2016.14 Hito Steyerl, How to Not Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .Mov File

Hito Steyerl’s How Not To Be Seen examines the politics of visibility and the means for opting out of being repre­sented in the digital age. Structured as a “how-to” video, Steyerl’s work presents a variety of practical techniques to avoid being captured by the camera’s lens. These tactics range from the obvious (hiding), to the outlandish (invisibil­ity cloak), to the sarcastic (being female and over fifty). While playful in tone, the video’s message is gravely serious; the digital networks that visualize the world today serve to exploit the masses in the name of control, power, and profit. And, as more of us use smartphones to docu­ment ourselves and keep tabs on one another through social media, we are implicitly aiding and abetting these monitoring systems through a “regime of (mutual) self-control and visual self-disciplining.” Steyerl cautions that “hegemony is increasingly internalized, along with the pressure to conform and perform, as is the pressure to represent and be represented.” Here the act of disappear­ing becomes synonymous with refusal—a refusal to give in to such pressures, and a refusal to participate in these networks of exploitation. 

Apply to objects where number equals 2016.14