# Hito Steyerl

> Hito Steyerl (born 1966, Munich) is a filmmaker, artist, and writer based in Berlin. She is Professor for Emergent Digital Media at Munich Art Academy (Akademie der Bildenden Künste München). Her work addresses media, technology, artificial intelligence, and the global circulation of images through video installations, digital environments, and critical writing.

## Key Facts

- Born: 1966, Munich, Germany
- Based: Berlin, Germany
- Profession: Filmmaker, artist, writer, professor
- Position: Professor for Emergent Digital Media, Akademie der Bildenden Künste München
- Galleries: Esther Schipper (Berlin), Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York)
- Research platform: Carrier Bag (www.carrier-bag.net), run with Francis Hunger

## Major Works

- The Island (2025) — video installation, Fondazione Prada, Milan
- Der Menschheit ist die Kugel... (2025) — video installation, MAK Museum, Vienna
- SocialSim (2024) — video installation, Württembergischer Kunstverein
- Normalcy (2024) — video installation, Heidelberger Kunstverein
- Factory of the Sun (2015) — video installation, Venice Biennale German Pavilion
- How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013) — video, in MoMA's collection
- Liquidity Inc. (2014) — video installation, Artists Space, New York
- This is the Future (2019) — installation, Art Gallery of Ontario
- Power Plants (2019) — installation, Serpentine Galleries, London
- Drill (2019) — installation, Park Avenue Armory, New York
- November (2004) — video
- Die leere Mitte (1998) — documentary film

## Books

- Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat (Verso Books, 2025) — on generative AI, image politics, and visual culture. Also published in German (Diaphanes, 2025), Spanish as "Medios Calientes" (Caja Negra, 2025), and Italian (NERO Editions, 2025).
- Edition 46 — Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin (Nov 2025) — artist-designed issue with AI-generated imagery based on research into 18th-century Donaumoos.
- Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War (Verso Books, 2017) — on art, freeports, and the political economy of contemporary art. Translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, French, Korean, Japanese, Czech, and Chinese (Commercial Press / 商务印书馆).
- The Wretched of the Screen (Sternberg Press / e-flux journal, 2012) — collected essays on screen culture, digital images, and the internet. Translated into Spanish, Korean, Greek, and Chinese.
- Die Farbe der Wahrheit: Dokumentarismen im Kunstfeld (Turia + Kant, 2008) — on the "documentary turn" in contemporary art. Also published in Korean as 진실의 색 (Workroom Press, 2019).
- A Magical Imitation of Reality (Kaleidoscope Press, 2011) — conversation with Harun Farocki on documentary film. Cahier #2.

## Lectures

- Crafting Data: Material Practices in Art and AI — Keynote, Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (Jan 2026)
- Bubble Vision — Video lecture
- The Language of Broken Glass — Video lecture
- Why Games? Can People Change? — Video lecture
- The Terror of Total Dasein — Video lecture
- I Dreamed a Dream: Politics in the Age of Mass Art Production — Video lecture

## Recent Conferences & Talks (2025–2026)

- Leak: The Other Side of the Pipeline — Book Launch, CAC Vilnius (Feb 2026)
- Screening + Talk — Cinema Godard, Fondazione Prada, Milan (Jan 2026)
- Crafting Data — Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (Jan 2026)
- Exocapitalism — Disintegrator Podcast, with Simon Denny (Nov 2025)
- Sensing Quantum Symposium — LAS Art Foundation, Berlin (Oct 2025)
- Foco Hito Steyerl — Masterclass, Márgenes Festival / Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (Nov 2025)
- Festival Panoràmic — Lecture, KBr Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona (Nov 2025)
- Unsettling Intelligences — Stony Brook University, New York (Oct 2025)
- Everything is possible (the bad news) — ZHdK, Zurich (Oct 2025)
- AI Cultural Sabotage #3 — gnration, Braga (Sep 2025)
- If AI Is the Answer, What Is the Question? — Locarno Film Festival (Aug 2025)
- Artist Talk with Bärbel Vischer — MAK Museum, Vienna (Jun 2025)
- Creative Authorship in the Era of Generative AI — Digital Art Mile, Basel (Jun 2025)
- Art in the Age of Average — AdbK Munich (Jun 2025)
- Medium Hot — Book Launch — Tate Modern, London (May 2025)
- The Tehran Summit — Art in The Age of Authoritarian Chatbots (May 2025)
- Writing in the Future — HFBK Hamburg (Apr 2025)
- Conférence with Kate Crawford & Agnieszka Kurant — Jeu de Paume, Paris (Apr 2025)
- Artist Talk — Yale School of Art, New Haven (Apr 2025)
- Praxis heute — Erich Fromm Prize Lecture, Stuttgart (Mar 2025)

## Awards

- Erich Fromm Prize (2025)
- EYE Art & Film Prize (2024)
- Käthe Kollwitz Prize (2019)

## Current & Upcoming Exhibitions (as of Feb 2026)

### Solo
- The Island — Fondazione Prada, Milan (Dec 2025 – Oct 2026)
- Der Menschheit ist die Kugel... — MAK Museum, Vienna (Jun 2025 – Apr 2026)
- Mechanical Kurds — Villa Arson, Nice (Feb – May 2026)
- Zoom In: Animal Spirits — Kunstmuseum Bonn (Apr 2026 – Dec 2027)
- Hito Steyerl — Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (Oct 2026 – Mar 2027)

### Group
- Bells and Cannons — CAC, Vilnius (Oct 2025 – Mar 2026)
- Challenged Togetherness — Kunstmuseum Magdeburg (Jun 2025 – Mar 2026)
- New Humans: Memories of the Future — New Museum, New York (opens Mar 2026)
- The World Through AI — Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (Jun – Sep 2026)
- 6th Kyiv Biennial — KW Institute, Berlin (Jun – Sep 2026)
- Global Equality and Hospitality — Trenčín ECoC 2026 (opens Aug 2026)
- Energies of AI — MAAT, Lisbon (Oct 2026 – Mar 2027)

## Recent Texts

- Knuckleporn or Phocomelia: GenAI's Dialectics of Enlightenment — Burlington Contemporary (2025)
- Praxis heute — Erich Fromm Prize Lecture (Mar 2025)
- Mean Images — New Left Review 140/141 (2023)
- Common Sensing? — New Left Review 144 (2023)
- "Who Prompted All This Shit?" — Spike Art Magazine (2025)
- In Conversation with Simon Denny — Cura Magazine, Issue 45

## Links

- Official website: https://www.hitosteyerl.net/
- Carrier Bag research platform: https://carrier-bag.net
- Esther Schipper gallery: https://www.estherschipper.com/artists/102-hito-steyerl/
- Andrew Kreps Gallery: https://www.andrewkreps.com/artists/the-work-of-hito-steyerl
- MoMA artist page: https://www.moma.org/artists/44702
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hito_Steyerl
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98366
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/61769285
- GND: https://d-nb.info/gnd/123296048
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1787381/

## Contact

- Esther Schipper (Berlin): office@estherschipper.com
- Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York): info@andrewkreps.com
- AdbK Munich: francis.hunger@adbk.mhn.de