1.
John
Rapko
Penultimate
Draft—Please
refer
to
the
published
version
San
Francisco
Arts
Quarterly:
http://sfaq.us/2016/06/hito-­‐steyerl-­‐factory-­‐of-­‐the-­‐
sun/
REVIEW:
HITO
STEYERL’S
‘FACTORY
OF
THE
SUN’
At
one
point
in
Wim
Wenders’
film
The
American
Friend
(1979)
the
protagonist,
a
frame-­‐maker
at
the
highest
level
of
a
dying
craft,
slowly
leafs
through
a
pad.
He
removes
from
it
a
small
golden
rectangle.
Held
up
suspended
on
the
edge
of
a
knife,
it
quivers
in
an
otherwise
imperceptible
draft.
He
then
applies
this
rectangle
of
gold
leaf
to
the
edge
of
his
thumb.
A
gilded
thumb:
the
organic
and
the
inorganic
fuse
into
an
emblem
of
one
of
the
most
durable
fantasies
about
the
visual
arts,
that
it
is
a
realm
wherein
the
most
ephemeral
and
fugitive
aspects
of
experience
are
rendered
stable
and
open
to
relaxed
exploration.
Additionally,
what
is
preserved
is
a
thing
of
this
world
that
is
also
a
piece
of
the
artist’s
self.
Hito
Steyerl,
one
of
the
most
recently
widely
celebrated
of
contemporary
artists,
has
set
herself
against
this
fantasized
aim
and
its
associated
pleasures,
those
of
recovery,
reparation,
and
preservation,
as
something
inappropriate
to
contemporary
art
and
life.
Rather
than
taking
on
this
search
for
lost
time
and
fugitive
expression,
she
thinks
that
one
ought
to
hold
fast
to
the
diagnosis
that
to
be
in
the
twenty-­‐first
century
is
to
be
the
target
of
cameras.
But,
Steyerl
writes,
that
cameras
now
“drain
away
your
life.
.
.In
fact
it
is
a
misunderstanding
that
cameras
are
tools
of
representations;
they
are
at
present
tools
of
disappearance.”
(1)
She
cites
Wenders
in
particular
as
oblivious
to
our
new
condition:
“I
remember
my
former
teacher
Wim
Wenders
elaborating
on
the
photography
of
things
that
will
disappear.
It
is
more
likely,
thought,
that
things
will
disappear
if
(or
even
because)
they
are
photographed.”
(2)
Is
there
a
way
through
a
photographic
art
to
escape
our
contemporary
condition
as
subject
to
surveillance
photography?
A
second
feature
of
our
contemporaneity,
she
thinks,
is
our
sense
that
we
live
in
a
world
of
unsurveyably
vast
number
of
ways
of
living.
What
sort
of
art,
and
what
conception
of
artistic
form,
permits
acknowledgement
of
this
array.
How

2. can
one
bring
some
order
to
this
variety
in
art
without
reducing
some
distinct
forms
of
life
to
a
dominant
conception?
(3)
Steyerl’s
film-­‐installation
‘Factory
of
the
Sun’,
designed
for
and
first
shown
at
the
German
Pavilion
of
last
year’s
Venice
Biennale,
is
now
being
shown
at
the
Museum
of
Contemporary
Art
in
Los
Angeles.
Cocooned
in
its
own
room
amidst
what
has
long
seemed
to
me
to
be
the
most
dismaying
collection
of
art
this
side
of
a
freshly
stocked
Aztec
skull
rack,
the
piece
offers
by
contrast
an
instance
of
contemporary
art
at,
if
nothing
else,
its
most
determinedly
ambitious.
The
focus
of
the
piece
is
a
twenty-­‐minute
film.
Some
low-­‐slung
beach
chairs
are
casually
arrayed
in
front
of
a
large
screen,
tilted
down
towards
a
seated
viewer,
and
upon
which
the
film
shows
continuously.
The
darkened
room
is
covered
in
a
visually
stunning
blue
perspectival
grid,
which
one
comes
to
learn
mimics
that
of
a
motion-­‐capture
film
studio
shown
in
the
film.
In
terms
of
a
recent
barbarism,
the
installation
has
a
high
degree
of
‘instagramability’,
though
the
film
itself
has
a
kind
of
visual
density
and
rapid
cutting
that
demands
an
attention
so
focused
as
to
cause
the
room
to
slip
out
of
the
viewer’s
awareness.
Steyerl
has
at
least
half-­‐seriously
described
the
film
as
‘a
mess’,
(4)
but
the
messiness
might
well
be
thought
of
as
intrinsic
to
an
artistic
conception
that
aims
to
register
the
unsurveyability
of
contemporary
life.
She
draws
from
three
disparate
sources
of
material:
the
first
is
the
story
of
Yulia
(her
real-­‐life
assistant),
some
of
whose
harrowing
family
background
as
Russian
Jewish
émigrés
is
invoked.
Yulia’s
main
role
though
is
as
the
inventor
and
producer
of
a
computer
game.
The
second
source,
and
the
one
that
comes
to
dominate,
is
material
associated
with
Yulia’s
real-­‐
life
brother,
who
has
gained
a
peculiar
sort
of
contemporary
fame
in
posting
videos
on
YouTube
of
himself
dancing
to
the
pop
songs
of
Donna
Summers
and
others.
Allegedly
these
videos
are
particularly
popular
in
east
Asia,
and
their
dances
have
been
modeled
by
various
anime
characters.
The
third
source
is
more
heterogeneous,
including
a
range
of
contemporary
dystopian
motifs
evoking
universal
surveillance,
drone
strikes,
and
corporate
cover-­‐ups
and
disinformation.
One
thematic
thread
running
through
this
diverse
material
is
given
in
the
piece’s
title,
‘factory
of
the
sun’;
Steyerl
aims
to
present
all
matter
as
if
existing
only
as
an
image
(which
of
course
it

3. also
quite
literally
is
in
the
film),
and
to
present
images
themselves
as
only
ever
transforming
packets
of
energy.
The
process
begins
with
the
sun’s
emission
of
energy
(‘factory
of
the
sun’
with
the
word
‘of’
as
a
subjective
genitive),
which
congeals
temporarily
into
visible
images
that
in
turn
transform
themselves
into
images
of
light,
in
particular
light
bulbs
or
gleaming,
floating
shards
(‘of’
as
an
objective
genitive:
all
objects
are
surrogate
suns).
Steyerl
has
written
of
what
she
calls
the
‘poor
image’
as
a
mechanism
through
which
our
visibility
is
alienated
from
ourselves
and
is
transmitted
uncontrollably
through
pirating,
surveillance,
and
the
internet.
(5)
The
dancer
becomes
the
figure
of
the
poor
image
through
the
dances’
global
dissemination.
Early
on
he
is
shown
in
the
motion-­‐capture
studio
as
Yulia
directs
him
to
act
as
if
he
sights
a
drone
that
quickly
kills
him.
Much
of
the
film’s
sound
is
a
techno
beat
to
which
he
at
times
dances
alone
in
various
locations,
at
other
times
with
four
of
Steyerl’s
assistants,
and
at
yet
others
where
anime
figures
dance
separately
or
in
unison.
The
dances
themselves
are
among
humanity’s
coldest
creations:
the
dancers
face
the
viewer;
in
ensemble
they
are
evenly
spaced,
with
a
kind
of
hierarchy
of
depth,
the
foremost
being
most
salient.
The
dances
are
structured
in
short
repetitive
sequences,
with
no
transitional
phrasing
or
emotional
arc.
Phrases
are
generated
by
rapid
movements
of
the
major
joints
(shoulders,
elbows,
wrists,
hips,
knees,
and
ankles)
in
punctuated
oscillations
among
two
or
three
positions.
The
face
is
kept
in
an
expression
of
blank
earnestness,
save
for
a
bit
of
expressed
pleasure
from
the
two
female
assistants
as
they
try
to
mimic
and
learn
the
dancer’s
movements.
The
dancer
is
allowed
a
single
bit
of
conventional
expression,
a
kiss
to
the
camera
at
the
end
of
one
of
his
original
videos.
The
film
ends
with
a
break
in
its
visual
style;
an
imageless
screen
of
text
announces
that
the
film
has
been
hacked.
Pulling
herself
out
of
the
low
chair,
the
viewer
is
left
to
reflect
upon
the
continuity
between
the
depicted
motion
capture
studio
and
the
actual
gridded
space
she
re-­‐finds
herself
in.
The
most
common
action
I
witnessed
after
four
viewings
of
the
piece
was
the
viewer
standing
up,
checking
out
the
screen
and
its
scaffolding,
taking
a
couple
of
selfies,
and
leaving.
A
bitter
thought
suggests
itself:
the
open
proliferation
of
the
poor
image
has
been

4. introjected
into
the
piece
as
the
viewer,
and
the
viewer
finds
herself
as
another
image,
soon
to
be
posted
on
the
internet
and
thereby
alienated
from
the
person
whose
image
it
is.
Steyerl’s
writings
and
previous
work
reveal
chief
points
of
artistic
orientation
and
reflection
to
be
the
Soviet
arts
of
the
1920’s,
especially
those
of
the
film-­‐maker
Dziga
Vertov
and
the
writer
Sergei
Tretyakov.
She
quotes
Dziga
Vertov
on
the
idea
that
a
film
can
set
up
or
instantiate
a
‘visual
bond’
among
its
viewers,
while
chiding
him
for
naively
thinking
that
such
a
bond
could
be
an
aid
for
workers
in
overcoming
their
collective
alienation
and
grasping
and
articulating
their
collective
control
over
the
means
of
production.
(6)
So
instead
Steyerl
treats
the
poor
image
of
the
dances
in
the
manner
of
a
wised-­‐up
and
disenchanted
realism:
here
is
the
uncontrollable
proliferation
of
whatever
is
seen
and
photographed.
This
trajectory
takes
the
role
of
a
mechanism
of
unifying
the
heterogeneous
material
presented
in
becoming
a
kind
of
attractor,
drawing
each
figure
to
it,
while
being
subjected
to
nothing
else.
The
coldness
of
the
dance
is
the
other
side
of
its
trans-­‐personal
power
of
giving
whatever
unity
there
can
be
to
an
ambitious
work
of
contemporary
art
that
is
alive
to
our
contemporary
situation.
But
what
if
such
realism
is
just
a
kind
of
failure
of
imagination?
1. Hito
Steyerl,
The
Wretched
of
the
Screen
(Sternberg
Press,
2013),
p.
168
2. ibid,
p.
175,
n.10
3. In
a
recent
public
discussion,
‘What
is
Contemporary?’,
Steyerl
says
that
“it
is
really
important
to
try
to
suspend
[in
one’s
art
work],
because
you
cannot
get
rid
of,
the
disjointedness
of
contemporary
situations”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNW1PP-­‐034Q,
at
54:12-­‐54:23)
4. In
‘What
is
the
Contemporary’
at
16:27
and
54:05
5. The
Wretched
of
the
Screen,
pp.
32-­‐45

5. 6. ibid,
p.43,
citing
Dziga
Vertov,
Kino-­Eye
(University
of
California
Press,
Berkeley
and
Los
Angeles,
1984),
p.52.
There
Dziga
Vertov
writes:
“How,
therefore,
can
the
workers
see
one
another?
Kino-­‐eye
[i.e.
cinema
practiced
under
Dziga
Vertov’s
conception
of
presenting
workers
with
truths
relevant
to
their
situation
qua
workers]
pursues
this
goal
of
establishing
a
visual
bond
between
the
workers
of
the
entire
world.”