Hito Steyerl's Mechanical Kurds at MCA Australia probes AI's hidden human labor

Hito Steyerl's video installation Mechanical Kurds (2025) was recently shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney. The work investigates the paradoxical human labor sustaining supposedly autonomous machine-learning systems. It opens with a disembodied female voice singing in Kurdish as a 3D model of the 18th-century Mechanical Turk automaton appears. Documentary aerial footage reveals a refugee camp in northern Iraq where displaced Kurds perform low-paid data annotation for tech companies developing AI military weaponry. Steyerl's practice consistently examines the visual politics of AI and its technofascist dimensions. Her provocative works, often laced with dark humor, respond to the proliferation of AI-generated content flooding digital spaces. This cyber-sludge includes low-quality memes and eerily realistic synthetic media that challenge discernment of truth. The artist's German Japanese background informs her critical perspective on these technological developments.