Press Release
Mechanical Kurds by Hito Steyerl, curated by Alice Labor, is one of the shows that opened the 2026 exhibition season at MACRO, Rome.
Commissioned in 2025 by the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the New Museum in New York, and presented here for the first time in Italy, the work reflects on the relationships between digital labour, artificial intelligence, geopolitical conflict, and image production, combining a single-channel video with immersive spatial elements. Mechanical Kurds reveals the bodies, territories, and conflicts that remain invisible within the processes of AI creation, as well as the political violence concealed behind images and algorithms. The fragility of digital economy infrastructures, grounded in extractive monopolies of human and energy resources, emerges in the video, which moves between documentary and fiction.
