“X” marks the what? “Cross influence”, extractivism, and the labours of moving image excavation in Harun Farocki’s The Silver and the Cross (2010)
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Date
2025-10-23
Authors
Alexander, Lawrence
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Publisher
Film and Screen Media, University College Cork
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Abstract
Harun Farocki’s 2010 video installation The Silver and the Cross (Das Silber and das Kreuz) presents a “soft montage” of Gaspar Miguel de Berrío’s 1758 painting of the Cerro Rico Mountain and surrounding city of Potosí in contrast to contemporary footage of the same region shot in present-day Bolivia. Questions of extraction (or, more specifically, extractivism) and histories of representation abound in relation to intersecting networks of capitalism, Christianity, and colonialism on the Latin American continent—and the depredations of the imperial silver mining trade in particular. This article situates Farocki’s moving image practice within the broader media and technological genealogies and logics of extractivism. The importance of “soft montage” or “cross influence”, a signature of his later œuvre, to this kind of investigation is paramount. Farocki’s analysis sees the juxtaposition of close-up, tracking shots, and static shots of Berrío’s landscape to dwell on the class and racial hierarchies that might otherwise fall below the register of visibility while regarding Berrío’s eighteenth-century rendering. In a mode of performative practice that makes a plea for the archaeological survey of images in general, I contend, Farocki enlists the techniques of cinematography to conduct a forensic examination of superficial representation: “X” marks the spot.
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Keywords
Harun Farocki , Moving image art , Media archaeology , Cross influence , Extractivism
Citation
Alexander, L. (2025) '"X" Marks the what? ‘Cross influence’, extractivism, and the labours of moving image excavation in Harun Farocki’s The Silver and the Cross (2010)', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 29–30, pp. 183–201. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.2930.10