Harun Farocki
Eye / Machine, 2001
Artist
Harun Farocki
Title
Eye/Machine
Year of creation
2001
Technology and duration
3 films
Year of acquisition
2007
Acquisition of the foundation
Double productions like "Eye/Machine" can be found several times in Harun Farocki's work. The possibility of dealing with both simultaneity and succession in such a structure was a particular attraction for Farocki. The relationship between one image and the next or next to it has a very concrete impact on the effect of the work of art. “A montage has to use invisible forces to hold things together that would otherwise tumble together,” says Farocki.
He put together the films that make up “Eye/Machine” with great effort from various research institutions, public relations departments, educational film and other archives. These are usually surgical images whose usefulness no longer applies after a specific operation. In terms of content, the sequences, as already suggested in the title, seem to address, among other things, the relationship of the "eye" - i.e. the human - to the machine. For example, the work of a person on a die is compared to the “work” of a guided missile. Farocki himself writes: "Such films declare concrete human work to be a non-event. The event is only the gradual development of the machine and the gradual abolition of the worker."²
The event character of his films increases primarily in exhibitions and galleries - in contrast to Cinemas or television, explains Farocki.³ If his work is shown on television, the viewer becomes anonymous, as if he had thrown a message in a bottle into the sea. In the cinema, on the other hand, he can experience the audience's changing reactions to certain moments. Whereas when it comes to presentations in connection with an exhibition, people most often talk about his work.
¹ Farocki, Harun: "Cross-Influence/Soft Montage", in: "Leaps in Time. How Films Tell Stories",
edited by Christine Rüffert, Irmbert Schenk et al., Berlin 2004, p. 61
² Farocki, Harun: "Cross-Influence /Soft Montage", in: "Leaps in time. How films tell stories",
edited by Christine Rüffert, Irmbert Schenk et al., Berlin 2004, p. 57
³ Farocki, Harun: "Cross influence/Soft Montage", in: "Leaps in time. How films tell stories",
edited by Christine Rüffert, Irmbert Schenk et al., Berlin 2004, p. 60
