A far-ranging and innovative essay film about technology and seeingintricate, beautiful, dense, and provocativeby the highly original Marxist German independent Harun Farocki. Despite the wealth of material covered, the film is closely structured, rather like a narrative or a musical composition, with themes, images, and sounds recurring in fresh contexts to develop the meanings. A particular point of interest is the examination of some of the directions not taken by mainstream technologies, though vestiges of alternative routes taken by others are also investigated in fascinating detail (1986). (JR)