Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki | Czech Republic/Germany b.1944 | Übertragung (Transmission) 2007 | Digital video transferred to hard drive, colour, stereo, 43 minutes, Germany; AP 1/1 Director/Script: Harun Farocki / Research: Antje Ehmann, Christiane Hitzemann, Regina Krotil, Matthias Rajmann, Isabell Verret / Cinematographers: Carlos Echeverria, Harun Farocki, Ingo Kratisch, Matthias Rajmannn / Editor: Meggie Schneider. Purchased 2011. John Darnell Bequest | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist
The Hand, the Eye & the Heart | 1 October 2011 — 12 February 2012 | GOMA | Free admission
Harun Farocki engages with the politics of images, using modes of documentary filmmaking to examine their pervasiveness and limitations. Übertragung records processions and pilgrimages to sites and objects of social, political and religious significance – the attraction and veneration of these monuments reflects a wide range of desires and identifications, from individual memory to spiritual enlightenment and religious practice. Stone is a reoccurring material for the immortalisation of these collective memories, a physical material which in turn bears the imprint of time and memory itself, with objects visibly marked with the traces of visitors. In emphasising the urge to connect with objects of worship, Übertragung highlights the complex relationship between the healing power of images and our inability to comprehend forces and events that are larger than us without the aid of mediating objects.
