“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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dc.contributor.authorAlexander, Lawrenceen
dc.contributor.editorAlexander, Lawrenceen
dc.contributor.editorPérez-Osorio, Javieren
dc.date.accessioned2025-11-11T13:12:26Z
dc.date.available2025-11-11T13:12:26Z
dc.date.issued2025-10-23en
dc.description.abstractHarun 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.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationAlexander, 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.2930.10en
dc.identifier.doi10.33178/alpha.2930.10en
dc.identifier.endpage201en
dc.identifier.issued29-30
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage183en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/18180
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.ispartofAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.rights© 2025, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.subjectHarun Farockien
dc.subjectMoving image arten
dc.subjectMedia archaeologyen
dc.subjectCross influenceen
dc.subjectExtractivismen
dc.title“X” marks the what? “Cross influence”, extractivism, and the labours of moving image excavation in Harun Farocki’s The Silver and the Cross (2010)en
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 29-30: Coming to Latin America: Moving Image Encounters, Non-Latin American Practitioners