In his last major work, the video series Parallel I-IV (2012-2014), Harun Farocki dealt with the history of computer graphics. The first video games of the 1980s, which consisted only of horizontal and vertical lines, were shown by Farocki in the course of a technical development, that continued to focus on certain forms of photorealism. Parallel I-IV shows how computer-generated animations are replacing photography and film, which have been the leading media of society for over a hundred years, not only for information and entertainment, but also for scientific research and documentation. In extension of these reproduction techniques, which are associated with concepts of objectivity and contemporaneity, computer animations (the more generative algorithms are used) are now occupied with turning the image of the found appearance into an ideal-typical one. Using the example of trees and bushes, water, fire and clouds, Farocki compares the development of surfaces and colorations in computer animation images and thus shows how within thirty
years a separate history of reality effects has emerged.
Harun Farocki's PARALLEL I-IV is presented as part of Kreuzberg Pavillon's ongoing Program of IS IT A GAME?, a series of playable situations where the practices of playful artists and game makers intersect within experimental exhibition formats. IS IT A GAME? is curated by Heiko Pfreundt & Lisa Schorm and funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin.
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