Steyerl treats contemporary images as material participants in circuits of labour, violence, aspiration and exchange. Her iconic figure is the poor image: degraded, copied and accelerated, losing resolution while gaining mobility, intensity and collective reach. The theoretical contribution lies in replacing image ontology with image circulation. Value no longer resides solely in visual quality or authenticity but in velocity, infrastructure and political use. Methodologically, Steyerl combines essay, montage, media archaeology and institutional critique, moving between perspective, museums, digital platforms, protest and precarious labour. The conceptual operation is circulatory materialism: apparently immaterial images are reconnected to servers, bodies, institutions and economic regimes. The wider bridge reaches contemporary art theory, film studies, platform politics and post-Fordist labour analysis. Representation is shown to be productive rather than reflective, while cultural institutions appear as factories that convert commitment, visibility and affect into value. The screen becomes an institutional ecology of unstable subjects and unequal resolutions.