kiji Hito Steyerl’s “The Wretched of the Screen”: A Political Economy of the Platform Age
Hito Steyerl's The Wretched of the Screen is a political economy of the platform image. This analysis breaks down its 4 core concepts: 1) The "poor image," which gains speed and accessibility by losing resolution; 2) The shift from a horizontal to a "vertical gaze" (drones, satellites); 3) "Circulation as production," where tagging and ranking are the political sites; 4) The governance of visibility by algorithms. A key text for critiquing platform capitalism.