Counter-Music

Transportation is drama in the early 20th-century documentaries of Soviet film pioneer Dziga Vertov. The rumbling wheels of approaching trucks contrast with the vulnerability of workers, probably newly arrived from the countryside, sleeping on a street corner. But by the end of the century, nothing is left of these bodies but a patch of light in a software system that counts passersby and regulates traffic flow. Other images record the movement of subways and trams, inspect the weld seams in sewer pipes, or map the heat loss of buildings.

In his fragmented film essay Counter Music, Harun Farocki presents the modern city as a mechanical body, with logistical systems functioning as its bloodstream or nervous system. The city is filmed with hundreds of cameras. No director is involved, only operators in control rooms who are not looking for a story but simply noting irregularities. People loitering are no longer workers resting between shifts but a potential threat to the order of post-industrial society.