Harun Farocki’s (2009) In Comparison served as a key reference within my studio project. Farocki’s split screen video documents the procurement of clay bricks across Burkina Faso, Germany, France, Austria, India and Switzerland. The work is a commentary on the disparity of global labour, with the footage illustrating industrial material manufacturing in direct conversation with manual, labour-intensive processes.
Within the context of bookbinding, there is a vast variance between modern, automated book production, versus traditional craftsmanship. The role of the binder is quickly becoming eradicated as factory procurement is becoming more favourable. The art of bookbinding is under serious and immediate threat.
Reflecting the form of Harry Farocki’s (2009) In Comparison, I set out to create a split screen video representing my own experience of the bookbinding process. I juxtaposed by own documentation of dismantling and restitching a book from 1905 against the automated process documented in SatisFactory Press’s (2024) Youtube video The Fascinating Mass Production Process of Books in a Chinese Factory. The audio was spliced and overlayed on top of the videos, creating tension between the two processes. The outcome was uncomfortable and distressing as it illustrated the scale of mass produced books, as well as the threat for the existence of the hand bookbinder.
To access the split screen video please click on the image above or follow the link below:
https://vimeo.com/1163076639?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci
Reference List:
Farocki, H. (2009) In Comparison [Video]. Tate: Liverpool.
SatisFactory Process (2024) ‘The Fascinating Mass Production Process of Books in a Chinese Factory.’
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGcqyR2hK_w
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