Article Number: 12236
Soft Cover, German / English, Staple Binding, 64 Pages, 2020, Harun Farocki Institut
Volker Pantenburg, Harun Farocki

On the History of Labor

€ 16.00

Ein Heft zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Harun Farockis Film Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (1988), der sich zwischen 1985 und 1988 in mehreren Etappen aus dem unverwirklichten Projekt „Zur Geschichte der Arbeit“ heraus entwickelte.

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.