Data Machinery
The Right To Know… But what is important enough to actually want to know? We are immersed every day in a maelstrom of words and images. The biggest problem posed by today’s information society is how to interpret the overwhelming mix of language and images surrounding us. The work of the documentary filmmakers featured in this programme provides an answer to this dilemma.
Our sacred belief in facts does not originate from what we are told, but from what we are able to see: reality has been made visible; seeing is believing. Thanks to some virtuosity in the mise-en-scène, a filmmaker (take for example, David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino) can create a world in which anything and everything is possible. But a filmmaker can also challenge the sacred belief in the visibility of reality. The filmmakers in Data Machinery have each discovered their own way of undermining this belief.
Gerhard Benedikt Friedl, Data Machinery #1: Hat Wolff von Amerongen Konkursdelikte begangen? (Wolffvon Amerongen, did he commit bankruptcy offences?), (DE & AUT 2004, 01:13:00 min)
Harun Farocki, Data Machinery #2: Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (Images of the World and the Inscription of War), (West-Germany 1988, 01:15:00 min)
Adam Curtis, Data Machinery #3: All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (part 3: The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey), (UK 2011, 58 min)
Harun Farocki, Data Machinery #4: Videogramme einer Revolution (Videograms of a Revolution), (DE 1992, 01:46:00 min)
Curated by: Stefan Majakowski