In this second iteration of New Humans: From Museum to Screen, Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962) is introduced by artist Hito Steyerl and paired with her short film How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013).
La Jetée, a photo-roman composed almost entirely of still images, portrays a man in a dystopian future who is forced to time-travel through his memories to unlock the key to humanity's survival. How Not to Be Seen, a satirical instructional video shot against the backdrop of US Air Force aerial-photography calibration targets, teaches its viewers techniques for becoming invisible within a culture of hypervisibility. The two films reveal how the images and technologies of surveillance cut both ways: in La Jetée, the recollected images that hold the key to humanity’s survival also conceal the protagonist's death; in How Not to Be Seen, technology designed to surveil entire populations simultaneously renders certain bodies invisible.
Hito Steyerl’s Mechanical Kurds (2025) is on view now at the New Museum
Tickets for New Museum x Metrograph events become available one month in advance of the screening date. Check back for a link to purchase tickets soon.
New Humans: From Museum to Screen is an ongoing monthly series co-curated by Thalia Stefaniuk and Inge de Leeuw.
