KIBLIX 2025 | Reading Sessions: Medium Hot – Images in the Age of Heat

Reading Sessions: Medium Hot – Images in the Age of Heat
15 November–13 December, 2025, at 10 a.m.
(five sessions: 15 November, 22 November, 29 November, 6 December and 13 December 2025)
MMC KIBLA

Medium Hot – Images in the Age of Heat is a series of reading and research meet-ups within ACE KIBLA’s informal education program. Participants will read and discuss Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat (2025) by artist and theorist Hito Steyerl.

The sessions are collectively facilitated by actress and performer Barbara Kukovec, philosopher and feminist theorist Maja Pan, educator Cvetanka Mileva, and art historian and curator Irena Borić.

Using Hito Steyerl’s book as a starting point, the series will foster a shared pedagogical environment. Sessions will be held weekly from 15 November to 13 December 2025, at MMC KIBLA.

In this collection of essays, the author examines how artificial intelligence, large language models, and algorithmic image generation are transforming our understanding of the world. She argues that these practices cannot be separated from the economic and political conditions of their time. The author investigates the production and distribution of images in the era of artificial intelligence and climate change. She asks whether art can be created not only with machines but also for machines. She criticizes the creation of images that heat the planet, strip workers of voting power, and support the arms trade, and questions whether such creations can be considered art at all. In an age of rapid transformation, Steyerl undertakes crucial work as she explores whether machine learning will permeate every aspect of our lives and what that means for the future.

The reading sessions are intended for participants interested in theoretical questions in the field of art. No prior expertise is required, though we recommend reading the selected texts in advance. You may optionally register your attendance in advance by email at polagomazavod@gmail.com.

You are warmly invited to join us!

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1st Session / Saturday, 15 November, at 10 a.m.

We will begin the reading sessions with the first two essays from Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat: “The Hardest Part”: Statistical Image Making and War Economics in Burnt-Out Images: A Thermodynamical Turn. Drawing from these texts, we will discuss the author’s philosophical approach and the significance of image production under conditions of war in today’s sociopolitical context.

2nd Session / Saturday, 22 November, at 10 a.m.

In the second session, we will discuss the essays Medium Hot: The Political Economy of Entropy and Knucleporn of Phocomelia: GenAI’s Dialectics of Enlightenment, focusing on the relationships between art and artificial intelligence.

3rd Session / Saturday, 29 November, at 10 a.m.

In the third session, we will read the essays Mean Images and The Digital Rift: From Poor Images to Power Images. Based on these two texts, and optionally others, we will discuss the role of images in the contemporary political and economic context, as well as the forms of labor underlying their production.

4th Session / Saturday, 6 December, at 10 a.m.

In the fourth session, we will read the essays We Didn’t Start the Fire: Physical and Digital Pipelines with Gago Gagoshidze and Miloš Trakilović and Who Does the World Belong To? AI, Art and Common Sense. Drawing from these texts, and optionally others, we will discuss the infrastructures that enable the endless proliferation of images.

5th Session / Saturday, 13 December, at 10 a.m.

In the final session, we will read the essays Walk the Walk: Beyond Blockchain Orientalism, Roko’s Basilisk: Artificial Stupidities and Existential Risk, and Twenty-One Art Worlds: A Game Map with Department of Decentralization and GPT-3. Based on these texts, and optionally others, we will discuss possibilities for choice and resistance.

The reading and learning sessions are organized in collaboration with Institute Polagoma.