'Much of the experience is meant to be horrible': Hito Steyerl review

Serpentine Gallery, London
The German artist provides an uneasy ride in a show that starts in the digital realm and leads us towards the difficulties of everyday reality

There is a health and safety warning on one of the apps you must download to get the full augmented reality experience of Hito Steyerl's Serpentine Gallery project. "In the future, 100% of all humans will die," Steyerl warns us. "Access this zone at your own risk and don't complain later." She forewarns us of trouble, and that adults are advised to treat the experience as a fiction. "Anyone under the age of 19 is safe to understand it as they please, as they can probably deal with it."

Tart, funny and furious, filled with rants and "semi-poems", Steyerl's latest project is difficult to approach. Complex, playful and barbed, her art is leavened by an often snarky humour that softens us up for the sucker punch. She seduces and entertains, only to lead us out of our depth. The first big British show by the German-born artist since her 2014 ICA survey begins in the digital realm and leads us inexorably toward the difficulties of everyday reality. It is not an easy ride.