Hito Steyerl: Plus One | Public Talk on Recent Projects

This workshop will restage an experiment that Soviet writer Sergej Tretiakov realised with children in the early 1930s. He asked them to empty their pockets and consider the objects found there as well as their material histories and the reasons for winding up there. I´d like to repeat this experiment under the conditions of digital circulation and ask participants to work with the objects they carry on their bodies, including cellphones, USB ports etc. The workshop will also theoretically question the political economy of digital circulation by reading and discussing a number of texts by authors such as Brian Massumi, Suely Rolnik, Seth Price, and many others. How do sounds, images, objects and data travel? How are they being affected by their displacement and how is their affect displaced? This workshop is intended for people working both in the field of artistic practice and its reflection. Prior knowledge of basic technologies of digital reproduction is helpful.



Hito Steyerl is a filmmaker and writer who produces written and visual essays around questions of the global circulation of images. She teaches New Media Art at the University of Arts Berlin.