Homage | Harun Farocki – Pictures behind the pictures

It’s time to announce the complete list of films for our “Bilder hinter den Bildern” programme! No easily digestable stuff.

Tuesday, 8th April, 9pm at Luru-Kino in der Spinnerei // 6/5 (red.) Euro


Harun Farocki | Pictures behind the pictures

Der Ärger mit den Bildern

GER 1973, R: Harun Farocki, 48’, OV, mpeg

Aufschub

GER 2007, R: Harun Farocki, 38’, OV, mpeg

Nicht löschbares Feuer

GER 1969, R: Harun Farocki, 25’, OV, mpeg

Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik

GER 1995, R: Harun Farocki, 36’, OV, mpeg

“The philosopher asks: What is mankind? I ask: What is a picture?” These sentences are uttered by one of the main characters of Harun Farocki – at the same time, they describe the work area that he himself revolved around as director, author and theorist for decades. Farocki picks up on pictures, creates montages and comments them, makes them talk. Pictures from film history interest him because of their ability to provide information about contemporary social conditions as well as operative pictures – industrial photography, aerial shots of Auschwitz – alongside seemingly banal stuff – Playboy-magazine pin ups, the front covers of tabloids.

“Nicht löschbares Feuer” is a tractate about the production of napalm and with it one of the most important agitprop films of the anti-Vietnam movement. In “Der Ärger mit den Bildern”, Farocki dissects and polemicises against the often mindless production of pictures on television. Documentary takes made for the SS by a Jewish prisoner in the concentration camp at Westerbork are counter-checked in “Aufschub”.