Florian Hoof – författare

Angels of Efficiency traces the invention of film and the parallel rise of management consulting, telling the story of how these together brought about new forms of information visualization and visual management. The period from 1880 to 1930, author Florian Hoof argues, saw the genesis of a form of visual knowledge that provided a novel means to intervene in management processes. Visual management largely superseded oral and written forms of communication and decision-making, instituting a strategy for overcoming the mid-nineteenth-century crisis of control and resulting in a media-based form of rationality. Focusing largely on early corporate consulting in America by tracing the careers of Frank Gilbreth and his wife and business partner, Lillian Gilbreth, Hoof examines the rise and lasting effects of corporate consulting as a visual form.Framing consulting as a cultural technique that is characterized by media processes in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, Angels of Efficiency forges a new approach to the history of consulting. In addition to pioneering a new field of film and media studies, Hoof contributes original research to American cultural and economic history, such as archival findings concerning Gilbreth's consulting efforts for the German Army during WWI. With this distinct and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Hoof has marshalled cinema and media studies, business history, and science and technology studies to make sense of the rise of consulting practices and their remarkable stability to this day.

Angels of Efficiency traces the invention of film and the parallel rise of management consulting, telling the story of how these together brought about new forms of information visualization and visual management. The period from 1880 to 1930, author Florian Hoof argues, saw the genesis of a form of visual knowledge that provided a novel means to intervene in management processes. Visual management largely superseded oral and written forms of communication and decision-making, instituting a strategy for overcoming the mid-nineteenth-century crisis of control and resulting in a media-based form of rationality. Focusing largely on early corporate consulting in America by tracing the careers of Frank Gilbreth and his wife and business partner, Lillian Gilbreth, Hoof examines the rise and lasting effects of corporate consulting as a visual form.Framing consulting as a cultural technique that is characterized by media processes in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, Angels of Efficiency forges a new approach to the history of consulting. In addition to pioneering a new field of film and media studies, Hoof contributes original research to American cultural and economic history, such as archival findings concerning Gilbreth's consulting efforts for the German Army during WWI. With this distinct and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Hoof has marshalled cinema and media studies, business history, and science and technology studies to make sense of the rise of consulting practices and their remarkable stability to this day.

Angels of Efficiency traces the invention of film and the parallel rise of management consulting, telling the story of how these together brought about new forms of information visualization and visual management. The period from 1880 to 1930, author Florian Hoof argues, saw the genesis of a form of visual knowledge that provided a novel means to intervene in management processes. Visual management largely superseded oral and written forms of communication and decision-making, instituting a strategy for overcoming the mid-nineteenth-century crisis of control and resulting in a media-based form of rationality. Focusing largely on early corporate consulting in America by tracing the careers of Frank Gilbreth and his wife and business partner, Lillian Gilbreth, Hoof examines the rise and lasting effects of corporate consulting as a visual form.Framing consulting as a cultural technique that is characterized by media processes in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, Angels of Efficiency forges a new approach to the history of consulting. In addition to pioneering a new field of film and media studies, Hoof contributes original research to American cultural and economic history, such as archival findings concerning Gilbreth''s consulting efforts for the German Army during WWI. With this distinct and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Hoof has marshalled cinema and media studies, business history, and science and technology studies to make sense of the rise of consulting practices and their remarkable stability to this day.

Angels of Efficiency traces the invention of film and the parallel rise of management consulting, telling the story of how these together brought about new forms of information visualization and visual management. The period from 1880 to 1930, author Florian Hoof argues, saw the genesis of a form of visual knowledge that provided a novel means to intervene in management processes. Visual management largely superseded oral and written forms of communication and decision-making, instituting a strategy for overcoming the mid-nineteenth-century crisis of control and resulting in a media-based form of rationality. Focusing largely on early corporate consulting in America by tracing the careers of Frank Gilbreth and his wife and business partner, Lillian Gilbreth, Hoof examines the rise and lasting effects of corporate consulting as a visual form.Framing consulting as a cultural technique that is characterized by media processes in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, Angels of Efficiency forges a new approach to the history of consulting. In addition to pioneering a new field of film and media studies, Hoof contributes original research to American cultural and economic history, such as archival findings concerning Gilbreth''s consulting efforts for the German Army during WWI. With this distinct and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Hoof has marshalled cinema and media studies, business history, and science and technology studies to make sense of the rise of consulting practices and their remarkable stability to this day.

What unleashed the forces of global capitalism which continue to shape the world that we live in? Economists and economic historians variously point to innovations in logistics and trade, the emergence of a new set of business-friendly values and the emergence of new forms of applied knowledge in early modernity to solve this riddle. This book focuses on the moving image as a factor of economic development. In a series of in-depth cases studies at the intersection of film and media studies, science and technology studies and economic and social history, Films That Work Harder: The Circulations of Industrial Film presents an in-depth, global perspective on the dynamic relationship between film, industrial organization and economic development. Bringing together new research from leading scholars from Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, this book combines the state of the art in the field with an agenda for a future research. Provides a in-depth, global perspective on the complex, dynamic relationship of film, visual and organizational rhetoric and economic development. It brings together the leading scholars in a burgeoning new field of film studies with original work not previously presented elsewhere. Contributes towards the further development of an exciting new interdisciplinary research paradigm at the intersection of film studies, economic history, science and technology studies and the social sciences.

Unternehmensberatung, eine bisweilen wundersam anmutende Mischung aus beinharter Rationalisierung, Esoterik und Zukunftsvision, kommt immer dann zum Einsatz, wenn wirtschaftliche Strukturen aus dem Gleichgewicht zu geraten drohen. Was es eigentlich heißt, sich beraten zu lassen, welche Medien dabei eine Rolle spielen und wie die Branche der Unternehmensberatung zu einem zentralen gesellschaftlichen Wissenssystem wurde, ist Gegenstand dieses Buches.Gesellschaftspolitische Entwicklungen werden nicht erst seit der jüngsten Finanzkrise durch Unternehmensberatungen wie McKinsey geprägt. Die Beraterkultur nimmt seit langem Einfluss auf die Gestaltung ökonomischer wie politischer Prozesse. Eine historische Grundlagenstudie zum Visual Management.Entscheidenden Anteil daran, dass die Consulting Branche zu einem zentralen gesellschaftlichen Wissenssystem wurde, hatten Medien der Beratung: der Film, graphische Modelle, Statistiken und Flow-Charts. Mit ihrer Hilfe inszenierte sich etwa der photographie- und filmbegeisterte Consultant Frank Bunker Gilbreth als "Engel der Effizienz", der in den 1910er Jahren in Berlin und den Vereinigten Staaten seinen Auftraggebern verspricht, im Unternehmen verborgene Effizienzpotentiale heben zu können. In den USA erproben Berater zur gleichen Zeit graphische und kinetische Verfahren der Zukunftsantizipation. Daraus gehen Praktiken des Visual Management hervor, die nicht nur ein neues Sinnsystem darstellen, sondern dem durch technologische und soziale Umbrüche verunsicherten Industriemanagement Orientierung versprechen. Die Entzauberung der Welt durch deren ingenieurswissenschaftliche Rationalisierung geht paradoxerweise mit einer Verklärung der Beraterbranche einher. Beratung, eine bisweilen wundersam anmutende Mischung sowohl aus beinharter Rationalisierung und Kontrolle wie auch aus Esoterik und Zukunftsvision, kommt immer dann zum Einsatz, wenn wirtschaftliche Strukturen aus dem Gleichgewicht zu geraten drohen.

Wenn die Finanzspekulation im Herzen des "institutionellen Imaginären" der westlichen Gesellschaften (Cornelius Castoriadis) angesiedelt ist, so ist auch der Film als Teil dieses institutionellen Imaginären zu betrachten. Wie die großen Dramen Hollywoods werden die Weltfinanzmärkte als "Wissensartefakte" heute ausschließlich auf großen Leinwänden und Bildschirmen sichtbar. Ökonomie und Kino sind komplexe, heterogene und eng miteinander verflochtene Gebilde, beide handeln mit fiktiven Werten, so dass die Frage nicht lauten kann, wie ökonomisches Finanzwissen visualisiert wird, sondern wie ökonomische Fiktionen beide Institutionen durchdringen.In den Beiträgen von Spekulantenwahn wird die Börse als eine Bühne betrachtet, auf der die Umbrüche der Finanzwelt auch als filmische Inszenierungen gelesen werden: Finanzkrisen, Paniken, Manien, Depressionen, das sind nur einige der Begriffe, die – direkt aus der Psychiatrie übernommen – die Entwicklungen der Märkte beschreiben sollen. Da werden neue Existenzen geschaffen, andere stürzen ins Bodenlose ab; es verschwimmen die Grenzen zwischen Wirtschaft und Kultur, zwischen ökonomischer Rationalität und medialer Imagination.Wo erlebt man heute noch die griechische Tragödie? Im Kino und an der Börse. Warum hat das Kino die große emotionale Oper des 19. Jahrhunderts abgelöst? Weil der Film das besser geeignete Medium bietet, um das ''Drama der Börse'' zu zeigen, wie historische und aktuelle Finanzkrisen verarbeitet und welche Antworten auf dieses "Wahnsystem" in Szene gesetzt werden. Im Kino und an der Börse finden die phantasmatische Dimension des Ökonomischen und die libidinösen Energien der narrativen Bildräume zueinander.