The Future of the Image in the Age of Climate Change

Medium Hot is the essential handbook for our present conjuncture, exploring the limits of art and technology. Hito Steyerl argues that these practices cannot be divorced from economic and political conditions. In an era of supercharged change, she examines the way machine learning infiltrates every aspect of our lives and what that means for the future.

"In 11 searing essays, filmmaker and new media scholar Steyerl discusses cutting-edge advancements in AI and art and outlines the ripple of damage caused by competing tech companies. By highlighting a system of global damage incurred at the expense of new technology, Steyerl paints a rotten digital landscape on the brink of something terrible. A techno-environmentalist warning shot for the digital landscape's impending doom." - Kirkus

"With the rise of generative AI, images are changing; [Medium Hot] offers theoretical tools and language to grapple with what that means." - Frieze

"With this new book, Steyerl returns to her ongoing interest in the nature of digital images, which have grown ever stranger as AI tools become publicly accessible." - Art in America

"[Medium Hot] turns its attention to the accelerating forces shaping our visual culture in the age of AI ... with Steyerl's signature blend of critical theory, dry wit and sharp eye for the surreal contradictions inherent in our digital era." - Morning Star

"A propulsive read" - ArtReview

"Insightful [and] memorably stylish, above all in delivering a damning verdict." - Apollo

"Compelling ... Steyerl challenges us to recognise the vast scale of AI's ubiquity and to realise its 'artificial stupidity' by disentangling its inner workings." - ArtReview

"For more than a decade, artist Hito Steyerl has been writing-in biting, playful prose-about how images, technology, and politics are all interlinked. In her latest book, Steyerl returns to her familiar territory of war and violent conflict, updated for the era of Web3, and this time she expresses her stance more decisively and simply than ever before" - Art in America

"Reading Medium Hot felt like downloading an especially adaptive dataset and plugging it directly into my neural pathways-in almost no time, I'd become a small language model of my own." - The Baffler

"A sharp, convincing take." - Art in America