January 18–May 4, 2008

 

H A R U N   F A R O C K I   b. Neutitschein (German-annexed Czechoslovakia), 1944
A N D R E I   U J I C A   b. Timisoara, Romania, 1951

Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica's film Videograms of a Revolution (1993) is a montage drawn from 125 hours of amateur and professional archival video footage shot by journalists and ordinary people during the chaotic ten days of the Romanian Revolution in December 1990. The film not only refutes conventional models of media crique and theories of spectacle, it exploits the techniques of spectacle as a tool with which to construct a view of history. Intercutting professional footage, television studio broadcasts, and raw data recorded by amateurs camped out on the street, Farocki and Ujica use the archive to rework the relationship between power and popular forms of representation in a mode that moves beyond spectacle. As the film oscillates between television anchors reporting the shifting and indeterminate events, and sweeping views of crowds marching through the streets and battling security forces, it appears that the revolution is literally broadcast live, with every Romanian a participant in its making. The roving structure of Videograms is achieved by using the methods of editing and motange to transform the events of the Romanian Revolution into a film that expresses the subjectivity of popular sentiment. This is exemplified by a pivoltal moment in the uprising, captured on a camera and included in Videograms, in which the gathered revolutionaries declared: "We are victorious! The TV is with us." And so it was.

 

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