Flusser

Yesterday, after many years, I finally went to the village center of Roubion. Vilém Flusser lived here for many years. I quoted his books a lot in my seminars and used them as a basis for discussion. Especially his philosophy of photography. Flusser is a wild theorist. He wrote a lot about images, media, language, technology, signs, history... It seems to me that he was always thinking about how thinking works. How words and images are created in our heads and how much this has to do with technology, e.g. photography or digital media. He talks about the universe of technical images.

Imagination

Our thinking often moves in images of imagination… A medium corresponds to these: When we communicate, we use language, text, images, photography, film, sculpture, in short, media, technically and artistically, scientifically and fictionally. All of these media are based on a technology. Writing and drawing, printing, an algorithm, digital representation, etc. How are these related? Our thinking, media, and their technical conditions? How does our thinking change technology (progress), and how does technology change the production of new media? And how, in turn, do these new media change our thinking?

This whole process is not at all clear, and anyone who says he or she has understood it has basically not even seen the problem. Flusser is always alive in his thinking, he has a deep historical dimension, a great understanding of technology, he understands the dynamics of media use and the social effects. His philosophy attempts to grasp the core of human thought technically, semiotically and historically. This is an incredible project. It is not modest, nor is it without contradictions.

Für mich war Flusser immer eine Inspiration, aber zugleich hat mir auch immer etwas gefehlt. Sein Denken ist im Grunde materialistisch. Seine Philosophie ist eine der spannendsten im Bereich der Semiotik und Medientheorie. Er spricht manchmal von einem historischen Bewusstsein und einem magischen. Er spricht immer sehr abstrakt darüber. Er ist kein Bewusstseinstheoretiker. Seine Welt ist technisch. Es ist wichtig, ihn zu lesen, um unsere Zeit zu verstehen. Mir geht es aber persönlich inzwischen um andere Gedanken.

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