Harun Farocki

At the exhibition from October 20, 2017 to August 5, 2018

The four-part work »Parallele« is about the type of image brought forth by computer animation. Computer animation images are in the process of becoming a general model which is supplanting the filmic image. In films there is the wind that blows, and there is the wind that is generated by a wind machine. Computer images do not have two sorts of wind.

»Parallele I« presents a brief history of the style of computer images. The first computer games in the 1980s consisted solely of vertical or horizontal lines. This abstraction was viewed as a deficiency and today’s representations are oriented on photorealism.

»Parallele II and III« interrogate the limits of game worlds and the character of the objects. It appears that many game worlds have the shape of a disk which floats in outer space. A reminiscence of pre-Hellenist conceptions of the universe.

»Parallele IV« explores the heroes of computer games. They have no parents or teachers so they have to discover which rules apply for themselves. The heroes nearly always have the same expression on their faces and very few character traits, which they declare in a number of different but virtually homogeneous short sentences. They are homunculi, humanlike creatures created by humans. Everyone who plays with them shares in the pride of creating them.