The chapter presents, through an unusual dialogue with another video essayist whose style is very distant from Farocki’s, Adam Curtis, a catalog of essential concepts for an initial approach to Farocki's work. In the wake of the academic tradition on video essays represented by Nora Alter, the text situates Farocki within the genealogy of Alexander Astruc or Hans Richter, as it prioritizes the representation of ideas or abstractions over compositional or aesthetic elements. It also highlights the notion of "writing" in Farocki, which is essential for a holistic understanding of his filmography, in contrast to the lack of writing in Curtis's work, dominated by a "paranoid globalism.