Ulrika Gomm and Harun Farocki

ULRIKA GOMM PERFORMANCE
AND
HARUN FAROCKI’S INEXTINGUISHABLE FIRE SCREENING

INCA: Institute for Neo-Connotative Action 750 Delaware St, Detroit, MI, 48202 
24 JUNE 2012

 

Performative lecture by Ulrika Gomm (Stockholm) 40 minutes
Inextinguishable Fire, film by Harun Farocki (Berlin) 1969 20 minutes

The documentary as counter-ideology.
The voice as representation.
Poetry as political act.

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Performative lecture:
Ulrika Gomm

Ulrika Gomm (SE/DE) works as a visual artist in Sweden. Her practice includes documentary fragments and sampled materials, sometimes translated and transformed. She is interested in the phenomena of repetition and oblivion, and how these become manifested in structures, layers and bodies. The material is regenerated in printed matters and spatial installations of moving imagery, sounds and texts.

Gomm has recently presented her work at 0047 in Oslo, Gallery Niklas Belenius, Haninge Konsthall, Cervantes Institute, Fylkingen and Botkyrka Konsthall in Stockholm, Art Copenhagen and www.nobelprize.no, among others. In 2010 she held a six months residency at IASPIS in Stockholm and currently she is in residency at Ohio State University’s Pulse Laser Studio, organized by the Center for the Holographic Arts in New York. She has a MFA from Konstfack, University College of arts, crafts and design, in Stockholm

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Screening:
Nicht löschbares Feuer, 1969
[Inextinguishable Fire]
A film by Harun Farocki

Screening courtesy of Harun Farocki.

Farocki’s classic film “Inextinguishable Fire” restages the development of Napalm B by Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan, 128 miles north of Detroit. Because of intensified divisions of labor, most individual scientists, chemists or engineers were willing to work towards what must have seemed like an abstract end, much less barbarous than it turned out to be. What sort of system could develop and use such a weapon?

“How can we show you napalm in action? And how can we show you the injuries caused by napalm? If we show you pictures of napalm burns, you’ll close your eyes. First you’ll close your eyes to the pictures. Then you’ll close your eyes to the memory. Then you’ll close your eyes to the facts. Then you’ll close your eyes to the entire context.”

Harun Farocki was born in Novi Jicín in 1944 in what is today the Czech Republic. He studied at the German Cinematic and Television Academy (DFFB) in Berlin, from which he was expelled in 1968 for political reasons. In addition to writing theoretical texts, he has scripted numerous films and television productions. His work was shown at Documenta 12 in Kassel and in numerous international retrospectives and has received many awards.

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Curated by Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman
INCA: Institute for Neo-Connotative Action.

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