Installation view of Hell Yeah Fuck We Die, 2016

Hito Steyerl
1966, Munich, Germany. Lives in Berlin, Germany

From writing to producing films and installations, Hito Steyerl addresses issues concerning art, philosophy and politics. The artist makes film essays, a genre that reinforces a practice in which texts, conferences and image production border on theoretical and artistic practices. Steyerl deals with the arena of confrontation between art and politics in a world that is overpopulated with images. The video installation Hell Yeah Fuck We Die (2016), commissioned for the 32nd Bienal, resembles a parkour training module – a sport dedicated to overcoming obstacles – and features synchronized videos, whose images were collected from various online sources. In these videos, robots are provoked and scourged in different ways in product quality-testing environments. Based on the five most common words used in English-language song titles from the current decade (hell, yeah, we, fuck and die), Steyerl draws attention to a kind of anthem for our time, accompanied by a soundtrack, composed by German DJ Kassem Mosse using these words. Steyerl’s works comment on the constant search for speed and efficiency that governs contemporary life practices, revealing a sense of reality that is absurd, articulated by the tension created in the confrontation between images and texts.