Nora M. Alter Knihy

„Against What? Against Whom?“ ist eine Monographie über den Autor, Filmemacher und Videokünstler Harun Farocki. Es ist das erste Buch über Farocki, das weder eine rein akademische Publikation noch ein Ausstellungskatalog ist. Es versammelt die verschiedensten Themen, Tonarten und Herangehensweisen: Neben der kompletten Filmographie und Liste der Installationen gibt es 21 Beiträge, die sich diskursiv (oder mit Zeichnungen) dem komplexen Oeuvre Farocki’s nähern. Außerdem sind zwei zentrale Texte von Harun Farocki, der seine Film- und Videoarbeiten stets auch in Texten reflektiert hat, mit aufgenommen worden sowie ein von Farocki eigens für das Buch geschriebener, neuer Text, der, biographisch angelegt, unter der Hand zu einer kleinen Geschichte des Film- und Kunstproduzierens in (West) Deutschland der vergangenen 40 Jahre geworden ist. So unterschiedlich die weiteren Autoren, so vielfältig die Themen: angefangen bei den frühen politisch, marxistisch, edukativen Filmen, über Farockis cinema direct Filme und seine inzwischen zu Klassikern gewordenen Essayfilme bis hin zu den Filmen und Installationen, die zum Großteil auf bereits existierende Materialien unterschiedlichster Bildsorten zurückgreifen, wie Amateuraufnahmen, Archivbilder, Überwachungsbilder, technische Bilder und Computeranimationen.

Having spearheaded the bourgeoning Nouvelle Vague scene in the late 1950s and developed a distinctive style involving still images, Chris Marker stands among the most influential filmmakers of the postwar era. This study includes interviews with the director and investigates his core themes and motivations.

Focusing on Harun Farocki's innovative approach to media, this analysis delves into his diverse works and writings, exploring the thematic and experimental dimensions of his art. It offers fresh insights into his contributions across various platforms, highlighting the significance of his unique perspective in contemporary media discourse.

Nora M. Alter argues that the essay film is a hybrid genre that fuses three major categories of film: feature, art, and documentary. Much like the written essay, its literary predecessor, the essay film draws on a variety of forms and approaches, fundamentally altering the shape of cinema. Alter traces the essay film's origins to early silent cinema, charting the genre's evolution with the advent of sound, its emergence as a recognized category of film in the postwar period, and the ways the genre developed in the later twentieth century. In addition to exploring the broader history of the essay film, Alter discusses the work of artists including Robert Smithson, Martha Rosler, Isaac Julien, John Akomfrah, Harun Farocki, and Hito Steyerl.

This groundbreaking book is an incisive and comprehensive analysis of Harun Farocki’s oeuvre, shedding new light on his media experimentation and writings across platforms and venues.

The sounds of music and the German language have played a significant role in the developing symbolism of the German nation. In light of the historical division of Germany into many disparate political entities and regional groups, German artists and intellectuals of the 19th and early 20th centuries conceived of musical and linguistic dispositions as the nation's most palpable common ground. According to this view, the peculiar sounds of German music and of the German language provided a direct conduit to national identity, to the deepest recesses of the German soul. So strong is this legacy of sound is still prevalent in modern German culture that philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, in a recent essay, did not even hesitate to describe post-wall Germany as an "acoustical body." This volume gathers the work of scholars from the US, Germany, and the United Kingdom to explore the role of sound in modern and postmodern German cultural production. Working across established disciplines and methodological divides, the essays of Sound Matters investigate the ways in which texts, artists, and performers in all kinds of media have utilized sonic materials in order to enforce or complicate dominant notions of German cultural and national identity.