Harun Farocki
Harun Farocki was a German filmmaker, author, and lecturer in film.
Early life
Farocki was born as Harun El Usman Faroqhi in Neutitschein in the Czech Republic. His father, Abdul Qudus Faroqui, had immigrated to Germany from India in the 1920s. His German mother had been evacuated from Berlin due to the Allied bombing of Germany. He simplified the spelling of his surname as a young man. After World War II, Farocki grew up in India and Indonesia before the family resettled in Hamburg in 1958.Farocki, who was deeply influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Luc Godard, studied at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) from 1966 to 1968. There, in the mid-1960s, he began making films which, from the very beginning, were non-narrative essays on the politics of imagery.
Work
Farocki made over 90 films, the vast majority of them short experimental documentaries.From 1974 to 1984, when its publication ceased, Farocki edited the magazine Filmkritik.
From 1993 to 1999, Farocki taught at the University of California, Berkeley. He later was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
In his 2000-2003 three-part installation, Eye/Machine, Farocki coined the term "operational image".
Farocki's works Serious Games I-IV are a series of four video installations featuring footage recorded at different US military sites where computer-game technology was used to train soldiers, as well as treat them for post-traumatic stress disorder. The work was named by Frieze as No.20 of "The 25 Best Works of the 21st Century".
Exhibitions
Farocki's work was included in the 2004–05 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania.A first major UK retrospective of his films was held at Tate Modern in 2009.
The 2011 exhibition "Harun Farocki: Images of War " at the Museum of Modern Art was the first comprehensive solo exhibition of Farocki's work in a U.S. museum.
Images of the world and the inscription of war and Respite were released on Region 0 DVD on 7 June 2011 by Survivance.
In 2015 and 2019 Farocki's works were exhibited in major showcases in Brazil at Paço das Artes and Moreira Salles Institute.
Personal life
Farocki's first wife, Ursula Lefkes, whom he married in 1966, died in 1996.Farocki died unexpectedly on 30 July 2014, aged 70. His survivors include his second wife, Antje Ehmann, whom he married in 2001; twin daughters from his first marriage, Annabel Lee and Larissa Lu; and eight grandchildren.
Films (selection)
- 1969: Die Worte des Vorsitzenden - The Words of The Chairman
- 1969: Nicht löschbares Feuer - Inextinguishable Fire
- 1970: Die Teilung aller Tage - The Division of All Days
- 1971: Eine Sache, die sich versteht
- 1975: By Hook or by Crook
- 1978: Zwischen zwei Kriegen - Himself / narrator
- 1979: Ich räume auf - Herausgeber
- 1980: Henry Angst
- 1981: Etwas wird sichtbar
- 1981: Etwas wird sichtbar - Before Your Eyes Vietnam
- 1983: Ein Bild - An Image
- 1983: Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet
- 1984: Klassenverhältnisse - Delamarche
- 1985: Betrogen
- 1986: Wie man sieht
- 1987: Bilderkrieg
- 1987: Die Schulung
- 1989: Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges
- 1990: Leben: BRD - How to live in the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1991: Videogramme einer Revolution
- 1993: Was ist los? - What's up?
- 1994: Die Umschulung
- 1995: Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik
- 1995: Schnittstelle
- 1996: Die Bewerbung - The Interview
- 1996: Der Auftritt - The Appearance
- 1997: Stilleben - Still Life
- 1997: Nach dem Spiel
- 1998: Worte und Spiele
- 2000: Die innere Sicherheit - The State I Am In
- 2000: Gefängnisbilder
- 2001: Auge/Maschine
- 2001: Die Schöpfer der Einkaufswelten - The Creators of the Shopping Worlds
- 2003: Erkennen und Verfolgen
- 2004: Nicht ohne Risiko
- 2005: Die Hochzeitsfabrik
- 2005: Ghosts
- 2006: Am Rand der Städte
- 2007: Aufschub
- 2007: Respite - first episode of Memories
- 2009: Zum Vergleich
- 2009-2010: Serious Games I-IV Video series
- 2012: Barbara
- 2014: ''Phoenix''