An attitude to work

Antje Ehmann/Harun Farocki (DE)

Installation Film

For the project “An attitude to work”, filmmaker Harun Farocki and curator Antje Ehmann have been holding workshops on the topic of work worldwide since 2011. In 15 cities, working worlds were surveyed, examined and filmed. The resulting, globally oriented archive of over 400 videos takes on an almost encyclopedic character by documenting the working realities of global capitalism. HELLERAU presents the work in the context of an installation and a film presentation.

Work
The object of investigation is “work”: paid or unpaid, material or immaterial, traditional or completely new. In some African countries, a whole family lives by farming on a piece of central reservation. In many EU countries, farmers live by leaving their fields fallow, for which they are paid and which is monitored by satellite images.

Camera work
Formally, the assignment introduces the basics of filmic work and raises essential questions about filmic processes. Almost all work is repetitive. How can a beginning and an end be found? Should the camera be moved or not? How can the choreography of a work process be captured best and most interestingly in a single shot? It shows: a single shot of 1 to 2 minutes can already create a narration, a tension or surprise. And this is exactly what we love about many of the workshop works.

+ Sa 31.10., 15:30, film presentation by Antje Ehmann:
A view on the work, selected films from Marseille

More infos in our HELLERAU-Magazin