With her first solo exhibition in Vienna, the internationally renowned artist, filmmaker and author Hito Steyerl marks a trenchant moment in the field of tension between technology, art and society. Under the meaningful title "The bullet has flown in one ear and out the other" - a quote by Karl Kraus from 1918 - the MAK - Museum of Applied Arts presents an exhibition that hits the nerve of the present.
Steyerl's work oscillates between image analysis and social criticism, between aesthetic research and political intervention. In her Vienna exhibition, two central works are juxtaposed that complement each other both thematically and formally. The multimedia installation Hell Yeah We Fuck Die (2016) picks up on an often overheard everyday semantic: Words from pop music, borrowed from the most frequently used terms in the Billboard charts of the 2010s, form an electronically shimmering but eerie chorus of the present - an echo of collective exhaustion, aggression and alienation.
Hito Steyerl, Hell Yeah We Fuck Die, 2016 Video installation (Edition 6/7) © kunst-dokumentation.com/MAK
This is contrasted with a new video installation created in 2025, which deals with the rapid advance and ethical implications of artificial intelligence. In it, Steyerl examines how AI influences narrative and visual structures across genres - and which ruptures, contradictions and ideological overlaps come to light in the process. As always with Steyerl, the focus is less on technical fascination and more on analyzing the mechanisms that shape our thinking, perception and actions.
The exhibition not only offers an aesthetically and intellectually dense examination of the media of our time, but also a discursive space that has a lasting effect - and is necessary.
June 25, 2025 to January 11, 2026
www.mak.at
