A New Product

In his film A New Product Harun Farocki shows that organizations have meanwhile found ways and means to speak positively using cynicism, that means, using phrases whose emptiness one not only perceives, but even takes into account. One could speak of a second order cynicism, which entails being cynical about one’s own cynicism and gaining a language that communicates that one only trusts it because one doesn’t trust it, and knows oneself in this mistrust to be of one mind with all one’s counterparts.

One could be tempted to extol this as a further case of the social, not entirely conscious refinement of communication, if it were not clear how much it compels the participants into an infantilization, from which they see no escape.

(Dirk Baecker)

Original title: Ein neues Produkt Director, editor: Harun Farocki Cinematographer: Ingo Kratisch Research, production, sound: Matthias Rajmann Mixing, online-editor: Jan Ralske Production: Harun Farocki Filmproduktion, Berlin invited by: Die Auftraggeber, curated by Nina Möntmann for Deichtorhallen. Internationale Kunst und Fotografie, Hamburg, 2012,  Format: video, colour, sound Length: 37 min.

All Works of this Decade:

A New ProductSauerbruch Hutton Architects