Flusser

Für eine Philosophy of Caixa Preta
Analyse textuelle critique des différentes versions du livre de Vilém Flusser "Pour une Philosophie de la Photographie" écrit par lui en allemand, en anglais et en portugais
et petite histoire de ses éditions et traductions dans 22 langues

What is experimental photography? Experimental photographers do not abide by the standard rules of photography, they play against the photographic apparatus. Some photograph without a lens (pinhole) or without a camera (photograms). Others play with light, time, chemical development, or printing. And some erase the author-photographer, or use him differently in the process. Contemporary experimental photography is not a school, nor a movement, but simply a current, a moment between the decline of traditional documentary photography and the rise of digital photography.

Key Words:
Droit à la ville, right to the city, critical geography,  marxism, marxist theory, urban studies, Nanterre, 1968, mai 68, May 68, critique de la vie quotidienne
urban history, Résistance, ORTF, Toulouse, Paris, Strasbourg,
Laurence Costes, „Le droit à la ville de Henri Lefebvre: quel héritage politique et scientifique?“
David Harvey, Social Justice and the City, 1973.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Henri Lefebvre, Le droit à la ville
Henri Lefebvre, La révolution urbaine
Aldo Rossi

Diese Arbeit hat das praktische Anliegen, gemeinschaftliche Beteiligung in öffentlicher Kommunikation über gesellschaftlich relevante Themen der Politik und der Moral zu fördern, indem sie das Potential einer neuartig medial vermittelten Öffentlichkeit  aufzeigt, das die Grundlage für einen engagierten, interaktiven gesell­schaftlichen Konsens bilden kann. Es werden die vier  historischen Kommunikationsstrukturen der Mündlichkeit, der
Schriftkultur, der Massenmedien und der vernetzten Digitaltechnologie in Bezug auf die jeweiligen Modelle der Öffentlichkeit analysiert. Dabei wird zunächst auf die 'Polis' der griechischen Antike als Ideal gemeinschaftlicher Beteiligung eingegangen, deren öffentliche Kommunikation von der  Unmittelbarkeit direkter Versammlungen gekennzeichnet war. Darauf folgt die Betrachtung der klassischen Öffentlichkeit der
europäischen Aufklärungszeit: Die Herausbildung von gesellschaftlich wirksamen öffentlichen Meinungen erfolgte hier gleichsam in direkten Diskursen innerhalb von öffentlichen Einrichtungen und über gedruckte Texte vermittelt. Die antike und
aufklärerische Berufung auf nachvollziehbare Kriterien der Vernunft prägte mithin die rationale Aufladung der Idee von Öffentlichkeit.
Anschließend beginnt die Untersuchung der öffentlichen Kommunikation der Moderne mit einer Reflexion der Zerstörung des öffentlichen Raumes durch den Totalitarismus des 20. Jahrhunderts und konzentriert sich dann auf die problema­tischen Bedingungen der massenmedial vermittelten Öffentlichkeit, die eine kritische Einschätzung gegenüber einer gesellschaftlich relevanten Beteiligung an öffentlicher Verständigung hervorriefen. Die abschließende Anschauung der digitalen Technolo­gien der gegenwärtigen Postmoderne verdeutlicht, dass diese nun global vernetzte und multimediale Kommunikationsbedingungen bieten, die politische und moralische Auseinandersetzungen mit Bezug auf die Weltgemeinschaft vermitteln können. Der Gegensatz zwischen der auf passiven Konsum ausgerichteten einseitigen
Kommunikation der Massenmedien der Moderne und der interaktiven Kommunika­tionsstruktur der vernetzten Digitaltechnologien der Postmoderne eröffnet somit die
Aussicht auf die Verwirklichung der Ideale der antiken und klassischen Öffent­lichkeit in der Gegenwart.

Schlagworte: Öffentlichkeit / Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft; Unmittelbarkeit, mediale Vermittlung; Kommunikation / Verständigung / Konsens; Politik; Moral

"Für eine Philosophy of Caixa Preta" is a critical textual analysis of the different versions (in German, English and Portuguese) of Vilém Flusser's book "Towards a Philosophy of Photography" and a short history of its editions.

Vilém Flusser has frequently written the same texts in several languages, not only translating himself his initial text, but rewriting it, modifying it, enriching it through its various self-translations.

His best-known, most widely distributed and most translated book, "Fur eine Philosofie der Fotografie", of which he wrote and published four original versions, two in German, one in English and one in Portuguese.
The German versions have been translated in more than 20 languages. The original English version has been dropped in favor of a third-party traduction from German. And the Portuguese version, which is the mots complex and advanced, exists only in Portuguese.

The existence of these four original versions of the book allows one to develop an attempt at an original Flusserian textual critique on the basis of a thorough and detailed analysis of these texts.

This essay also presents the story of the publishing and the translations of the book, and analyzes the power apparatus behind the differences of treatment of the various versions.

Cet essai analyse une dizaine de textes de Vilém Flusser sur Israël et le conflit avec les Palestiniens; ces textes, certains inédits, ont été écrits entre 1967 et 1991. Flusser s'est rendu deux fois en Israël, en 1980 et en 1991 peu avant sa mort. Tout en affirmant son judaïsme, Flusser s'y montre très critique du sionisme et de l'état d'Israël. Ces textes de Flusser sont particulièrement critiques, amers et désillusionnés.

La photographie expérimentale est un champ peu étudié et un concept peu défini dans l’histoire de la photographie contemporaine. Ce livre présente les travaux d’une centaine de photographes expérimentaux et, pour les caractériser, s’appuie en particulier sur les thèses du philosophe brésilien Vilém Flusser : des photographes jouant contre les appareils, ne respectant pas les règles et perturbant le bon fonctionnement de l’apparatus photographique en en modifiant les paramètres établis. Ainsi, certains artistes enfreignent les règles de production de l’image en jouant avec le temps, avec la lumière, avec la chimie du développement ou avec le tirage, ou en réinventant l’appareil photographique. D’autres se démarquent du dispositif en déconstruisant l’appareil, en n’utilisant pas d’objectif (camera obscura), parfois pas d’appareil du tout (photogramme), ou en défaisant la matière photographique. D’autres enfin déplacent l’auteur-photographe, en l’effaçant ou en incluant leur propre corps dans le geste photographique.
La photographie expérimentale contemporaine ne constitue pas à proprement parler une école ou un mouvement, mais simplement un courant, un moment entre le déclin de la photographie analogique documentaire traditionnelle et l’avènement de la photographie numérique à la fin du XXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle.

What an illusion – as if the world was really logical. We have lost faith in this, wrote the young Vilém Flusser to his friend Alex Bloch in 1951. […] (Briefe an Alex Bloch, 2000: 12-13)* […] Logic is only one way of world comprehension. There are limits to the sayable, Flusser emphasises following Ludwig Wittgenstein, limits to what can be meaningfully expressed in the code of writing. But for Flusser there is a radically new option in the offing: With the computing powers of imagination “we are now able to put our thoughts into images” – whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must no longer be silent. (Die Krise der Linearität, 1988)

Este trabalho procura problematizar a relação das subjetividades com a tecnologia, tomando como centro de análise a atividade mediada por instrumentos. Orientados metodologicamente por uma perspectiva sócio-histórica e pelas teorias enunciativo-discursivas, os objetivos para este trabalho concentram-se no desenvolvimento de uma interface de discussão teórica sobre a atividade humana
mediada por tecnologias livres. Mais especificamente, procura-se apresentar conceitos relacionados a tecnologias livres, definir artefatos e instrumentos e sua relação com a produção de subjetividade, apresentar como diferentes teóricos abordaram a atividade mediada por instrumentos e suas relações de apropriação, situar a dimensão genérica da linguagem e da atividade humana, buscar fundamentos teóricos para a análise dos componentes informacionais dos aparelhos contemporâneos, e discutir possibilidades dialógicas para o complexo humano-aparelho. Esta pesquisa tem natureza bibliográfica e exploratória e, neste sentido, os resultados estão contidos na forma de achados da revisão bibliográfica do presente trabalho, que desdobraram-se em três eixos principais: a apresentação e contextualização de abordagens que relacionam atividade humana com instrumentos e seus principais conceitos; o ponto de vista dos gêneros sociais de discurso e de atividades; e, por fim, alguns subsídios teóricos para se pensar relações de liberdade, potencialidades de apropriação e acesso às fontes da tecnologia contemporânea, a partir dos conceitos de aparelho, informação e caixa-preta, de Vilém Flusser, e dialogismo de Mikhail Bakhtin. As conclusões desta pesquisa são múltiplas, assim como as perspectivas de compreensão do legado técnico mediador da atividade humana. Pode-se adiantar todavia que elas compartilham a seguinte linha-guia: uma relação dialética da liberdade (de conhecer, de agir, de compartilhar) com a apropriação da tecnologia. E essa reciprocidade também diz respeito a uma abertura para a investigação das subjetividades: é possível que esta revisão teórica possa então contribuir para o desenvolvimento de novos meios de produção de conhecimento e ação - ou sejam novos instrumentos, no sentido extenso desta palavra - para a Psicologia.

(Monografia apresentada à Universidade Federal do Paraná Setor de Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes, Departamento de Psicologia, como requisito parcial à obtenção do título de Bacharel em Psicologia. Orientadora: Prof Dr Miriam A. G. S. Pan)

This elaboration seeks to contribute to a new understanding of space in the informational city. It  strives to re-contextualize and re-conzeptionalize space and it’s subsidiary elements: cities, places and in particular bodies in the informational context in order to raise a critical conscienceness about space and in order to develop a set of implications for spatial disciplines.

It is Heidegger who defined the essence of modern technology as Gestell (Enframing). According to him enframing refers to the urging of humans to reveal alētheia (truth) as ever present. Enframing is the essence of modern technology, because modern technology is rooted in technē: it is a means for sourcing true forms and ideas that exist prior to the figures we perceive. Thus, for Heidegger, enframing is " destining, " from which " the essence of all history … is determined " (24). Both Flusser and McLuhan researched the visible, but their thought was also based on a reflection on the meaning of the historical determination of media in consciousness. The approaches of both McLuhan and Flusser seem somewhat different, and yet the message seems to be complementary. They both delve deep into history. McLuhan's belief in the three major technological innovations (see below) bears a close resemblance to Flusser's belief in the pendulum swing that allows for " linear-text type culture " to be pushed into the background, firstly by the technical image (the photograph) and later by the interactive-hybrid culture of the technologically-modulated image and the interconnected database, thereby causing a shift in consciousness as the logic of the alphabet is overcome by the mathematical logic of the technical image. Thus, both McLuhan's and Flusser's thinking starts with the transitioning from oral histories towards the inherent logic of the alphabet and its subsequent molding of human thought processes. McLuhan's trinity of visual space, audio space, and the tetrad certainly imposes itself holistically. Visual space is the mind-space of a civilization that has proceeded from the last four millennia of linearity, relying heavily on the left, quantitative hemisphere of the brain. Acoustic space is a projection of the right hemisphere, based on qualitative thinking (holistic and multi-centred, rather than mono-centred).

In the present Europe of financial crisis, a starkly dramatized image of the modern Greeks is being outlined. What this image has in common with the classical stylised figure of the ancient Greeks in humanist Europe is, at best, leisure – understood as an idle inaction, yet again also contrasted with business. […] When Vilém Flusser sees us currently stumbling into an emerging image of humanity, notably that ancient idea of seeing “the goal of life in leisure and theory” would be recognised again and the economy would be regarded as an infrastructure that facilitates “politics, that is, freedom and creative activity” – naturally “with other leading signs” (Telematik, 1991: 00:00:00-00:00:10).

Mit den herausragenden Publizisten Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) und Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) werden grundlegende Fragen aufgeworfen und einführend behandelt: Was ist Kommunikation? Was ist Öffentlichkeit? Was ist Politik? Aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven wird dabei die Frage nach den Medien und den Herausforderungen des medialen Wandels thematisiert. Neben Ausschnitten aus den reichhaltigen essayistischen Schriften werden insbesondere Video-Dokumente das lebendige Denken der „politischen Theoretikerin“ Arendt und des „Kommunikologen“ Flusser veranschaulichen und einen anregenden Einstieg bieten.

Was ist Kommunikation?
01 | Kommunikation und Kultur
02 | Kommunikations- und Mediengeschichte
03 | Kommunikationsstrukturen
Was ist Politik?
04 | Die Bedeutung des Politischen
05 | Die griechische Polis als Ursprung von Politik
06 | Medien und politische Sphäre
Was ist Öffentlichkeit?
07 | Das Öffentliche als gemeinsamer Weltbezug
08 | Das Wagnis der Öffentlichkeit
09 | Veröffentlichen von Privatem
Was sind Medien?
10 | Kulturelle Programmierung durch Codes
11 | Schaltung, Verhaltensmodelle und Bedeutungsträger
12 | Die Rückwirkung von technischen Erfindungen
Was ist der Strukturwandel?
13 | Die Krise des Alphabets
14 | Totalitarismus und Verlust des öffentlichen Raums als Basis politischen Urteilens
15 | Die Kommunikationsrevolution und das Ende der Politik?

Brasilien 18-4 Vilém Flusser in Brasilien : eine Anthropophagie des Geistes / Clemens van Loyen.-Würzburg : Königshausen & Neumann, 2018.-394 S. ; 24 cm.-(Film-Medium-Diskurs ; 91).-Zugl.: München, Univ., Diss., 2018.-ISBN 978-3-8260-6524-8 : EUR 48.00 [#6229] Der aus Prag stammende jüdische Denker Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) ge-hört zu den inkommensurablen Autoren des 20. Jahrhunderts, deren Werk es schwierig macht, sie in eine der üblichen Schubladen einzusortieren. War er ein Philosoph, ein Phänomenologe, ein Kulturphilosoph, ein Medientheo-retiker oder ein Futurologe? Der Überblick über das in mehreren Sprachen verfaßte Werk des Autors ist nicht leicht, weshalb es auch unterschiedlich akzentuierte Deutungen gibt, die auch ausführlich den alteuropäischen und Prager Kontext herausarbeiten, der für den Werdegang des Philosophen Vilém Flusser von Bedeutung war. 1 Hier nun fügt der Verfasser anderen Büchern, die in den letzten Jahren zu Flusser erschienen sind, eine umfangreiche und lesenswerte Studie hinzu, die in der Verbindung von Werkanalyse, Biographie und Zeitgeschichte be-sonders den Bezug zu Brasilien herausarbeitet, wo Flusser mehr als dreißig Jahre lang lebte. 2 Es handelt sich bei der Arbeit von Clemens van Loyen um eine Münchner Dissertationsschrift im Studiengang Amerikanische Kultur-geschichte. Der Fall Flusser ergibt so einen Einblick in die Verschränkung von brasilia-nischem und mitteleuropäischem Denken, wobei dieses Denken als gesell-schafts-und kulturkritisch bestimmt wird. Flussers Geschichtsphilosophie 1 Vilém Flusser (1920-1991) : ein Leben in der Bodenlosigkeit ; Biographie / Rainer Guldin ; Gustavo Bernardo.-Bielefeld : Transcript-Verlag, 2017.-421 S. ; Ill. ; 23 cm.-(Edition Kulturwissenschaft ; 152).-ISBN 978-3-8376-4064-9 : EUR 34.99 [#5646].-Rez.: IFB 18-2 http://informationsmittel-fuer-bibliotheken.de/showfile.php?id=8998-Vilém Flus-ser (1920-1991) : Phänomenologie der Kommunikation / Andreas Ströhl.

The self which designs and projects itself seems labile. Yet, self-overcoming is not synonymous with elimination of the self for Vilém Flusser. “Groundless” freedom is not a matter of “severing ties to others” but of consciously forming bonds, of willingly assuming responsibility (Bodenlos, 1992: 253)*. Self-forgetfulness, absorption into the “we,” is not a “loss of self” but involves consciously overcoming the belief in an encapsulated “I” sanctified by objective givenness – a playful “discovery” of oneself in the other (Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, 1992: 114)

According to both Flusser and McLuhan the effect of script with its certain form of storing and passing on information has introduced rational patterns of thought and valuation. The text based cultural technique favoured the emergence of private points of view as well as of politically arguing publics. As the new instantaneous “electronic media” create a totally participatory environment without any time for reflection, people get out of the habit of establishing an individual, abstract and critical approach (McLuhan). Furthermore the “technical images” of the new media appear as plain observations of the real world instead of computations of concepts, which necessitate a new form of decipherment to be criticized (Flusser).
Presupposing judgement as crucial faculty for political action (Arendt), to what extent the political is challenged by having all sides simultaneously and everybody involved (McLuhan) and becoming aware that both the subject and the objective world are projected (Flusser)?

Whereas in the past the image of self and world of Western civilization was founded on the ideological dichotomy between subjectivity and objectivity, between individual and society, Vilém Flusser now calls for the development of an anthropology that regards human beings as an extrapolation from concrete relational fields. If the encapsulated individual identity is broken open, if an “I” self-forgetfully recognises itself in the “you” of the other within a concrete “we,” creative dialogue in interpersonal relations can shape the future of culture (Gedächtnisse, 1989: 52-54).

"Key Words: Droit à la ville, right to the city, critical geography, marxism, marxist theory, urban studies, Nanterre, 1968, mai 68, May 68, critique de la vie quotidienne urban history, Résistance, ORTF, Toulouse, Paris, Strasbourg, Laurence Costes, „Le droit à la ville de Henri Lefebvre: quel héritage politique et scientifique?“ David Harvey, Social Justice and the City, 1973. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities Henri Lefebvre, Le droit à la ville Henri Lefebvre, La révolution urbaine Aldo Rossi"

This article presents ten essays written by Vilém Flusser between 1967 and 1991 on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Some of these essays were not published. Although Flusser clearly asserts his Judaism and his pride in being a Jew, he is at the same time very critical of Zionism and the State of Israel. First, he thinks that the very existence of a Jewish national state is in contradiction with the ideal of Judaism―namely, to dedicate oneself to others―and he assumes therefore that Zionism, as a national state-building ideology and apparatus, can only fail. He also criticizes the relation between Israel and the Arab peoples, analyzing it as colonial domination and considering that Israel has failed to be the beacon of liberation and struggle against Western domination that it could and should have been. He hopes that Jews and Arabs (a formula he prefers to Israelis and Palestinians, as less grounded in territories) can overcome the conflict, draw closer and construct a new, non-Zionist model together, free of Western influences. Although this might sound utopian, Flusser trusts the Jews’ ability to contribute to such a model. These essays, especially the one entitled Disillusionment, written in Israel during his first trip in 1980, have a rather sad, bitter and disenchanted flavor. Flusser made his second and last trip to Israel in September 1991, two months before his death.

As is widely known, Vilém Flusser used metaphors to make his philosophical points very frequently and some of the most recurrent are words in the semantical field of fabrics (weaves, webs, meshes, veils etc.). The most interesting thing about this particularity of his writing is that his use of these terms seemed to be an obsession, since Flusser applied them in the most different contexts. In the early works he uses this metaphor to describe more often the layer of appearance which covers reality properly speaking (for instance: the mention to Schopenhauer´s “veil of Maya” in the History of the Devil), or the activity of human thought (compared to a cobweb in The Doubt). In the intermediary works, the fabric metaphor is very important to explain the functioning of humankind´s communication systems (“the communicative fabric of Western” in Post-History; each individual as a knot of a web in the essay “The Loss of Faith”). In the last phase of Flusser´s thought, in a kind of synthesis of the first – more metaphysical – and the second  – function oriented – usage of this metaphor, the philosopher works on a model of surface (“superficiality”), which is, on one hand, woven by the participants of a communication´s process and, on the other hand, functions as a cover of reality’s sense, underneath which there is nothing. This configuration points ultimately to the notion that there is no sense at all in reality except what results from a sense-donation by people willing to interact with each other.

In the last days of august 1991 Michael Bielicky visited Vilém Flusser at his residence in Robion, France. Several original conversations with Flusser were videotaped and published in 1994 as "Vilém Flussers Fluß. Eine Dokumentation". The recordings include spirited statements by Flusser on key aspects of his work. These are presented here in written form for the first time. Flusser extemporises impressively on many of his favorite topics: the emergence and crisis of written culture and historical consciousness, the meaning of photography, film and computer-generated images as well as the prospect of a telematic society. A special gem in this transcript is Flusser's brilliant telling of the “history of mankind as a television drama,” unpublished thus far.

A megismerés tárgyának kötött, szabad és kevert reprezentációit a megismerés eltérő stratégiáiként azonosíthatjuk. A különböző stratégiákra alapozott megismerés különféle korlátokba ütközik, így némileg különböznek a korlátok meghaladási mechanizmusai is. Eme – csupán vázlatosan kifejtett – ismeretelméleti elképzeléseinket a képek természetének elemzésével támasztjuk alá, s amellett érvelünk, hogy a képi megismerés korlátainak meghaladása: a beszéd és az írás

We impose order on the chaos of the world in order to dispel fear, the fear of meaninglessness, of decay, of oblivion. Such a distancing gesture is an attempt to master the complexity that confronts us directly through simplification. Yet, the codified patterns, the specific techniques through which we comprehend the world, strike back and reflect back. As a result, they cease to function as media and obstruct our access to the world. The order disintegrates once again, as Vilém Flusser stressed as early as 1957 – the chaos is not banished, but is only “postponed by one step further” (Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert, VFA 1423: 117).