The Tower

Steyerl is a master of conjuring high-end dystopias. The Tower, with its images of ominously empty luxury properties and bedraggled battlefield tents, surveys the brittle social dynamics of the twenty-first century, and the ways in which media supply comforting, high-definition imaginaries for those who can still afford illusions. For all its black-pill dread, The Tower is not without absurdist humor. A submachine gun blasting a luxe interior to pieces carries a frisson of giddy liberation, and the gleam that appears on the words “hi-tech” as they appear on-screen following the voiceover might raise a smile from even the most committed Doomer. In the five years that have passed since Steyerl made this work, the world has added many new volumes to its encyclopedia of anxiety; but instead of feeling quaint or even naive, The Tower seems as bleakly prescient as the ancient story from which its title derives.

William Kherbek, Flash Art, 2020-07-22 · read the full text

Steyerls „The Tower“ amalgamiert Vergangenheit mit Zukunft, Realität mit Fiktion in einer filmisch-digitalen Collage: Auf drei Displays wird die Geschichte der Firma Program-Ace von ihrem Gründer Oleg Fonaryov aus Charkow in der Ukraine erzählt.  Denken ist dieser Tage ausdrücklich erwünscht Martha Rosler Ständige Bedrohung aus Russland Der ehemalige Programmierer der sowjetischen Weltraumforschung hat sich auf Ego-Shooter spezialisiert und erzählt von der ständigen Bedrohung aus Russland.

trans.Steyerl's The Tower amalgamates past with future, reality with fiction in a filmic-digital collage: across three displays the history of the firm Program-Ace is told by its founder Oleg Fonaryov from Kharkiv in Ukraine. The former programmer for Soviet space research has specialised in first-person shooters, and speaks of the constant threat from Russia.

Elena Korowin, taz, 2018-05-30 · in German · read the full text

This intermingling forms the crux of one of Ms. Steyerl’s best works at the Armory: “The Tower” (2016), another three-screen installation, which centers on a 3-D graphics company in Kharkiv, Ukraine. A programmer trained as an aircraft engineer describes his work producing renderings for Western companies that outsource the production of military simulations, online casinos, safety videos and real estate renderings. The environments of first-person-shooter video games become the floor plans for luxury condos in the United Arab Emirates.

Jason Farago, The New York Times, 5 July 2019 · read the full text