidence, serial narcissism, as well as having promised but delivered participation gossip, representation is the breaking of a social contract, participated in it, then the current withdrawal from raphy was a civil contract between the people who background to think through these ideas. If photography as a form of civil contract provides a rich to each other. Ariella Azoulay’s concept of photog- the senses were not necessarily running parallel of goodspartition and ofrights and the partition cial operation but also a process that takes place in discussion boards. Speculation is not only a finan - cloning of rumor and its amplification on overwhelmed by mass media production, by the dards of truth production have in journalism been standards of public information. Professional stan- tion and privatization; they also refer to loosened deregulation. further destabilized by systemic speculation and tions between signs and their referents have been it has become very unstable in an era in which rela- unpredictable consequences. more precisely, in a game showparticipation with Ponzi schemes of the early twenty-first century, or, visual representation thus somewhat resembles the more uneven. The social contract of contemporary tion in the political and economic realms became represented (to extent), a certain people’s- participa acknowledged as a potential consumer and visually nomic interest. While every possible minority was into a deep crisis and was overshadowed by eco- gies, political representation of the people slipped drive and was popularized through digital technolo- Both terms do not only apply to financializa- And if there ever was a link between the two, While visual representation shifted into over 11 Wikipedia

- invisible, or even disappeared and missing people. sponds to a growing number of disenfranchized, number of unmoored and floating images corre- sentation. To phrase it more dramatically: a growing referents; on the other, many people without repre- one hand, there is a huge number of images without There is a serious imbalance between both. On the exactly in unison with other forms of representation. remaining indexical relation. lous enhancement, or spin, any that snaps apart between a sign and its referent, a sudden miracu- who are indeed behind their creation. If Jean Genet get treated as lumpen-data, avatars of the conmen high-end representation. Creatures of image spam dummies, which inhabit the world of visibility and different from any other kind of representational the low-res people they appeal to. This is how it is paradoxically end up on a similar level to that of unseen. They are treated like digital scum, and thus people shown in it thus remain, to a large extent, immigration walls, barriers, and fences. The plastic which are slowly becoming as potent as anti- machines, sent by bots, and caught by spam filters, ever being seen by a human eye. It is made by remains, for the most part, invisible. current situation because it is a representation that cably altered. an overpopulation of images, this relation is irrevo- in public. In an age of unrepresentable people and accurate representations of something or someone from how we used to look at images: as more or less Visual representation matters, indeed, butnot Image spam circulates endlessly without Image spam is an interesting symptom of the This creates a situation that is very different Crisis of Representation 12

171 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 172 fabulously romance. Or even pubic things, as the languages of spam are now increasingly res publicae, or public things. duction has become mass production, images traffic between things and intensities. As their pro- shared ground for action and passion, a zone of and not by being represented in one. Any image is a people might happen by jointly making an image they are perhaps also increasingly aware that the images—and not their objects or subjects— sible representation? image of what the people are not as their only pos- image with absolutely no pretense to originality? An spam is the true avatar of the people. A negative compressed stereotype for ideological gain. Image the people as a nation, or culture, is precisely that: a dummies trying to claim legitimacy. The image of substitutes and impostors, enhanced crash-test going to see in the positive is a bunch of populist a magical process will ensure that all you are ever cannot be developed under any circumstance, since represented visually in negative form. This negative this, and accepted that any people can only be an eye that is not covered by anything. pen one day, or maybe later, in that sudden blink of representation. They are an event, which might hap- people, because, in any case, the people are not a fake dentists of image spam. gorgeous hoodlums, tricksters, prostitutes, and were still alive, he would have sung praise to the generic cast is not the people, and the better for it. far from being one-dimensional. Image spam’s shown in images doesn’t matter. This relation is And as people are increasingly makers of By now, however, people might have learned They are still not a representation of the This doesn’t mean that who or what is being 13

And for this, they deserve our love and admiration. to.” Whatever this is, they will not give us away, ever. meantime. You go off the radar and do what you have substitute for you. Let them tag and scan us in the regroup. “Go off screen,” they seem to whisper. “We’ll the meantime. To perhaps take a break and slowly providing cover for the people to go off the record in frozen poses and vanishing features are actually smiling but not saying anything. They know that their This may be the reason why they are continuously They inhabit both the realms of over- and invisibility. to lower their eyes to their killers every day. inhabit a shameful silence and whose relatives have ible, made up of those who, more often than not, ily share in the realm of the disappeared and invis- aerial infrared surveillance. Or they might temporar that is, the spam of the earth, the stars of CCTV and TV;or any form of other participation than morning those excluded from shambolic “social contracts,” meantime, about those who we stopped caring for, might messages carry for important the aliens in the make sure we continue to not pay attention. They appearance may be just a silly face they put on to are up to, if nobody is actually looking? Their public looks at them. than not invisible, because hardly anybody actually paradigm. On the other, they remain more often cisely, vices-as-virtues) of the present economic they (or, embody all the vices and virtues more pre- of the limelight on their behalf. On the one hand, people as negative substitutes and absorb the flak Rather, the subjects of image spam stand in for the The image-spam people are double agents. Who knows what the people in image spam -

173 Hito Steyerl The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal from Representation 174 2009), 199–200. Sampson (Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Culture, eds. Jussi Parikka and Tony D. Anomolies fromtheDarkSideof Digital Book: On Viruses, Porn, and Other Go On Without a Body?” in 1 that avoid being filmed by unregulated security monitors. CCTV surveillance cameras in urban environments. Users are able to locate routes Rendition of iSee Manhattan, a web-based application the locationscharting of Douglas Phillips, “Can Desire The Spam spam could bring the internet to a percent of bandwidth bulge. “Image all spam messages and took up 70 spam accounted for 35 percent of over the years, but in 2007, image image spam has varied considerably (as per 2010). The total amount of sent per day is at roughly 250 billion 2 The number of spam e-mails freedom to fascism.” all sides into, “Death to the people, been transformed by nationalists from to fascism, freedom to the people” had War upside down:had be turned “Death antifascist slogan of the Second World Yugoslavia would say that the former 8 world. 7 2009). 486–87. Stimson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Writings, eds. Alex Alberro and Blake Critique: of Artists’An Anthology Institution of Critique,” in of cultural representation in “The 6 contradictory. as partially self-defeating and 5 spective from early Cultural Studies. rehash of a classical Gramscian per 4 could potentially deliver this message. at least 40,000 years until the capsule only the human silhouettes. It will be figures, subsequent plaques showed at the relative nudity of the human ted. Because of the criticism directed man, with the woman’s genitals omit- depicted a white woman and a white launched in 1972 and 1973, which plaques on the 3 shows text, not pictures. misunderstandings, most image spam connect/blogs/image-spam. Toavoid see “Image Spam,” by Mathew Nisbet, borrowed from the invaluable source accompanying this text have been the-internet-to-a-standstill.do 23381164-image-spam-could-bring- thisislondon.co.uk/news/article- October 1, 2007, see standstill,” In the 1990s, people from former This applies unevenly around the I have discussed the failed promise Or it may more likely be analyzed This is a sloppy, fast-forward This is similar to the golden All the pictures of image spam http://www.symantec.com/ London Evening Standard, Pioneer space capsules http://http//www. Institutional .

- disc is strictly prohibited. terms, that pubic performance of the (1993), which states, in no uncertain cover of the movie 13 18,000. Europe since 1990 is estimated to be migrants who died while trying to reach the country’s conflict. The number of (such as coltane) played a direct role in raw materials for the IT industries on by researchers that demand for between 1998 and 2008, it is agreed roughly 2.5 million war casualties Republic of the Congo, which saw to list just a few. In the Democratic Iraq, Turkey, of Guatemala, and parts Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Algeria, disappearance and murder in former corresponds to that of enforced mass 12 entering or sustaining them. erable social contracts, and not from from the perspective of breaking intol think through recent Facebook riots ately here. It might be necessary to 11 photographed. disappear if (or even because) they are It is more likely, though, that things will graphing of things that will disappear. Wenders elaborating on the photo - 10 University Press, 2002). forthe Virtual (Durham, NC: Duke 9 This derives from a pirated DVD The era of the digital revolution I cannot expand on this appropri- I remember my former teacher Wim See Brian Massumi, In theLine of Fire

Parables -

175 Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 176 Recombination Cut! Reproduction and

of the subject as a historical form. discusses Nietzsche’s description of the making the idea of debt. In his new book, Maurizio Lazzarato of the subject itself, which is strongly connected to the body ofis at the creationthe heart of the notion superfluous parts. tightening belts, getting lean and fit, andeliminating contagion from spreading) to trimming down weight, ing (cutting fat) to amputations (to keep so-called interventions into the body politic range from diet- need to lose (or are losing) body parts. Suggested economies are often compared to individuals, which In the language of austerity and debt, states and described using metaphors of the human body. economic realm? with the effects of post-continuity cutting in the techniques of reproduction that might help us deal tions? And what can we learn from cinema and its or naturalof artificial persons, corpses or corpora- bodies? Andwhich bodies? Dothey affect thebodies resources or allocations. social services. It can refer to any reduction in spending on welfare, culture, pensions, and other economic crisis, cuts mostly government concern refers to a reduction. In the context of the current elements into a new form. cinematic space and time and articulates different also joins two shots. It is a device that constructs both debt and guilt are inscribed into the body very remember debt and guilt, people need memory, and A cut is a cinematic term. Interestingly enough, a tradition of cutting into In current economic discourse, cuts are often Cuts inEconomic Discourse How do both of these types of cuts affect A cut is obviously also an economic term. It 1 It separates two shots. It 2 In order to

177 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 178 ing to this view of law. a little more or less shouldn’t really matter, accord- ofoff the debtor’s parts body. And whether they cut tors, which means that the latter are entitled to cut body of a debtor can rightfully be split among credi- so-called Twelve Tables mention explicitly that the cutting the body is expressed by Roman law. The off strips of skin, and so on. cutting off pieces of flesh from the breast, cutting comes to the design of cuts into the body: quartering, delight that are Germans especially creative when it details a full catalog of torture, pointing out with such as castration. He brims with enthusiasm as he ory, and guilt: human sacrifice as well as mutilations whole range of methods used to enforce debt, mem- literally in the form of cuts. Nietzsche mentions a Ernst Kantorowicz, who analyzed the trope of the of bodies. If we follow the famous definitions by exchange, or rather an edit in between both kinds in the equation, and the body being cut is a node of is a natural body as well as a body politic involved economy, a country, or indeed a corporation. There metaphorical body, which represents a national which is really or metaphorically cut, as well as a implied in this traffic of metaphors: a literal body, are talking about. There are always several bodies This brings us to the question of whose body we than he is entitled to, he shall not be responsible. them should, by the division, obtain more or less parts, if they desire to do so; and if anyone of be permitted to divide their debtor into different in the Forum on three market days, they shall on account of a debt, after he has been exposed Where is delivered a party up to several persons, The clearest connection between debt and

body natural is fallible, foolish, and mortal. and ideal,the body politic is immortal whereas the body politic and its emergence in the legal sphere, A CornerinWheat (1908)—is about futures trading films to use parallel montage—D. W. Griffith’s equally deploy economic narratives. One of the first across several locations. message, it introduced cross cutting and narration common topics of Western movies. To underscore its appropriation, the frontier, expansion, and other with questions of private property, privatization, with the film was introduced into the world of cinema in 1903 tied to more general economic narratives: editing imaginary Wild West. which focuses on vigilante guns-for-hire in an shot, named after Sergio Leone’s Dollar Trilogy, extreme of these incisions is the so-called Italian ups will chop off large of the bodies. parts The most bodies represented intact, medium shots or close- retaining only what’s useful to the narration. cinema also cuts bodies in space by framing them, stood as a modification in the temporal dimension, tional tool of cinema. While editing is usually under nomic discourse, cutting or editing is also a tradi- metaphorically. in fact both are undergoing cuts, both literally and clean as a razor’s edge.” the frame cuts into the body as “sharp, crisp, and ent form. As Jean-Louis Comolli dramatically states, body is disarticulated and rearticulated in a differ Other groundbreaking advances in editing But the economy of editing is also crucially While a long or full shot will mostly leave the While cuts have moved center stage in eco- Bodies inPostproduction The Great Train Robbery, which deals 6 4 And 5 The

179 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 180 rationalization and pushes it ahead. its own form is perfectly consistent with capitalist essentialist call to return to subsistence farming, is—on the level of its narration—a romantic and economic efficiency. Even though bodies, to separate and rearrange them according to member and rearticulate individual and collective becomes a crucial device to tell the story, to dis- editing became universal. Fordist system of production. extremely efficient method of adapting cinema to a chronologically. Tom Gunning has shown it to be an of production because one doesn’t need to shoot in parallel—is cheaper and more efficient in terms montage—the narration of two strands of the story It also derives from economic necessities. Parallel nomic mechanisms, like robbery and speculation. with advanced and extremely contemporary eco- Partes Secando severed from any actual body. convey the idea of the invisible hand of the market that of a suffocating wheat speculator—to perhaps film dramatically shows a shot of a single hand— refrains from using close-ups or medium shots, the wheat farmers through speculation. on the Chicago stock exchange and the ruin of extremely popular because of their invention of Girls.At the beginning of the century they became He analyzes a group of showgirls named the Tiller Kracauer in 1927 called “The Mass Ornament.” bodies is emphasized in a text written by Siegfried without capitalism. The potential of recombinant by the fragmentation affirming of the subject—but At this stage, editing or postproduction Griffiths’s form of montage not only deals But one can also reverse this logic, specifically 8 By 1909 this type of A CornerinWheat 7 9 While it widely rights to guilt and debt bondage. This body fully individual, as well as its identity and its unalienable or subjection. In fact, this is what has been cut: the producesthe cut-off parts a body without subject and composite.being artificial The recombination of add, free of memory, guilt, and debt—precisely by burden of race, genealogy, and origin—and we can tion of another body, which would be freed from the of the parts Tiller Girls, Kracauer saw an anticipa- bodies and the artificially articulatedartificial body created by genetics, race, or common culture. In the well as with the idea of a natural, collective body racially imbued ideologies of origin, belonging, as this, it breaks with the traditional and, at that time, abstract, artificial, alienated. Precisely because of reediting—are not radical enough. he even thinks that the cutting of the body—and its to reverse it as one would in a reverse shot. In fact, through to its other side, radicalize fragmentation, in order to see how one could, so to speak, break human beings. Instead, he faces this constellation it’s no longer possible to restore the Tiller Girls to body, whatever that could mean. He even thinks though. He doesn’t call for a return to a more natural of the body. fragments and assigning them to separate elements and this was done by cutting time and activity into had to be disarticulated in order to be rearticulated, composition of a conveyor belt. Of course, they first ofing the articulation the Tiller Girls on stage to the symptom of a Fordist regime of production, compar in unison. Kracauer analyzes precision dance as a as Kracauer emphasized, moved synchronously and dance in which female bodies, or rather body parts, what was called “precision dance”—a formation The industrial body of the Tiller Girls is Kracauer doesn’t denounce this arrangement, -

181 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 182 itself up to inorganic flows of matter and energy. composition while opening its artificial affirms production.” to a few aspects of this shift in his essay “Post- aftereffect. postproduction. Production transforms into an production increasingly to starts take place within or wholly created in postproduction. Paradoxically, actually need to be shot, because they are partially to postproduction. Fewer and fewer components Compositing, animation, and modeling now belong equivalent to the production of the film itself. 3-D or animation, postproduction is more or less In newer mainstream productions, especially in tion has begun to take over production wholesale. shooting a movie. But in recent years, postproduc- correction, and other procedures performed after production meant synching, mixing, editing, color have accelerated substantially. Traditionally, post- back to influence and structure production itself. supplement to production proper, its logic flipped the name “postproduction” made it appear to be a called cinematic postproduction. And even though into an economic context. It came to define an area Postproduction walk on today. their dispersed remains constitute the grounds we Bodies were cut, exploded, and violated—and were realized using all possible means of violence. pure national-social and racial bodies set in, which On the contrary, a hyperinflation of metaphors of crisis and economic depression were not shared. But Kracauer’s views at the time of debt A few years ago, Nicolas Bourriaud pointed With digital technologies, these processes This is how editing is historically embedded 10 11

But now in times of crisis we have to

themselves via enhancements, anorexia, and digital socialist factories. By picture people reproducing trialism, scavenging for the bones of imperial or window. By kids living off the scrap metal of indus - outfits to ward off the temptation to jump out the replaced by Foxconn employees wearing Spiderman goes the loss of the figure of the heroic male worker, recombined. offshore production lines. It is endlessly edited and sweatshops and catwalks, nurseries, reality, virtual its outside: to mobile devices, scattered screens, mentally displaced to locations that used to form Production is not only transformed but funda - potentially also displaced, humbled, and renewed. recycled, repeated, copied, and multiplied, but we are in a state in which production is endlessly response. We are not after production. Rather, by the prefix “re-,” which points at repetition or denotes an immobile state past history, is replaced the term postproduction. The prefix “post-,” which is production today. reproduction. activities, and processes of digital and semiotic ductive labor, which includes affective and social tion. Reproduction both concerns so-called repro- their labor power—are now integrated into produc- work—for example, the so-called reproduction of main capitalist modes of production today. the world of digital technology, to become one of the beyond the world or media, of art even far beyond object.art The impact of postproduction goes way and its ductionrepercussions within art for the were mostly referring to processes of digital repro- dramatically revise his fragmentary hints, which With the loss of the idea of production all This also shifts the temporality inherent in The things that people used to do after 12 Postproduction inavery literal sense

183 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 184 reproduced. There is no final cut but ever-morphing tion, so to speak. This space is not produced, but postproduction, showing the aftereffects of produc- from a space of industrial production to a space of of the age of reproduction? It literally transformed with a stunning number of inflatable elements. dropped in 3-D—quintessential bubble architecture paste territory, jumbled, airbrushed, dragged and shopped infinity-horizon wallpapers. It is cut-and- likes of Mayan sacrificial pits, as well as giant photo- complete with replicas of rainforests, jacuzzi look-a- tor transformed it into a multiexotic spa landscape, When the enterprise went bust, a Malaysian inves- defillibrated and somehow industrially reanimated. region in the former GDR could be economically was still believed that this specific post-socialist to be a factory space for huge zeppelins, when it Tropical Islands close to Berlin. This structure used entertainment worldinside an artificial called (1920) inflated and replicated on a giant balloon duction in the image of Paul Klee’s sleepless with fear and yearning. offers for penny stock, flat rates, and civil warfare, together from resurrected debris, spammed by Tiller Girls, artificially remodeled online, slapped tion. Today’s reproducers are updates of Kracauer’s can it be recombined and renewed within reproduc- lap, a twenty-four-hour shift ahead of her. replaced by a woman at an editing table, baby on her famous man with the movie camera has been world going. In the age of reproduction, Vertov’s exhibitionism. By invisible women who keep the Why does this site embody the basic tensions We can find an example of a space of repro- The Angel of History But as production is cut and dismembered, so Angelus Novus

of History. evokes Walter Benjamin’s citation of the same painting in theme park near Berlin. The image found paradise in this artificial setting inadvertely Reproduction of Paul Klee’s etching Angelus Novus painting at the Tropical Islands Theses onthePhilosophy

185 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 186 homes, producing themselves as subjects beset by bodies the economy wants to see—isolated in their nized to Lady Gaga soundtracks. of social media and enforced occupation synchro- protagonists postproduced by the combined forces byornaments precision dance, so are the teenage were equally separated and recombined into mass tic spheres move in unison. Just as the Tiller Girls conveyor belt, atomized bodies relegated to domes- Instead severed of body parts by the stroke of the sion dance into the age of mediated disconnection. gaze of their webcams, Bookchin catapulted preci- lonely teenagers dancing in their bedrooms to the nel video installation. By recombining videos of Kracauer’s “Mass Ornament” essay as a multichan- Bookchin suggestion. made a pertinent She updated under the angel’s gaze? spectators, and what form will our bodies assume now? What can we edit to its gaze? Who are we, its Reverse Shot drone; divine violence divested into killing time. mobility. The horizon loops. An angel becomes replaced by the promise of temporary upward and without history, in which the future has been on patrol. It looks down on a paradise without sin the angel shuttles up and down like an elevator Gone are horizon and linear perspective. Instead, gone, and with it a movement toward a future. historical catastrophe. The lateral movement is dragged away toward a future horizon as it surveys And different chunksKlee’s of contained exoticas. edits, hard cuts, and blurred transitions between On the one hand, these are the ripped and cut In a fantastic work from 2009, Natalie But what is the reproduced angel looking at Angelus Novus is no longer

political bodies. them into incoherent, artificial, and alternative of economic viability and efficiency. We can edit and censored because they do not conform to ideas the world, of films and videos that have been cut whole countries, populations, even of whole parts by editing. of the living.A form of life that exists in editing and bones of the dead and the folly of the natural bodies these cut-off pieces, a body that combines the or excessive. We can recompose a new body with bodies, limbs deemed superfluous and inconvenient editing, a body composed of limbs cut from other to create a body that doesn’t exist in reality, only in screen. We can reedit of the cut-off the body parts is cut, we can add a substitute for it on the next do so, namely parallel screens. of the If body a part posite works. thus generates not only composite bodies but com- soundtrack for this piece. Collective postproduction of laptop keys. In fact, this is the only conceivable copyright concerns, and replaced it with the sound removed of the music becauseparts of YouTube (who may or may not be the author) uploaded it, here is not necessarily Bookchin’s at all. the fact that the version of the video I am describing through it. One example of how to do this is given by Instead, we should embrace it and firmly break lament some natural state that never existed. not shy away from of the ornament multitude and because energy and grace cannot be cut, ever. that the movesimportant are nevertheless fabulous, and lean enough. But on the other hand, it is equally and the perpetualmortgages guilt of not being fit We can reedit that were the parts cut— And we have tool a new important in order to As Kracauer rightly emphasized, we should 13 A user

187 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 188 sion and affect, of labor, and, potentially, violence? uncontrollably; a kiss that creates vectors of pas- tagonists? A kiss that replicates, travels, spreads passed on from take to take across different pro- nation sustained by sexual and restrictions. norms they jeopardize ideas of family, property, race, and that were too provocative to be shown in public, as from fiction films. The result is a reel made of kisses from that a projectionistthe parts had to censor Paradiso (1988), a man watches a film roll made of cut and censored bodies. In the film Let’s take alook at adifferently postproduced image A Kiss by movement, love, pain. tributing affects and desire, creating bodies joined exquisitely flipping around the idea of the cut, redis - lips and digital devices. It moves by way of editing, frame to frame: linking and juxtaposing.Across which moves across cuts, from shot to shot, from moment. Let’s think of reproduction as this kiss, The idea of reproduction condensed into a fleeting tions of the same kiss: each one unique. surface, a ripple in time-space. Endless reproduc- that is ever shifting and changing. A kiss is a moving tions and forms between and across bodies, a form ever-different combinations. It creates new junc- between bodies. It affectis an edit articulating in precisely of sharing, exchanging, and happening in A kiss is an event that is shared and consists A reel of ousted kisses. Or is it the same kiss But there is an alternative interpretation. A kiss is a wager, a territory of risk, a mess. Cinema 15 14

Färber, 1992). Griffith 1909: EineKritik (Paris: Helmut analysis, “A CornerinWheat” von D. W. 7 (Paris: Éditions Verdier, 2012), 538. Jean-Louis Comolli, comme peut l’être le fil d’un rasoir.” 6 tioning this work to me. Thank you to Charles Heller for men- Jean-Louis Comolli has emphasized. framed is disciplined and managed, as is 5 Princeton University Press, 1997). Political (Princeton, Theology NJ: Two Bodies: AStudyinMediaeval 4 (New York: AMS Press, 1973), 64. 1 of Justinian, and theConstitutions, vol. the Opinionsof Paulus, theEnactments Institutes of Gaius, theRulesof Ulpian, Law: Includingthe Twelve Tables, the 3 Amsterdam, 2011). condition néolibérale (Paris: Éditons de l’hommeendetté: Essai surla 2 to Bifo and Helmut Färber. postproduction. This text is dedicated dicussions with Boaz Levin around seminar called “junkspace,” especially derive from discussions around a by austerity. Other ideas in the text dealt with the idea of the body cut Timonen’s PhD presentation, which cuts, and on my response to Maija ideas of Alex Fletcher about cinematic called “Crisis” (given in 2009), on the based on dicussions around a seminar 1 cadre. This implies that the body See Helmut Färber’s invaluable “Coupant, tranchant, et net, In French, the word for “frame” Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Samuel Parsons Scott, Civil ed., The Maurizio Lazzarato, Lafabrique Many of the ideas in this text are

Cadre etcorps The King’s mentioning this film to me. 14 watch?v=CAIjpUATAWg See 13 Deriva. Gutiérrez Rodríguez, and Precarias a la Federici, Arlie Hochschild, Encarnación ductive labor, see the works of Silvia 12 2005). (NewHerman York: Lukas & Sternberg, Reprograms theWorld,trans. Jeanine duction: CultureasScreenplay; How Art 11 of painting. creating perspectives with the liberty with it to an unprecedented degree, newer technologies doing away permit cal link was always rather fictional, but modeling reality. Of course, the indexi- animated protagonists, and generally including composited backgrounds, indexical link to reality is loosened by the making of. In postproduction, the area of the making over of images, not the camera. Contemporary post is the indexical link to the scene in front of duction completely renegotiates that 35 mm film cameras, digital postpro- for example, being filmed with analog indexical link to reality by of, virtue of completely fictional stories—an of production had—even in the case relation to reality. While the cinema postproduction to production: its component in the relation of cinematic 10 than its framing. 9 Press, 1993). (Champaign: University of Illinois the Originsof AmericanNarrative Film 8 Thank you to Rabih Mroué for For feminist perspectives on repro- See Nicolas Bourriaud, There is also another important This applies more to its editing Tom Gunning, http://www.youtube.com/ D. W. Griffithand . Postpro-

189 Hito Steyerl Cut! Reproduction and Recombination 190 duplicitous, incisive. scension, ennui or elation, gentle, and bordellos—with love or conde- teenage parties, in children’s hospitals being passed on via rape camps and War. A kiss which is still out there, and probably killed him in the Bosnian man from the militia manwhoabducted kiss received by an anonymous black Vom Ende desPostkommunismus: a tion of his book tioned by Boris Buden in the introduc- 15 These ideas refer to the kiss men- Zone desÜbergangs—

Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 194 with me through digital hysteria, is dedicated to the people who bear the Transition to Post-Democracy” “Politics of Art: Contemporary and Art voor actuele kunst. 2011), copublished with BAK, basis Jill Winder (Rotterdam: Post Editions Maria Hlavajova, Simon Sheikh, and Reader inContemporary Art, eds. published in 2010. A very different version was which took place November 4–6, West Research Congress in Istanbul, Simon Sheikh for the 2nd Former “In Free Fall” was commissioned by ten years. To Esme Buden. Boris Buden for my work supporting for my efforts. Thank you especially to Julieta Aranda for consistently backing image editing, and Anton Vidokle and text, Mariana Silva for the excellent Wood for vastly improving every single and spelling. Thank you to Brian Kuan spent time fixing my sloppy footnotes tors, proofreaders, and designers who and Alwin Franke; and to all copy edi- daughter; to my assistants, Yeliz Palak task of taking careimportant of my to Laura Hamann for the extremely and of course Watson, T. J. Demos, Nina Möntmann, Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Grant Berardi, Aneta Szylak, Tirdad Zolghadr, Folkerts, Simon Sheikh, Franco “Bifo” sions from Tone Hansen, eipcp, Hendrik able to write them thanks to commis- uted to the texts in this volume. I was my students, who have greatly contrib- Guerra, Joshua Simon, and, above all, Sebastian Markt, Gerald Raunig, Carles Tina Leisch, Thomas Tode, Maria Lind, Mroué, Diana McCarty, Kodwo Eshun, Sander, Phil Collins, Polly Staple, Rabih Sven Lütticken, Tirdad Zolghadr, Katya Thomas Elsaesser, Elisabeth Lebovici, text in this collection. Exchanges with standing discussions on almost every I would like to thank David Riff for long- Rotterdam. 37th International Film Festival the 7th Shanghai Biennale, and the recently participated in documenta 12, Universität der Künste Berlin and has She teaches at New Media Art Hito Steyerl is a filmmaker and writer. On Horizons: ACritical e-flux journal. Thanks

Francisco Etxeberria, Jenny Gil Barrera, Carlos Slepoy, Luis Ríos, amazing generosity of Emilio Silva “Missing People” is indebted to the T. J. Demos, and Nina Möntmann. tures commissioned by Grant Watson, It was written using material from lec- Bureau Amsterdam, and Metropolis M. centre,arts W139, Stedelijk Museum University of Amsterdam, de Appel co-organized by Stedelijk Museum, the lecture series “Facing Forward,” missioned by Hendrik Folkerts for “Freedom from Everything” was com- Alessandro Petti, and Sandi Hilal. Szylak, Roee Rosen, Joshua Simon, Sahin Okay, Selim Yildiz, Ali Can, Aneta you to Apo, Neman Kara, Tina Leisch, rade Autonomy of Life” is dedicated to com- “Art as Occupation: Claims for an Brian Kuan Wood’s editorial work. The text also benefitted greatly from edited by Staple and Richard Birkett. 2008), which included a brilliant reader in London (curated by Polly Staple in the exhibition “Dispersion” at the ICA substantial inspiration for this text was lished for copyright reasons. Another Third Cinema, which was never pub- issue of commissioned a longer version for an Text the remarks and comments of The text benefitted tremendously from Thomas Tode and Sven Kramer in 2007. in Lüneburg, Germany, organized by “Essayfilm: Ästhetik und Aktualität” a response given at the conference the Poor Image” was improvised in An earlier version of “In Defense of 2010). Thank you to Tone Hansen. by Henie Onstad Kunstsenter for the catalog “A Thing Like You and Me” was written commissioned by eipcp in 2002. ofArticulation Protest.” This text was calling attention to the films in “The Thanks to Peter Grabher / kinoki for Riff, and Freya Chou. Tirdad Zolghadr, Christoph Manz, David lation disasters. Thanks especially to frequent-flyer syndrome, and instal guest editor Kodwo Eshun, who Şiyar and the IHD in Siirt. Thank Third Text on Chris Marker and Hito Steyerl, published (Norway, Third

- and Helmut Färber. on his ideas of recombination. To Bifo SCEPSI, in Kassel and relies heavily sentation at Franco Berardi’s school, and Jan Kaila. It was written for a pre- Boaz Levin. Thank you to Henk Slager many of my students, especially with Alex Fletcher, Maija Timonen, and nation” is based on discussions with “Cut! Reproduction and Recombi- as ever. in the trilogy. Thank you also to Brian, sparked or catalyzed various ideas Rabih Mroué, and the many others who Phil Collins, David Joselit, Imri Kahn, to thank Ariella Azoulay, George Baker, Epistolary Affect.” The writer would like Unknown Woman: Romance Scamsand of History,” two and part “Letter to an one is entitled “Spam and the Angel guest-edited by David Joselit. Part published in spam, the first two of which were It is the third of about a trilogy part Foundation in Arles, July 2–4, Zolghadr and Tom Keenan at the Luma conference, organized by Tirdad presentation at the “Human Snapshot” from Representation” originated as a “The Spam of the Earth: Withdrawal by others. crastination, contempt, and disrespect equally to extreme obstructions, pro- Franke,Aneta Szylak, and almost Mielke, Martina Trauschke, Alwin Oliver Rein, Reinhard Pabst, Thomas Esposito, Hüsnü Yildiz, Eren Keskin, Schmitz, José Luis Posadas, Marcelo 138 (FallOctober 2011),

2011.

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Hito Steyerl The Wretched of the Screen 198 www.sternberg-press.com D-10243 Berlin Karl-Marx-Allee 78 Caroline Schneider Sternberg Press www.e-flux.com/journal contact [email protected] For further information, Aileen Derieg. translated from by the German of“The Articulation Protest” Leah Whitman-Salkin Stephen TwilleyPhillip Max Bach Michael Andrews Copy editors andproofreaders Kloepfer – Ramsey Design Mariana Silva Managing editor Anton Vidokle Brian Kuan Wood Julieta Aranda Series editors Sternberg Press Publisher any form. of reproduction in whole or in part All rights reserved, including the right Sternberg Press © 2012 e-flux, Inc., Hito Steyerl, ISBN 978-1-934105-82-5 The Wretched of theScreen Hito Steyerl