The Making of Labour: The Movie
Fillip, Mar Spring 2013, no. 18, pp. 122-127
This journal article by Sven Lutticken focuses on labour and its abstraction in post-fordist society as well as the challenges for filmic representation of capital. Measuring and quantifying labour (both material and immaterial) is increasingly abstract with advanced technologies; labour presents itself as data. Drawing on Marxian philosophies on the production of labour, Lutticken discusses the processes of capitalism such as production, distribution and consumption. These processes of exchange and movement are at the forefront of the films. Theorist of the essay film Allan Sekula, and Noel Burch's the Forgotten Space is discussed. A shift from the factory to the worker's conditions, including ocean transport in The Forgotten Space, and the process of airplane manufacturing and material post plane destruction in Steyerl's In Free Fall are examples of the notion of tracing material processes. To that idea, distribution, and the status of art film as a commodity with activities surrounding its viewership such as lectures and presentations within a gallery context increase surplus value. In the same way, social media such as Facebook, while not quantifiable time labour, is a fetishised commodity through the user's performance of the product.
ITEM 2013.142 – available for viewing in the Research Centre
Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited
The Forgotten Space – Allan Sekula
The Forgotten Space – Noel Burch
In Free Fall – Hito Steyerl
Labour in a Single Shot – Harun Farocki
Labour in a Single Shot – Antje Ehmann
Unsupported Transit – Zachary Formwalt
A Projective Geometry – Zachary Formwalt
Fish Story – Allan Sekula
The Making of Labour: The Movie – Harun Farocki