Factory of the Sun by Hito Steyerl at MOCA

Premiering at the German Pavilion of the 2015 Venice Biennale before touring internationally, The Museum of Contemporary Art described the work as a “landmark video installation.” The piece was the talk of Venice at the time, with Google Arts & Culture describing it as “probably the most talked-about piece at the significant biennale.” Factory of the Sun blends the symbolism of sunlight with digital age critiques, employing a video game format to explore the paradox of the Internet’s utopian promise versus its oppressive transparency. The work stands in a long line of digital art that asks ethical questions about our digitizing world beyond blindly praising it—along with works by artists like CTG and Lauren Lee McCarthy. Narrated by the fictional game’s programmer, Yulia, the film oscillates between reality levels, portraying characters as motion capture laborers whose movements become light impulses. Through genres like news reportage and internet dance videos, Steyerl examines collective resistance in a surveillance-dominated virtual world, telling the surreal story of workers whose forced movements create artificial sunlight.