A glimpse into the genesis of Harun Farocki's film IMAGES OF THE WORLD AND THE INSCRIPTION OF WAR (1988), which evolved from the unrealized project "On the History of Labor" between 1985 and 1988.
The booklet contains the project draft that Farocki wrote to apply for funding in the spring of 1986, a letter to Radio Free Berlin (SFB) editors Jürgen Tomm and Bernd Schauer, a list of research locations, a short report to "Filmbüro NRW" (Film office North Rhine-Westphalia), a newspaper article by Farocki on the "Technology of Vision", and a research bibliography that Farocki drew on during this period. A commentary by Volker Pantenburg outlines how "On the History of Labor" evolved into "Images / History", then IMAGES-WAR (1987) and finally IMAGES OF THE WORLD.
Stills from IMAGES OF THE WORLD and from unused footage make palpable how the focus of the project shifted and how, in the process, the 1944 aerial photographs of Auschwitz-Birkenau taken by the Allies increasingly attracted Farocki's attention.
Harun Farocki (1944-2014) was born in Neutitschein, in German-annexed Czechoslovakia. Since graduating from Berlin's
Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie in 1966, he has directed more that 90 films that include feature films, documentaries and television programs. He has also collaborated with numerous filmmakers as scriptwriter, actor and producer. His films have been the subject of retrospectives at the
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in 2004, and the Vienna Filmmuseum in 2006. He has participated in important international events such as the 2005 Carnegie International and Documenta XII (2007). He has held many teaching posts and between 1993 and 1999 taught at the University of California Berkeley. Since 2004 he has been Visiting professor at
Vienna's Akademie für Bildende Künste. Harun Farocki was a media theorist and writer and was the editor of the influential German film journal
Filmkritik from 1974 to 1984.
See also
E-flux journal – Navigation Beyond Vision.
