[057]
The Wretched of the Screen
Individual
politics
In Hito Steyerl’s writing we begin to see how, even if the hopes and desires for coherent collective political projects have been displaced onto images and screens, it is precisely here that we must look frankly at the technology that seals them in. The Wretched of the Screen collects a number of Steyerl’s landmark essays from recent years in which she has steadily developed her very own politics of the image.
Twisting the politics of representation around the representation of politics, these essays uncover a rich trove of information in the formal shifts and aberrant distortions of accelerated capitalism, of the art system as a vast mine of labor extraction and passionate commitment, of occupation and internship, of structural and literal violence, enchantment and fun, of hysterical, uncontrollable flight through the wreckage of postcolonial and modernist discourses and their unanticipated openings.
“Images are no longer passive reflections; they are active agents, manipulated and distorted by the flows of capital and power, reshaping reality in their own fractured, pixelated image.”
23.11.24
[067]
The Side Hustle in Your Closet
Individual
critical
Scarabelli explores the rise of 'virtual shopping' on resale platforms such as eBay, Poshmark and Grailed, which allow users to engage in 'digital window shopping'. The ability to save items to wish lists and shopping carts allows us to create a curated collection of items we may never buy, transforming consumption into an imaginative, almost aspirational experience. The essay highlights the ways in which resale platforms mimic social media, encouraging not only purchases but also the creation of online identities through saved designer goods and mood boards - ultimately embedding subliminal modes of consumption into digital habits, while blurring the lines between physical and virtual consumption.
“In the world of recommerce, virtual shopping is the new consumerism that everyone can afford. [..] Virtual shopping exists within a liminoid space, what cultural theorist Rob Shields defines as a meeting point of the imaginary and the material.”
23.11.24