Harun Farocki’s films Comparison via a Third (2007) and In Comparison (2009) begin with identical footage, minus In Comparison’s prefacing this footage with a still diagram of a white orthographic image of a brick on a black background. While both Comparison via a Third (2007) and In Comparison (2009) document various contemporary technologies of brick production and even share some of the same footage, Farocki uses distinct techniques of formal structure and filmic montage in response to each work’s respective temporality, audience and space of display. Farocki’s two-channel installation Comparison Via a Third is, in a way, the precursor to the longer film, In Comparison (1). I consider the two works as not just separated by the two years between them and the additional footage that was filmed for In Comparison, but also in response to their respective formal structures and particular time-space-subject conditions. Reading both works against one another gives insight into the way the filmmaker deals with the problems and challenges of the varying attentiveness between the longer duration and uninterrupted gaze of the singular, seated space of cinema versus the shorter duration and interrupted gaze of multiple viewers in the constantly shifting space of exhibitions (2). Both the installation and film implicitly critique linear teleological narratives of development in which progress is implied through the movement from more “primitive” to more “advanced” modes of technological production. The two works also share Farocki’s characteristic use of variation and repetition of images, and ask the audience to reconsider the images in comparison with one another, which is underscored by the inclusion of this word in both titles. It also occurs to me that the “third” viewer who processes the binary images in Comparison via a Third is replaced with Farocki’s thirdness in In Comparison, where the filmmaker’s voice emerges in the textual commentary that “reads” the successive images. This results, ironically in an emphasis on the identification of geographic place over the organization of labor and technologies of production. I have written before on the film In Comparison (3) and want here to tease out the ways in which the body of the spectator and the explicit, soft montage of Comparison Via a Third more readily allow the viewer to question what they “see” in the context of an art exhibition, permitting them to measure their own concepts of teleology, progress, and development through the images with which they are confronted.

Harun Farocki, stills from Comparison via a Third, 2007, 16mm film, double projection, color, sound: 24 min. Courtesy Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin

In Comparison via a Third Farocki takes brick as a primary building block through which he constructs a subtle yet insistent critique of technological teleology. This critique occurs as a meta-narrative — it does not deal with the bodies of laborers through their living conditions, wages, and rights, but instead frames the larger social, technological and economic systems that can be read through the narrative of brick production and construction. The movement of bodies in space is replaced by their trace in the movement of bricks through space, where brick is a unit of measure. Traditionally, brick was designed ergonomically for the human hand, so that a single individual could lay a course, and even in contemporary robotic assembly we see that the brick is still ergonomically designed, albeit for the machinic hand. Comparison via a Third’s formal structure consists of a narrative arc that begins with the manual production of the singular brick unit and then moves through various scales and technologies of production, concluding with scenes of brick assembly and building construction. Running parallel with this is a sub-narrative of social organization of forms of labor, which moves from unpaid, collective labor at a smaller scale of production to paid, larger scales of increasingly automated production. This seemingly linear movement in the narrative structure is established only to disrupt it later, as the film’s structure begins to turn back on itself by splicing non-industrial and industrial technologies that are similar to each other, side by side, a comparison that asks for a reconsideration of the social in conjunction with the technological. The first explicit comparison occurs between a site in France, where a man lays out bricks in a shed, and Germany, where trucks haul earth from a vast site, which has everything to do with varying scales of production and much less to do with the fact that both sites are in Europe.

Formally, Comparison via a Third is marked by its use of explicit, soft montage, which plays with both the movement between one image and another over a short duration of time and the explicit juxtaposition of two simultaneously projected images (4). The film asks the viewer to reconsider the relationship between the two images with the viewer constituting a third, catalyzed site in the works production of meaning. The episodic and repetitive nature of the film also lends itself towards being comprehensible no matter when a viewer begins watching the installation piece. The large scale of the projection, and the distance of the bench to the projection, which is specified by Farocki in a maddeningly precise installation manual, also makes it impossible for the viewer’s eye to process both images at one glance. Instead one has to move one’s gaze from one image to the next, back and forth. This makes the consideration of the double projection a more active practice of looking than the way in which a one-channel film, like In Comparison would be watched in a cinema or even an exhibition space.

Harun Farocki, stills from Comparison via a Third, 2007, 16mm film, double projection, color, sound: 24 min. Courtesy Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin

In Comparison includes new footage from a wider array of countries and sites. While Comparison via a Third is shot in Burkina Faso, India, Germany and France, In Comparison adds more sites in Germany and India to the mix, as well as Switzerland and Austria. In Comparison begins with Gando and manual techniques of brick being molded by a community for a clinic and ends with scenes in Fläsch and Zurich that include the text “The robot is translating an image into stone – one brick equals one pixel.” Switzerland shows the marriage of architectural design and advance technology, where brick production and the fabrication of walls using CAD/CAM technology to program robots creates a counterpart to the beginning of the film (5). Farocki teases out his story here using implicit montage mediated by text and diagram: two images of different technologies of brick production are never simultaneously juxtaposed – instead the images follow each other successively. The filmic sequence attempts to create that friction, of comparison, in the viewer’s mind. The film further divides itself into chapters, where each geographic site is identified, through text, and the scenes in Burkina Faso or Germany move from brick production to building fabrication immediately within their chapter segments. Neither work uses voice over narration, but In Comparison’s interweaving of text and diagram introduces another parallel “voice” — that of the filmmaker. Farocki’s interest in what he calls the binary between primitive technology and progressive social organization is explicit, even if his montage is implicit (6). The inclusion of terms such as socially minded, precision, Moroccan workers, and even dates in time necessarily begin to color the viewer’s perception, whereas the purely image based narrative of Comparison via a Third is left more open ended (7). In Comparison via a Third Farocki seems to use filmic techniques he has often been preoccupied with, “I’m trying to comment on this shot-countershot technique while taking shots from both sides; placed side by side they are meant to yield another image, and that which exists between the images should become visible” (8). But instead of this shot-countershot technique describing the continuity of one scene of action, Farocki connects similar actions and gestures across disparate sites, such as when he juxtaposes the same angle of a shot of brick being laid manually in Burkina Faso beside a man using a robotic arm to assist him in laying a course in Germany.

Comparison via a Third begins with a woman in Burkina Faso walking across a flat, arid landscape carrying water in a bright plastic container atop her head, the requisite child across her back. The water is emptied into a pit where men tread upon it, mixing soil that is later pressed into wooden molds. The bricks are then left to dry. These images occur only on the left frame of the double projection, leaving the other frame blank and also set the tone for much of the film, where the cinematic frame is tightly fixed on the processes of material production and brick assembly and very sparingly pulls out to reveal the larger site and context. The next location occupies the right frame of the projection, where an Indian woman is packing a double capacity steel mold with clay, which a man carries away. The images are now shown in juxtaposition, two frames occurring in the same space-time, on the right the woman packs another mold while on the left the man releases the bricks from their double capacity mold. We watch these gestures unfold slowly, in real time and side by side. In this second site the scale of production has increased exponentially, which becomes clear only as the camera pulls back and reveals a veritable brick landscape: bricks are being molded, carried, and stacked outdoors, extending beyond the image’s frame. Scale is relative and it is only when one takes the narrative thread of the first site through the second that the scale of production and labor is comparatively apparent. In the first images enough bricks are being made for one building; a community is fabricating brick to construct a clinic, whereas the second site shows what is only a site of production. The third site we see is again in India but with more automated technology: a machine extrudes brick logs, which men cut using a wire, then stack in rows outside to dry. The images are never juxtaposed, but only rest, sequentially and side by side. This is followed by another site that uses the same technology but stack bricks under a shed to dry; it is more difficult to glean this location based on purely visual cues, but from the credits one discovers it is in France. Here again juxtaposition of the same site enters the projection, we see a laborer cutting the extrusions on the right, and another transporting them with a dolly on the left. An even larger industrial process of brick production now follows, with sequential images showing trucks collecting and transporting soil that is mixed in huge machine operated vats, then extruded and cut by machines. There are no humans visible so far in this factory; production processes are highly automated (9). The installation at this point could suggest a linear narrative, in its movement from less to more technologically advanced fabrication methods, and hence, society’s. The site is in Germany.

Harun Farocki, stills from Comparison via a Third, 2007, 16mm film, double projection, color, sound: 24 min. Courtesy Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin

This linear technological narrative, and even the gradual movement from manual to automated production methods is upset a quarter of the way into the film (10). The next sequence of images are tight shots of brick being pressed by men using a hand-operated machine in Africa. What might seem to some as a technological improvement from the simple mold to a brick-pressing machine, takes on more meaning for someone familiar with the particular building and its architect. This second set of images are also from Gando, Burkina Faso, but the building that the men are making bricks for is designed by Diébédo Francis Kéré, an architect based in Berlin, who was born in Gando, Burkina Faso and educated in Germany. While watching the footage, I was struck by this further level of comparison — while the first building in Gando may be communally designed and built, the second is designed by an architect with an interest in community based construction and the use of local materials, with an interest in keeping building costs low. Kéré furthermore improves upon traditions of brick production through the introduction of a low technology, manually operated machine (11). The tight frames of the brick press operated by two men and the gentle gestures of the young boy who gingerly stacks the bricks is followed by a return to the previous, fully automated site of production in Germany. We watch machines cutting, turning, transporting, and stacking porous bricks through a series of juxtapositions. A human finally enters the frame, a single worker in overalls and cap operating this veritable beast from an elevated dais with a motherboard. He is actions are seen from afar, in a longer shot that has up until now been reserved for larger landscapes and the worker sits in front of his monitors listlessly, casting a sideways glance towards the camera. The film now begins to move more quickly between less automated and more automated sites of production, with Farocki insisting on the continuity of time across space. It becomes clear that these are all concurrently occurring production processes that precede assembly. Bricks are molded, cut, stacked, and fired through myriad technologies. Halfway through the film, Farocki makes this explicit by finally juxtaposing one site against another, with one frame of broken bricks around an oven that is manually formed and lit (India) set beside a larger production of, fired bricks emerging from an industrial oven (Germany).

The narrative now focuses on the transport of bricks to construction sites for assembly. In India the bricks are being used as infill in towers with poured concrete structural frames, while in the fully automated German brick factory, machines slip plastic sleeves over towers of brick. The next juxtaposition of sites occurs with men moving bricks to a building that is constructed collectively. We are back at the site the film began with, having moved from mixing soil, baking brick, transporting it, and now, finally to its assembly. The final quarter of the film brings together a series of juxtapositions in rapid succession. It begins with a camera set at the same oblique angle to a partially assembled wall, showing the process of manual assembly of brick into courses on the left by many men, punctuated by the sound of their conversation (Burkina Faso), mirrored by the partially automated assembly on the right, in which a single man uses a machinic hand to aid him in laying courses (Germany). The only sounds here are of machinic movement and the laborer hammering bricks into cement to bond it. This sound carries through in the next frame, populated by women packing the earth, the musicality of the women’s song synchronized with the hammering linking the disparate frames together. The last frames of Comparison via a Third juxtapose the precise placement of pre-fabricated walls on a site in Germany by contractual laborers with the communal construction of Kéré’s school in Gando. The placement of the images suddenly flips sides but continues to narrate the same processes. A crane that is lowering the pre-fabricated walls on site is directed by the gestures of a construction worker while oral communication is audible in the other manual process of assembly.

My own reading of Comparison via a Third pivoted on two particular issues. One was the fact that I had recently seen Dutch colonial films documenting labor in Africa, with sequences surprisingly similar, if not identical, to the frames that Farocki begins with in Burkina Faso. I had thought that by filming these processes in the contemporary moment, Farocki was aware of and inherently referencing these colonial films, which lent another element of pointed critique. A conversation with Farocki dispelled that this was ever an intention, and Farocki mentioned that he had only casually seen such films from the Netherlands and found them too “folkloric.” He was interested in documenting process while those films seemed to underscore the artisanal aspect of traditional skills. And yet the comparison I had made was all the richer for this strange, accidental communication of images across time. Farocki’s position was to critique linear development through his experimental documentary, and the intention of the Dutch was most definitely to document local labor in their films, with a vested interest in upholding the validity of their dominance over the region. The images could, strangely enough, be identical.

Harun Farocki, stills from Comparison via a Third, 2007, 16mm film, double projection, color, sound: 24 min. Courtesy Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin

The other question that arose in my mind was whether Comparison via a Third could have been shot in one location and demonstrate the same principles the film enacts by varying locations to show different modes of production. This may have most clearly disrupted the concept of linear development and shown the way in which places in today’s complex global market are no longer homogeneously developed but instead marked by heterogeneous, non-uniform development existing within a contiguous territory. This means that the subcontinent, for example, is a geographic site that simultaneously has high technology that is fully automated as well as low tech, manual construction and could have been the sole site of investigation. This particularity struck me as I wrote this essay from Lahore, a city that is not uniformly developed, whose larger economic sector is simultaneously pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial. Yet the economic and cultural particularities of the city mean that its construction sector, unlike cities in India, is not automated, precisely because labor is so readily available and cheap and due to discrepancies of economic development between the countries. Lahore is also a city whose cultural affinity for brick means that almost everything, from residences to universities, churches, mosques and even boundary walls are still made of its characteristic red brick. This could support an argument for varying sites, as it introduces particularities of place and culture that are not totally subsumed by technology. Farocki explained that “Some things [in Comparison via a Third] are particular – prefabricated walls, it doesn’t make sense to use them in countries where labor is cheap. That is something that is very western – where you have 5 persons building one house.” (12) _______________________________________________________________________________________

Notes:

(1) Comparison via a Third is 24 minutes long while In Comparison is 61 minutes.

(2) By focusing on the difference between these works based on the space of an art exhibition and cinema, I do not mean to say that it is impossible for work that is designed for art exhibitions to be shown in a cinema and vice versa. I am interested here in the way these spaces contributed to the development of these two, particularly related works by Farocki.

(3) See: Sadia Shirazi, “Construction/Destruction in Cinematic Spaces”, Foreclosed: Between Crisis and Possibility. Yale University Press: 2011, 107-121.

(4) “You have two images in the installation, so you can play with this kind of soft montage (what I call it) to switch from one image to the other or to compare images.” Harun Farocki, Interview conducted by author, 19 April 2012.

(5) This building in Fläsch, Switzerland is designed by Bearth & Deplazes Architects, who hired Gramazio & Kohler to design the façade that we watch the robot assemble. The façade consists of 20,000 bricks offset and rotated so that light passes through to the interior space.

(6) “In India you see these machines that are 70 years old and still functioning and the same gestures are repeated endlessly. And after having these aspects of development you see in the second part of the film you see either things that are obviously very primitive but socially very progressive – like in Burkina Faso.” Harun Farocki, interview conducted by author, 19 April 2012.

(7) For example: “Building a clinic,” “Two days later”, “The bricks dry in the sun for a few weeks,” “Bricks joined with adhesive must be precisely formed,” “Construction of a school building,” “Nothing is imported for this building and only human energy is expended”, “Students from European schools of architecture take part in the project,” “This robot is translating an image into stone— one brick equals one pixel,” “The socially minded idea: a building is fired and the heat is used to fire bricks as well,” “Production plant from 1945 – operated by Moroccan workers since then,” and “Production plant from 2003 — in these chambers the unfired bricks are dried with hot air.”

(8) Rainer Knepperges (ed.) “The Green of the Grass: Harun Farocki in Filmkritik, in Harun Farocki: Working on the Sight-Lines (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004), 79.

(9) This site is Germany, but again the geography is difficult to deduce purely based on the images.

(10) The use of the term pre-industrial is almost limited here to the clinic being built in Gando, which the film opens up with. We cannot use pre-industrial to describe India, which shares the same manufacturing process as France from the footage. India and France are using the same technologies of brick production but India’s population of 1.3 trillion dwarfs France’s 65 million. The terms Global South and North did not fit within the framework of the essay since India is a part of the Northern Hemisphere.

(11) Kéré writes on his website that he sees himself as “a bridge between cultures, between the technically and economically developed countries of “the north” and the less developed African countries (the south)”. http://www.kere-architecture.com/person.html

(12) Harun Farocki, Interview conducted by author, 19 April 2012.