How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013
Single screen 1080p. Mov file, 14’
Still image © Hito Steyerl. Courtesy Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam
Hito Steyerl is among the most adroit observers of our thoroughly globalized, digitized condition. Her practice describes with uncommon precision the fluidity and mutability of images—how they are produced, interpreted, translated, packaged, transported, and consumed by a multitude of users.
Her video, How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .Mov File, is stricken with an aesthetic sensibility of our vigilant present. The work begins with a sweeping shot of photo calibration targets in the California desert utilised by the military and acts as an instructional film on how to avoid being seen in an age of digital surveillance. The proposals for this include becoming smaller than the pixels of high-resolution satellite surveillance (1 foot), vanishing in virtual shopping malls using green-screen effects, living in a gated community, or even being a female over 50.
Credits:
Director of Photography Berlin: Christoph Manz. Director of Photography Los Angeles: Kevan Jenson. 2nd unit: Leon Kahane. AD: Esme Buden, Alwin Franke. Postproduction: Christoph Manz, Leon Kahane, Alwin Franke. Make-Up and Costume Design: Lea Søvsø.
Choreography and Performance: Arthur Stäldi. Producer: Kevan Jenson, Dolly Grip Los Angeles: Tony Rudenko, Educational Dummy: Hito Steyerl.
Commissioned by Massimiliano Gioni, Venice Biennale.
Supported by the International Production Fund (IPF), 2013 Partners: Outset England, Dermegon Daskalopoulos Foundation for Culture and Development, Outset USA, Outset Netherlands with Promoters Van Abbemuseum, Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam
Thank you to: Brian Kuan Wood, Meggie Schneider, Laura Poitras, Diana McCarty, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Anton Vidokle
