Hito Steyerl is fascinated by the digital technologies used to make and circulate these images around the world. She pushes the boundary of traditional video, often obscuring what is real beneath many layers of metaphors and satirical humor. In her work, she has addressed the wide–ranging effects of today’s mass proliferation and dissemination of images, issues of surveillance migration and militarization, and the evolving functions of technology in our networked culture.

A suggested by the title, this video installation titled Liquidity Inc. uses water as its guiding theme. The story takes as a point of departure the story of Jacob Wood, a former financial analyst who lost his job during the 2008 economic recession and decided to turn his hobby in mixed martial arts into a career. Steyerl follows actor and martial artist Bruce Lee’s dictum to “be shapeless, formless, like water,” turning “liquidity” into a trope fluid enough to speak about everything from the weather to water as material resource, to the circulation of information and assets. Projected onto a screen in front of a wave–like ramp structure, Liquidity Inc. is a captivating parable of economic crisis and contemporary culture that is by turns playful and poignant.