#CASatHome: Abstract (2012), by Hito Steyerl

This film was online from 12.00, 24 June 2020 to 12.00, 27 June 2020

As part of our #CASatHome film series we are pleased to present Abstract (2012) by Hito Steyerl. Donated to the GoMA by the CAS in 2015, it has been made available here for 72 hours only through the generosity of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery.

Hito Steyerl is a documentary filmmaker and author exploring the mass proliferation of images and knowledge brought on by digital technologies through the fields of documentary film, video, media art and video installation. Her work frequently has political content and is often delivered through the internet’s context of presentation – tumblr pages, computer screens and other media.

Abstract (2012) is a two-channel video commemorating a childhood friend of Steyerl’s called Andrea Wolf, who became an activist and revolutionary and was eventually killed in the Kurdish region of Turkey in 1998 when fighting for the PKK.  Wolf was already subject of Steyerl’s films November (2004) and Lovely Andrea (2007), and Abstract shows Steyerl visiting the site where her friend died, examining ammunition casings that most likely killed her. Instead of including any pictures of Wolf, the Kurdish guide recounts the circumstances surrounding her death.  On the other screen Steyerl is in Berlin, taking pictures on her phone of an office of Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of weapons sold by the German government to the Turkish Army. Combining cinematography, globalisation and warfare, it reveals how the political and private are closely interconnected.

Hito Steyerl (b.1966, Munich) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016). Recent group exhibitions include Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2020); PKM Gallery, Seoul; Tate Liverpool (both 2019).