1/7/2011
Harun Farocki
The Model, Sligo
Recognition and Tracking. Four film/video installations, a selection of videos for personal screenings and a weekly programme of Farocki's films from the 1960s to today. The filmmaker will also work with local refugees in Sligo on a film project at The Model during his stay.
Harun Farocki: Recognition and Tracking is a survey project of the pioneering work of Harun Farocki. Once infamously dubbed the "world's most known, unknown film-maker," Farocki has gone on to further develop an astounding body of film and video work, including internationally-exhibited art projects such his mesmerizing, multi-screen work "Deep Play." This project, which astonishingly recreates the 2006 World Cup football match in twelve projections, using actual footage and surprising viewpoints, will have its Irish debut at The Model. The overall exhibition focuses on recent video installations featuring footage from US military facilities combined with sequences with material from computer simulations. A series of Farocki's films, from the 1960s to the present, will also be screened in The Model cinema, and the exhibition is accompanied by a new publication.
This project features four film/video installations in The Model galleries, a selection of videos for personal screenings, and a weekly programme of Farocki's films from the 1960s to today. Farocki will also work with local refugees in Sligo on a film project at The Model during his stay.
"Farocki's films urge us to see the world differently. Their images, which pull urgent topics into close focus, infect our minds like a virus. We see the stage setting of our social conditions about us. There, we see the enforced and repeated rules and codes of behavior that are reflected in architecture, film, the control of crowds, administrative apparatuses and military technology. As an artist, Farocki is, in the words of Thomas Elsaesser, "willing to name the forces that hollow out democracy from within," namely, the commodification of public spaces, the creation of simulated worlds, the evolution of war technology, but more than this, he takes on the eye of these mechanical gazes and makes us look through that lens, often at ourselves."
Seamus Kealy, Director/Curator, The Model
The Model acknowledges the support of the Arts Council, Sligo Local Authorities and Goethe Institut Irland
Film Installations:
Deep Play is a multi-projection installation with various perspectives on the final match of the 2006 World Cup, including the artist's own footage of the game, official FIFA footage, charts of player stats, real-time 2D and 3D animation sequences, and stadium surveillance. The various views expose the visual, informational, and technological design of these grand cultural spectacles. Though visually bombarding at points, the network of images and data stages a reprocessed disarticulation of spectacle, aptly pointing out the present conditions of visuality and its overwhelming influence on representation and subjectivity.
Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades is a horizontal suite of twelve monitors that offers a view on how 'workers' have been represented in every decade since the invention of cinema, and consists of excerpts from works by directors from the Lumiere Brothers and Charlie Chaplin to Antonioni and Lars von Trier. This installation is as much about cinema and its evolution as it is a reminder of the medium's dialogue with a reality inextricable from its own representation.
Serious Games I-IV explores the use of computer animation and video game technology to train soldiers. This training allows soldiers to experience simulated combat situations in realistic settings based on actual landscape coordinates and satellite data. It also acts as a tool for therapeutic treatment by allowing soldiers to re-enact previous combat trauma by virtually reliving the events.
The Eye / Machine film installation is a trilogy examining "intelligent" image processing techniques such as electronic surveillance, mapping and object recognition, in order to take a closer look at the relationship between man, machine, and modern warfare.
Cinema screenings of Farocki’s work take place Sundays at 3pm in the Model Cinema for the duration of the show
For further information: emermcgarry@themodel.ie
Opening:
Saturday, 2 July, 6 pm
Opening preceded by an introduction by Seamus Kealy, and a talk between Harun Farocki and Diedrich Diederichsen, 5 pm
The Model
The Mall - Sligo, Ireland
Opening Hours:
Wed–Sat: 11 am–5.30pm, Sun: 12pm–5pm
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Free admission