summary
- Author : Harun Farocki, Andrei Ujica
- Duration : 107'
- Original Title : Videograms of a Revolution
- English Title : Videograms of a Revolution
- Year : 1992
details
Bio : Harun Farocki born 1944 in Nový Jičín (Neutitschein), Czech Republic, formerly in the German-annexed Czechoslovakia. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Vienna, Austria.
Andrei Ujice born 1951 in Timişoara, Romania. Lives and works in Berlin and Karlsruhe, Germany.
Description : As Andrei Ujica states: “The autumn of 1989 is fixed in our memories as a series of visual events: Prague, Berlin, Bucharest. Judging by the images, history had returned. We were watching revolutions. And it was Romania, with its unity of time and place, which delivered the most complete scenario of a revolution. Everything happened in just ten days and in just two cities: the uprising of the people, the overturning of power, the execution of the rulers. After initial disturbances in Timişoara, where the government was still able to isolate the city, the final overthrow took place in Bucharest: in the capital and in front of the cameras. The television station was occupied by demonstrators, stayed on air for around 120 hours and so established a new historical site: the television studio. In addition, the events were recorded by amateur video enthusiasts as well as cameramen from the state film industry. There may just have been a single camera daring to record events at the outset of the uprising, but there were a hundred filming the following day. Between 21 December 1989 (the day of Ceausescu's last speech) and 26 December 1989 (the day of the first television reports of his trial) cameras were at all the most important locations in Bucharest captured the events almost in their entirety. […] The twentieth century is filmic. But it is only with the advent of the video camera and the increased possibilities for lengthy and mobile recording it offers that the process of the filmification of history can be completed.” The artists gathered all those various recordings together in order to reconstruct the visual chronology of these days. The aim was to disentangle the mass of images and to arrange sequences in such a way as to suggest that for five days, one was moving from camera to camera on one and the same reel of film.
Description : As Andrei Ujica states: “The autumn of 1989 is fixed in our memories as a series of visual events: Prague, Berlin, Bucharest. Judging by the images, history had returned. We were watching revolutions. And it was Romania, with its unity of time and place, which delivered the most complete scenario of a revolution. Everything happened in just ten days and in just two cities: the uprising of the people, the overturning of power, the execution of the rulers. After initial disturbances in Timişoara, where the government was still able to isolate the city, the final overthrow took place in Bucharest: in the capital and in front of the cameras. The television station was occupied by demonstrators, stayed on air for around 120 hours and so established a new historical site: the television studio. In addition, the events were recorded by amateur video enthusiasts as well as cameramen from the state film industry. There may just have been a single camera daring to record events at the outset of the uprising, but there were a hundred filming the following day. Between 21 December 1989 (the day of Ceausescu's last speech) and 26 December 1989 (the day of the first television reports of his trial) cameras were at all the most important locations in Bucharest captured the events almost in their entirety. […] The twentieth century is filmic. But it is only with the advent of the video camera and the increased possibilities for lengthy and mobile recording it offers that the process of the filmification of history can be completed.” The artists gathered all those various recordings together in order to reconstruct the visual chronology of these days. The aim was to disentangle the mass of images and to arrange sequences in such a way as to suggest that for five days, one was moving from camera to camera on one and the same reel of film.
