Hito Steyerl. The City of Broken Windows
Castello di Rivoli 2018
Italian translation of the catalogue by Scriptum
Hito Steyerl focuses on the role of media, technology and the circulation of images in the era of digital nativism. The artist creates installations in which film production is associated with the construction of architectural environments. For her exhibition at Castello di Rivoli, she premieres The City of Broken Windows (2018), stemming from research into the practices of Artificial Intelligence industries and urban painting. The City of Broken Windows revolves around the process of teaching artificial intelligence how to recognize the sound of breaking windows. Steyerl explores how AI affects our urban environment and how alternative practices may emerge through pictorial acts in the public space. Chris Toepfer, protagonist of the new work, will board up Castello di Rivoli with trompe l’oeil window paintings. Steyerl’s new project offers an intriguing perspective on how the digital contemporary imagination shapes our perception of reality. Screens, windows, liquid and non-liquid crystals all tie together in this new installation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a new Castello di Rivoli publication and by a one-day Symposium and study day on Artificial Intelligence, which will be held on December 12, 2018. Participants to be announced and include Esther Leslie, Professor of Political Aesthetics at Birkbeck, University of London.