The Cyber (In)Visibility Paraodox As Seen in Hito Steyerl’s Fucking Didacting Educational. mov File


In How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013), Hito Steyerl delves into the complexities of visibility and invisibility within contemporary surveilled societies. Through a satirical lens, she parodies self-help videos while offering uncanny strategies to remain unseen.

Steyerl highlights the inherent dangers associated with both being seen and not being seen. On one hand, the disappearance from public discourse poses a significant threat to marginalized groups and non-conforming identities, as it can lead to erasure and further marginalization. Conversely, constant surveillance and visibility subject individuals to vulnerability, echoing Foucault's notion of surveillance as a mechanism of power.

This paradox is exacerbated in a datafied world, where surveillance from higher authorities, sousveillance from peers, and counterveillance from the dominated towards the dominating powers coalesce into an "omniveillant" digital society. The ownership and control of personal data by Big Tech companies often clash with individual agency and privacy rights, further complicating the issue.





Steyerl's video prompts reflection on these complexities, challenging viewers to consider the implications of their own visibility and invisibility in an increasingly data-driven and surveilled world. Her strategies for avoiding visibility underscore the difficulty of maintaining privacy and autonomy amidst pervasive surveillance, particularly for those whose identities or perspectives diverge from the mainstream.

Sex workers are an example of this visibility-invisibilty paradox. While they can promote their services to a larger public, they also expose themselves to threats. To help sex workers with the issue the collective Cypher Sex published How to Cypher Sex: A Manual for Collective Digital Self-Defense Guides (2024). A manual that is specifically aimed to supporting sex workers in Belgium to hide their identities.

Talking to Donatella Portoghese from Constant that supported the publication, she explained that the collective carried a thorough research to understand the needs of sex workers in Belgium. They received demands for a similar publication from other regions as well, but the self-defense guide is specifically designed for the Belgian context and cannot be duplicated since it strongly depends on the local context like local privacy laws, communication platforms, service providers, etc.). It provides however a blueprint on how to camouflage from digital surveillance.



How to Cypher Sex: A Manual for Collective Digital Self-Defense Guides can be freely downloaded here.

How to Cypher Sex: A Manual for Collective Digital Self-Defense Guides by the collective Cypher Sex
Hito Steyerl on the dangers of being both visible and invisible in today’s surveillance capitalist world in How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013).

BACK