Into the Universe of Technical Images

Electronic Mediations

by Vilém Flusser

Poised between hope and despair for a humanity facing an urgent communication crisis, this work by Vilém Flusser forecasts either the first truly human, infinitely creative society in history or a society of unbearable, oppressive sameness, locked in a pattern it cannot change. First published in German in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, Into the Universe of Technical Images outlines the history of communication technology as a process of increasing abstraction.

Flusser charts how communication evolved from direct interaction with the world to mediation through various technologies. The invention of writing marked one significant shift; the invention of photography marked another, heralding the current age of the technical image. The automation of the processing of technical images carries both promise and threat: the promise of freeing humans to play and invent and the threat for networks of automation to proceed independently of humans.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Photography, Theory, Art, Academic, School

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Vilém Flusser was a philosopher born in Czechoslovakia. He lived for a long period in Brazil and later in France, and his works are written in several different languages.
His early work was marked by discussion of the thought of Martin Heidegger, and by the influence of existentialism and phenomenology. Phenomenology would play a major role in the transition to the later phase of his work, in which he turned his attention to the philosophy of communication and of artistic production. He contributed to the dichotomy in history: the period of image worship, and period of text worship, with deviations consequently into idolatry and "textolatry".

Flusser was born in 1920 in Prague into a family of Jewish intellectuals. His father, Gustav Flusser, studied mathematics and physics (under Albert Einstein among others). Flusser attended German and Czech primary schools and later a German grammar school.

In 1938, Flusser started to study philosophy at the Juridical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. In 1939, shortly after the Nazi occupation, Flusser emigrated to London to continue his studies for one term at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Vilém Flusser lost all of his family in the German concentration camps: his father died in Buchenwald in 1940; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were brought to Auschwitz and later to Theresienstadt where they were killed. The next year, he emigrated to Brazil, living both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

In 1960 he started to collaborate with the Brazilian Institute for Philosophy (IBF) in São Paulo and published in the Revista Brasileira de Filosofia; by these means he seriously approached the Brazilian intellectual community. During that decade he published and taught at several schools in São Paulo, being Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo and Professor of Philosophy of Communication at the Escola Dramática and the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo. He also participated actively in the arts, collaborating with the Bienal de São Paulo, among other cultural events.

Beginning in the 1950s he taught philosophy and functioned as a journalist, before publishing his first book Língua e realidade (Language and Reality) in 1963. In 1972 he decided to leave Brazil.

He lived in both Germany and the South of France. To the end of his life, he was quite active writing and giving lectures around media theory. He died in 1991 in a car accident, while visiting his native Prague to give a lecture.

Reviews

[Carolina Ferreira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Flusser feels so contemporary. It's like he knew, back in 1985, that Facebook and Instagram would have to be invented. It was just a matter of time. Flusser describes the society of 2014 better than we are able to do. And he died in 1991. Amazing!

[Weru000 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Věděl.. :)

[Giovanni Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stimulating and engaging, yet sometimes deranged.

[Rania Zokou · Rating 5 out of 5]

re-reading some parts of this for my thesis and remembering how unhinged, yet how disturbingly accurate this holy grail of new media studies is

[Robert Cocanougher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something of a theoretical sequel to his work "Does writing have a future?" Flusser and the wonderful translation of Nancy Roth provide an intro to the weird world that may await us once we surpass the written form. This is one of those texts that I see ringing true in the world around me as human beings become obsessed with the image, and it is one that gives me hope for the future as we dive headfirst into it.

[Aivaras Žukauskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all its utopian fantasies (which do seem a bit funny at points), this is a forgotten classic. Flusser was really ahead of the curve when it comes to doing an analysis of a digitalized society before such society actually came about fully. One could even say he gives an account of such society in the spirit of what has been dubbed "imaginal politics" in some circles. A short but very interesting and highly relevant read for today.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flusser describes a universe we are becoming more and more alike every day. A world of images, the death to the author, a cybernetic future where we a freed up from work to join together and create.

[Coco Gelato · Rating 5 out of 5]

it boggles the mind that Flusser wrote this book in 1985. to wit: "Films are being replaced by electronic recording technologies, and cinemas will disappear." (p. 53)

"The images have feedback channels that run in the opposite direction from the distribution channels and that inform the senders about receivers' reactions, channels like market research, demography, and political elections. This feedback enables the images to change, to become better and better, and more like the receivers want them to be..." (also p. 53. what a great page.)

This man foresaw the rise of Netflix, Instagram, and the death of broadcasters and Hollywood. He also predicts the rise of the vacation lifestyle/leisure society, the rejection of bodies and of sexual dimorphism, the push for digital immortality, and many other things. Incredibly prescient.

Flusser even includes a one-sentence summary of each chapter at the very end of the book. This man even anticipated CliffNotes, for chrissakes!

If you appreciate Baudrillard, Benjamin, etc., you'll dig this book.

[Milo Galiano · Rating 4 out of 5]

La gramática de Flusser, como suele ocurrir con esta clase de pensadores, se siente recia y sin sabor al principio. No es hasta casi la mitad que logré coger su ritmo, la velocidad a la que va. Va rapidísimo.

Dado que su lenguaje es muy testimonial en algunas partes (a veces, para mi gusto, excesivo; por ello que no pueda tener 5 estrellas), y que es un libro publicado en los años ochenta, hay apostillas políticas que no son las mejores. Tampoco es que hayan envejecido de la peor manera: él sabe que es un señor mayor en un mundo que lo ha envejecido.

Las potencias filosóficas que demuestra... Este tipo de autores que no pretenden ser Kant (menos mal) dejan paso su pensamiento de la manera más lúcida. Son pensadores posibilitantes —agentes imaginantes, como el propio Flusser invita a decir— más que organizadores de la realidad (menos mal). Su lenguaje es propio de su década, pero más sorprendente es el ritmo del lenguaje (que son cosas distintas), similar a escritos de cierto Tiqqun.

[Diana León · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este ensayo tiene 20 postulados que refieren a 20 problemas actuales, de lo mucho que padecemos Vilém aborda la imagen, la técnica, el ocio, el poder y la dura labor de la celebración como respuesta a los problemas del futuro.

[$am · Rating 5 out of 5]

MAJOR (loses me a lil bit when it goes Platonic and Religious near the very end but otherwise) MAJOR

[Pável Granados · Rating 5 out of 5]

Las imágenes técnicas (esto es, aquellas producidas por un aparato) parecieran ser iguales a aquellas realizadas por los pintores que alguna vez contemplaron la realidad. Anteriormente, mirábamos el mundo pensando en planos, dimensiones, puntos de fuga, etcétera. Las imágenes técnicas pulverizaron todo eso. No es siquiera el fotógrafo el que mira, sino la máquina. Y si el fotógrafo logra una bella imagen es porque conoce su aparato y ha luchado contra él. Así que una fotografía es un documento en donde se resuelve la pugna entre el artista y la máquina. Y este planteamiento es sólo el principio de un largo discurrir del autor sobre las imágenes, con resultados siempre sorpresivos. Las imágenes técnicas, decía, no se construyen sobre planos; se crean con puntos rodeados de nada. Si uno se acerca lo suficiente perderá la noción de imagen para enfrentarse sólo a puntos rodeados de vacío. La tecnología ha logrado incluso pulverizar la conciencia humana y convertirla en puntos, tierra hecha de bits. De ahí que, desde esta perspectiva, ya no sea útil pensar en términos de verdad y de mentira, pues las imágenes técnicas le agregan al mundo algo que no necesariamente existía en él. Las imágenes técnicas ni siquiera sirven para asomarse al universo, no son una ventana pues detrás de ellas no hay nada. Siempre la nada, ni siquiera una verdad. Podemos pensar que algunas son útiles para un discurso, y otras sólo están de más, son redundantes, una especie de “ruido” visual. Si algo me asombra del libro de Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), el filósofo checo de lengua portuguesa, es que fue escrito en 1985, cuando las potencialidades de este tipo de imágenes no eran comparables a las que se tienen hoy. Porque, ¿qué puede hacer la verdad si tiene en contra las herramientas más sofisticadas de la tecnología? La verdad es algo que se ha quedado allá arriba, atrapado entre las ramas de la realidad, su disfraz se ha rasgado por culpa del ramaje y ha mostrado lo que lleva debajo, su verdadero rostro: el deseo de dominar. Con que por eso se la pelean. Pero las imágenes técnicas tienen su propio mundo, nada de llorar por el que perdimos; ellas traen su propia construcción de valores, los cuales debiéramos conocer para criticar. Por ejemplo, las imágenes concitarán sus propias comunidades, así estén sus miembros alejados unos de otros con medio mundo de por medio. Repito que estas ideas se plantearon antes, mucho antes, de que existiera la idea de una red social o de comunidades mundiales. Cada imagen nueva se explica teniendo como fondo una tradición, un orbe mítico. Si bien están hechas de puntos, cada una de las imágenes técnicas es asimismo un punto, vértice en que se encuentran dos nadas: la nada exterior y la nada interior; siendo la creatividad nuestra respuesta ante el abismo. Esta red hecha no de nudos sino de puntos independientes cubre aquella infinitud del no-ser. Sobre él hemos creado una realidad, un universo de posibilidades de creación al que le podemos llamar libertad. Dado que el autor murió hace décadas, su mirada de nuestra realidad, la actual, es especulativa y foránea. Nos mira desinteresadamente, y dice cosas que resuenan en muchos sentidos. Dice que el futuro (nosotros) será una sociedad interesada no en la teoría sino en las estrategias. Alabará la superficialidad y no la profundidad. Su instrumento no será la pala, sino el telar. El telar de Penélope que se desteje cada noche, me imagino. Esto que fue escrito con vértigo, fue leído por mí con vértigo, y espero que, por muchos otros, con vértigo creador. EP

Vilém Flusser. El universo de las imágenes técnicas. Elogio de la superficialiad / O Universo das Imagens Técnicas (1985), tr. Julia Tomasini, intr. y notas, Claudia Kozak, 1ª ed. 1ª reimp. Buenos Aires, Caja Negra, 2017. (Col. Futuros Próximos, 5).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not even sure where to begin. Except to say there are not enough stars in the sky for this book. I literally could not get through a chapter (sometimes even a page or two) without flying out of my chair and exclaiming "holy shit" at some new gesticulation of the mind.