'Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges' starts tomorrow a retrospective of the German filmmaker Harun Farocki
The projections of the cycle ‘Convertirse en imagen’ are co-organized with the Goethe-Institut and the Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón
Still of Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges
The Paraninfo de Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura will host tomorrow, starting at seven p.m., Imágenes del mundo y epígrafe de la guerra, the first projection of the cycle Convertir(se) en imagen. Una retrospectiva el cineasta alemán Harun Farocki, organized by LABoral Centro de Arte, the Goethe Institut-Madrid and the Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón. The program includes six sessions that go through the filmography of the German director since its inception in the sixties, to his last films. All of them will be screened until 18 June, at two sessions per month, in the Paraninfo de Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura and the hall of the Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto.
Convertir(se) en imagen. Una retrospectiva histórica del cineasta alemán Harun Farocki serves as a tribute to the filmmaker died in 2014, a pivotal figure when talking about the centrality of the image in our culture. This activity has the support of the Fundación Municipal de Cultura, Educación y Universidad Popular del Ayuntamiento de Gijón and LABoral Ciudad de la Cultura.
Recognized as one of the original members of the New German Cinema movement, the work of Harun Farocki (Czechoslovakia, 1944), it is composed of more than one hundred titles, always maintained a political reflection and questioned the influence of visual media in human thought. Essential in his first films in the style of the nouvelle vague, his filmography evolved gradually toward a "guerrilla theater" very committed. Farocki knew how to transport the criticism on images to a mutant place, similar, but different, from Godard films, which come together in essay form fiction and documentary.
Harun Farocki (Czechoslovakia, 1944 - Germany, 2014) studied at the Berliner Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie (German Academy of Film and Television). Between 1974 and 1984 he edited the magazine Filmkritik of Munich. Later he was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Florida in Gainesville. In 2004 he started to work as a visiting professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Vienna where between 2006 and 2011 he was a professor.
Harun Farocki is one of the most notable documentaries and essay films directors of recent history. Since 1966 he has created over a hundred productions for television or cinema, including programs for children, documentaries, essay films and feature films. His work has been exhibited in retrospectives in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Israel, India, Singapore, Indonesia and throughout Europe. Since 1996 he has exhibited in countless solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world, having garnered numerous awards.
PROGRAMME
07. 04. 2015
Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges, 1988
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Paraninfo Ciudad de la Cultura
Duration of the Session: 75’
An essay verified with the camera about the connection between perception and industrial production. The film focuses on photography and the application of images, as well as the question of the effect of war on the reproduced reality. In April 1944 a few American pilots took aerial shots of Buna factories without realizing that they had also photographed the concentration camp of Auschwitz. These aerial shots will not be valued correctly until 1977.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: Ingo Kratisch
In-camera effects: Irina Hoppe
Assembling: Rosa Mercedes
Broadcaster: Ulrike Grote
18.04.2015
Erkennen und verfolgen, 2003 + Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik, 1995
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto
Duration of the Session: 95’
Erkennen und verfolgen. 58 '. Colour and B/W.
The recordings of the crosshairs of American missiles are worldwide known since the Iraq War in 1991; served as a sign of technical superiority. For Harun Farocki they are examples of a new type of images. GPS, "smart weapons", industrial processing of mechanical parts systems: all are based on arithmetic processes, in which the images are reduced to algorithms and technical operations.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: Ingo Kratisch, Harun Farocki
Editing: Max Reimann
Music: Bernd Alois Zimmermann
Broadcaster: Margarita Broich
Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik. 36’. Colour and B/W.
Starting from one of the first historical films of the Lumière brothers, Harun Farocki makes a montage collecting scenes of 100 years of history of the cinema, which are related to the topic. Farocki extracts from the images reflections on the iconography and economy of the work society, but also from the cinema itself, which most often reflects the viewer out of the factory and transports him to the private sphere.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Broadcaster: Harun Farocki
07.05.2015
Nicht löschbares Feuer, 196 + Gefängnisbilder, 2000
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Paraninfo Ciudad de la Cultura
Duration of the Session: 105’
Nicht löschbares Feuer. 25’. B/W
The first film by Harun Farocki out of the film academy links the didactic and political propaganda with the aridity of the film genre. Farocki responds with an instructive exposure to dominant voyeurism in the reports of the Vietnam War: A exemplary reconstruction of the production of Napalm followed by a playful call to resistance.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: Gerd Conradt
Editing: Harun Farocki
Sound: Ulrich Knaudt
Main Characters: Harun Farocki, Eckart Kammer, Hanspeter Krüger, Caroline Gremm, Gerd Volker Bussäus, Ingrid Oppermann
Gefängnisbilder. 60’. Colour and B/W.
How jail has been portrayed in 100 years of film history? What images produced jail itself in security cameras and videos of training for security personnel? Prison appears in the films of Farocki as an anthropological laboratory in which life and death are studied through the eyes of the camera.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: C. Lee Crane, Ingo Kratisch
Editing: Max Reimann
Sound: Louis van Rooky
23.05.2015
Nicht ohne Risiko, 2004 + Stilleben, 1997
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto
Duration of the Session: 108’
Nicht ohne Risiko. 50’ Colour, 2004
A medium company and a venture capital society meet to negotiate. With a credit, a technical invention has to be transformed into a production chain. Farocki merely observes without comment and assembling the negotiations until the conclusion of the contract. A microscopic look at a cell in the nowadays economy, an ethnography of everyday economy.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki, Matthias Rajmann
Camera: Ingo Kratisch
Editing: Max Reimann
Sound: Matthias Rajmann
Stilleben. 58. Colour and B/W, 1997
Using a parallel montage combines the classic paintings of dead natures of XVI-XVII centuries with documentary photographs of photography studios of the 90s.
Painting and advertising: Images of money, cheese, beer, painted on the top in great details, and meticulously placed in the second ones as an incentive to purchase. The film of Faroki explores the commonalities and differences between two ways of presenting things in which products and objects tend to become fetishes.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: Ingo Kratisch
Editing: Irina Hoppe, Rosa Mercedes (Harun
Farocki), Jan Ralske
Sound: Ludger Blanke, Jason Lopez, Hugues Peyret
Broadcaster: Hanns Zischler
04.06.2015
Wie man sieht), 1986. Colour and B/W.
Time: 7 p.m.
Venue: Paraninfo Ciudad de la Cultura
Duration of the Session: 72’
Civil and military production: The tank is constructed from an agricultural machine, the machine gun is based on the same principle as the combustion engine. Farocki presents the history of technology as a succession of phases of automation, in which the human hand is off to one side for the computing capacity of the computer.
Direction: Harun Farocki
Screenplay: Harun Farocki
Camera: Ingo Kratisch, Ronny Tanner
Editing: Rosa Mercedes (Harun Farocki)
Sound: Manfred Blank, Klaus Klingler
Broadcaster: Corinna Belz
18.06.2015
Videogramme einer Revolution, 1992. Colour and B/W.
Time: 19 h.
Venue: Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto
Duration of the Session: 106’
For Videogramas de una revolución Harun Farocki and his co-author Andrej Ujica collected copies of amateur videos and programs of the Romanian public television after it was taken by protesters in December 1989. They are images and sounds of the first revolution of history in which television played a key role. The protagonist is the contemporary history itself.
Direction: Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica
Screenplay: Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica
Editing: Egon Bunne
Broadcaster: Thomas Schultz
