Gallery 16

The City of Broken Windows

Hito Steyerl, The City of Broken Windows

The City of Broken Windows uses video, text, and sound to portray a society in which technology functions as a tool of capitalism—serving the privileged and ignoring the historically underprivileged, exacerbating rather than tempering social imbalance. At its core are two videos, Broken Windows and Unbroken Windows. Broken Windows documents the activities of the “artivist” Chris Toepfer. Toepfer’s New Jersey–based organization, the Neighborhood Foundation, replaces broken windows and doors with paintings in underserved communities across the United States.