The games people play...
Lecture
Showcasing a few of his works, well-known German film-maker Harun Farocki recently presented a lecture titled ‘Serious Games’ to a select audience at the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. 
The lecture was based on a series called ‘Serious Games’ consisting of four of his short films. The four-part series dealt with computer animation used by the US army as virtual exercises for possible war situations or a therapy for soldiers who were traumatised due to war.
The first part of the series ‘Serious Games I: Watson Is Down’ introduced one to a marine base in a place called ‘Twentynine Palms’ where using a computer animation, a unit of armoured vehicles drove through a mountainous Afghan landscape. The second part ‘Serious Games II: Three Dead’ saw the film-maker present around 300 people dressed as Afghani and Iranian civilians with a few marines patrolling around. The scene looked like something modelled with the help of computer simulation.
The third chapter ‘Serious Games III: Immersion’ was shot in documentary style and consisted of a workshop where civilian therapists explained to army therapists on how to work with ‘Virtual Iraq’. “The object is to treat soldiers and former soldiers traumatised in war. The immersion therapy allows the traumatised patients to repeat the key experience, to retell it and relive it. ‘Virtual Iraq’ or ‘VI’ for short, is a computer animation programme designed to facilitate and strengthen immersion in the experience responsible for the patient’s fear,” said the film-maker.
The final part ‘Serious Games IV: A Sun With No Shadow’ considered the high degree of similarity between the images used in briefing for war and those used in debriefing once it’s over.
The screening was followed by a brief interactive session between the film-maker and the audience during which Harun spoke of the similarities between the making of films and computer animations. He also drew parallels to some of his former works. “The key point I wanted to highlight through this discussion was the use of computer animation. Nowadays people no longer believe in direct picture. They need something more or an ‘ideal image’ and that is what I wanted to bring out through these films,” says Harun.
