FILM 5230 W

Posted by Ananya:

The reasons behind Derrida’s idea of Europe as an interlocutor between ‘the United States and its enemy,” and the language used to explain this idea, reveal a logic that reinforces the imperialist “power arrangements” it is supposed to question.

I say this because:

- Europe, Derrida writes, would function as an interlocutor because it is the “only secular actor on the world stage…with one of the most advanced nontheological political structures” (275). He also states that doing so involves the “memory of a European promise that is yet to be fulfilled: democracy and emancipation for all…Enlightenment is not dead…” (260).

In these phrases “democracy and emancipation for all” is isolated as an “European promise,” Europe is, once again, presented as setting an example – or as ahead in development – to which all countries should aspire.

This echoes the reason behind the colonial desire to “civilize” and reflects the historicist perspective of linear progression where most of the natives have yet to reach a point (identified by the Europeans) where they can be considered for human rights and other privileges – as in this instance, states that might have experience balancing different religions (or any other relevant insights) are not considered in Derrida’s discussion because they do not measure up to his standard of “secular.”

The idea of “deconstructing boundaries,” particularly the way it has been articulated as an aspect of “development” to which others have to catch up to, also contributes to this argument. The boundaries, the nation-state, a history, and a national identity are often unavoidable products of colonization, which have been thrust upon post-colonial states by their colonizers, and are notions with which these states are constantly struggling. This notion of “deconstructing boundaries,” and de-centered identities goes against the efforts of these newer states trying to hold a disparate population within one nation. Instead of challenging this idea of “catch up development,” ‘universal” development, Derrida, through his language, articulates yet another universalist idea of development, which people must strive towards in order to be equal to some others on the globe.

Harun Farocki: Documentary Essay Films

Film series in 5 nights:
Mar 3-4,10-12, 7 pm
$5 series membership plus $5 per evening
English or German with English subtitles, large screen projections
Camera, 1028 Queen Street West, Toronto, 416 5300011, www.camerabar.ca Tickets at the door or for advance tickets please call the Stephen Bulger Gallery at 416 5040575 or at info@bulgergallery.com

Mon Mar 3, 2008, 7pm
The Inextinguishable Fire
Harun Farocki’s first movie after leaving film school combines didactics and political agitation with a sparse cinematic style. Farocki contrasts the voyeurisms of Vietnam War reporting with a didactic arrangement: a model reconstruction of napalm manufacture is followed by a playful call to revolution.
1969, 25 min., b&w

An Image
Harun Farocki chronicles the process of shooting a Playboy centerfold photo, shot in four days at a studio in Munich. The film presents all phases of the photo shoot: building the set, positioning the model and instructions by the photographer. Farocki strips the glamour and allure from the subject by focusing on the labor and orchestration behind it.
1983, 25 min., colour

As You See
The film is a short story of civil and military production. The tank is a logical outgrowth of agricultural machinery, while machine guns are based on a principle similar to that of the internal combustion engine. Farocki depicts the history of technology as a succession of automatic phases, in which the human hand is replaced by the computer’s calculations.
1986, 72 min., b&w and colour

Tue Mar 4, 2008, 7pm
Indoctrination
This film is about a five-day seminar designed to teach executives how to “sell themselves“. This course, designed for managers, teaches the basic rules of dialectics and rhetorics and provides training in body language, gesture and facial expression. Using no titles, talking heads, narration, or other conventions of documentary, Farocki manages to expose how big business uses psychology and principles of rhetoric to sell ideas and products.
1987, 44 min., colour

Images of the World and the Inscription of War
The film has two centres of gravity. One is a photograph of a woman in Auschwitz and the other US-American aerial photography of the concentration camp. The two focal points are imbedded in a series of far-reaching, surprisingly integrated reflections on the interrelationship of measurements and photographic production. Although the pictures are often static, Farocki’s exacting eye and his commentary give them a restless, imaginary movement. Images of the World and the Inscription of War is a masterful reflection on media, representation and war.
1988, 75 min., colour

Mon Mar 10, 2008, 7pm
Videograms of a Revolution
For “Videogram of a Revolution“ Harun Farocki and his co-author Andrej Ujica collected amateur video and material broadcast by Romanian state television after it was taken over by demonstrators in December 1989. The audio and video represent the first ever historic revolution in which television played a major role. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself.
1992, 106 min., b&w and colour

Workers Leaving the Factory
Based on one of the Lumière brothers’ historic first films, Harun Farocki has created a montage of scenes from 100 years of film history, all variations on the theme of “workers leaving the factory”. Farocki uses the pictures to reflect on the iconography and economy of a workers’ society, as well as that of cinema itself, which tends to acquire its audience at the gates of the factory and hijacks them into the private sphere.
1995, 36 min., b&w and colour

Tue Mar 11, 2008, 7pm
The Interview
Farocki draws on the anxiety of unemployment as he follows the efforts of several candidates who take part in a training program designed to teach them how to apply for a job. The goal is to learn how to market and sell themsleves, a goal that Farocki exposes as demeaning and superifcial. “The Interview” gives insights into the manipulative tactics of big business, and is as provoking as it is revealing.
1997, 60 min., colour

Still Life
Classic 16th and 17th century still life paintings are edited together with documentary footage from photographic studios of the 1990s; a juxtaposition of paintings and advertising. Images of money, cheese and beer are shown painted down to the last detail and meticulously staged to evoke consumer greed. Farocki’s film tracks the similarities and differences of two kinds of portrayals, in which goods and things almost appear as fetish-like objects.
1997, 56 min., colour

Wed Mar 12, 2008, 7pm
Prison Images
How have prisons been portrayed over the 100 years of film history? What kinds of images have been produced by prisons themselves with surveillance cameras and training videos for prison personell? In Farocki’s film the penal institution becomes an anthropological laboratory in which life and death are rehearsed in front of the camera’s unblinking eye.
2000, 60 min., b&w and colour

War at a Distance
Footage from American missiles has been famous around the world since the first Iraq war in 1991. They served to demonstrate technological superiority. For Harun Farocki they are examples of a new kind of photograph. GPS systems, “intelligent weapons” and industrial processing of work units are all based on computational processes that reduce pictures to algorithms and technical operations.
2003, 58 min., b&w and colour

Nothing Ventured
The film follows the negotiations between a mid-sized company and a venture capital firm. The company is looking for capital to start production on its invention. Farocki limits himself to observing events without comment. He has edited together documentary footage of the two meetings that resulted in a contract. It’s a microscopic look at one cell of today’s economy; an ethnographic portrait of a commonplace business dealing.
2004, 50 min., colour