Vilém Flusser

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Vilém Flusser, 1940.

Vilém Flusser (born May 12, 1920 in Prague ; † November 27, 1991 ) was a Czech-Brazilian media philosopher and communication scientist whose central theme was the decline of written culture . Although his reflections constantly revolved around the issue of " crisis ", he refused to be a pessimist. The focus of his world, people and society view was always communication .

Life

Vilém Flusser

Flusser came from a Jewish academic family, his father Gustav was a mathematics professor at the University of Prague, his cousin the religious scholar David Flusser . In 1938 Vilém Flusser began studying philosophy at the Charles University in Prague, but had to flee from the National Socialists in 1939 . Vilém Flusser lost his entire family in concentration camps. His father died in Buchenwald in 1940 ; his grandparents, his mother and his sister were taken to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz and murdered there.

Flusser first lived with his future wife with their parents in London , where he was able to continue his studies. In 1940 the entire family emigrated to Brazil . Until around 1950 he worked in import and export. In 1950/51 he worked on a book project on the intellectual history of the 18th century. From 1960 he was in contact with the Brazilian Philosophical Institute and gave lectures there.

From 1962 he was a member of this institute and in 1962 received a chair for communication theory in São Paulo . From 1967 on he was professor of communication at the Escola Superior de Cinema in São Paulo and lectured worldwide.

The exile situation, which was intensely experienced during these years, became a basic constant for Flusser's later thinking. In his autobiography “Bodenlos” (1992) he describes it as a situation that rudely tears you out of all security and thus leads you to philosophizing, or, more aptly, forces you to philosophize.

In 1972 he left with his wife Edith due to conflicts with the military government in Brazil and went first to Meran in South Tyrol and later to Robion in Provence . Flusser was an important mentor for archplus magazine .

In 1991 he was invited by Friedrich Kittler as a visiting professor at the Ruhr University Bochum . After the first public lecture in his hometown Prague at the Goethe-Institut , he died on the way back from the consequences of a car accident shortly before the German border. He was buried in the new Jewish cemetery in Prague.

Flusser's biography explains his remarkable multilingualism. He wrote his texts in English, French, Portuguese and German - less often in his native Czech. Treating the same topic in different languages ​​meant for him to look at it from different points of view. Flusser was often guided by etymology, and several languages ​​also gave him several approaches. He published mainly in German and Portuguese. His estate, which in addition to around 2500 typescripts also includes all the correspondence and many audio documents that have been preserved, is in the Vilém-Flusser archive, which was initially looked after by the media archaeologist Siegfried Zielinski . It was located at the Art Academy for Media Cologne from 1998 to 2006 and has been open to the public at the University of the Arts Berlin since 2007 , since 2016 it has been supervised by the professor of communication and media sociology Maren Hartmann.

Vilém Flusser's concept of communication

Flusser uses the made-up word “communicology” to describe the entirety of his thought efforts, by which he understands the theory of human communication. His concept of communication is excessive and not easy to grasp. Dürnberger summarizes Flusser's understanding of communication in four main points: Human communication is (1) to be interpreted as a phenomenon of freedom, (2) an existential undertaking, (3) in its symbolic mediation of a dialectical nature and finally (4) one of the decisive factors for ours Position in and to the world.

  1. According to Flusser, human communication is “unnatural”. Their artificiality is particularly evident in their symbolic mediation. Flusser does not understand the accumulation of information as a process that can be derived from laws, but leads it back to human freedom, ie to human will.
  2. The incarnation must - in the sense of existentialism - be understood as alienation: Man is expelled from the world (or he arises from it), that is, he is no longer absorbed in it like the animal, but faces it as alien. In being thrown there is a feeling of powerlessness, forlornness and loneliness - and against this mood, according to Flusser, people communicate: “Human communication is an artifice, the purpose of which is to make us forget the brutal futility of a life condemned to death allow."
  3. Symbols are intended to bridge the gap that the reflection between the world and man opens up by signifying the world. They should represent the world, structure it and provide orientation. According to Flusser, symbols are by their nature dialectical in nature, ie a symbol not only has the potential to represent the world, it also has the tendency to cover the world up. For Flusser, this finding addresses the possibility that a code as a system of symbols hides the world more than it means it.
  4. After all, according to Flusser, communication is one of the decisive factors for our position in and towards the world. Symbols are not to be understood as a mirror of reality, they do not depict the world one-to-one, but always create a construction in their abstract depicting and accentuating descriptions. According to Flusser, this construction is not independent of the type of symbols; rather, it applies that every code has a character that is typical for it.

Main messages of his philosophy

Vilém Flusser starts from a five-stage historical model. The first level is assigned to a natural person who lives in a four-dimensional environment of immediate and “concrete experience”. The second level relates to people's interest in objects, i.e. in a three-dimensional environment. With the third stage, the two-dimensional environment becomes formative for the culture: traditional images that are “vivid and imaginary” slide between the human being and his living environment . For around four thousand years, linear texts have increasingly shaped culture. This type of technology for conveying information , in which "understanding by means of concepts" is made possible, creates a one-dimensional environment. Today's society is on the way to a post-alphabetical phase of zero-dimensional technical images, in which the texts lose their function. Flusser characterizes this current “upheaval in codes” as a situation of crisis. However, Flusser not only recognizes the challenges, but also the productivity of such a change: In his article What after? he tries to give a fragmentary outlook on a new scientific approach and culture beyond the dominance of written form.

In this level model, the sign of the higher level refers to the experience of the next lower level. An image means the three-dimensional objects represented; a text means an image, which in turn means the objects. As the text reduces the image content to one dimension, this content can be analyzed and copied.

Flusser sees the difference between traditional images and technical or “ techno images ” such as photographs, films, video, statistical curves, diagrams and traffic signs and symbols on the level of meaning: While traditional images represent scenes, techno images mean texts. A traditional female portrait represents a (real or fictional) person; a techno picture of a woman, on the other hand, means a sentence (or a longer text), e.g. B. the techno picture of a woman on a toilet door means: "Only women are allowed to enter this toilet!"

Flusser predicts that the alphabet will be replaced as the dominant code by techno images. This would also change the perception of space and time, because the linear course of time and the geometric space are only a matter of course for people who grew up with texts and are characterized by texts.

In his concept of information, the concept of entropy from physics plays a decisive role, whereby he regards information as a universal, natural behavior. For him, informing always means bringing something ( amorphous material) into shape, whereby energy is used in this process . However, when energy is used, energy is inevitably dissipated irreversibly . While the dissipation of energy is probable, the state of order, i.e. information, is improbable. Hence information is the appearance of the improbable and corresponds to negentropy , a negative entropy.

He developed a positive utopia of the future telematic society ( telematics ) as an alternative to contemporary pessimistic media theories and media criticism. With this construction he assumed that every society is shaped by the interaction of two forms of communication:

Dialogues that generate information and discourses through which information is passed on.

Basically, three forms of society can be derived from this assumption:

  1. The previous “ideal society” in which dialogues and discourses are in balance.
  2. The “authoritarian society” in which the discourses dominate. The lack of dialogues leads to a lack of information. Discourses are no longer fed with information through dialogues.
  3. The future and “revolutionary society”, in which dialogues predominate, which constantly generate information. Due to the resulting flood of information, the old discourses are breaking up. Accordingly, there are no authorities in the telematic society . Due to its networked structure , it is completely opaque and controls itself cybernetic . Telematics is also referred to by him as the “cosmic brain”.

Flusser did not believe that the emergence of new media would lead to impairments. Rather, he pointed out the risk of missing out on the opportunities offered by the new media.

Shaped by his changeable life, Flusser viewed living and home as a sign of the bondage of people who are actually nomads by nature. In overcoming the spatial distances through the new media, people create access to a new freedom.

He reflected on his own situation as an intellectual immigrant in Brazil in his 1994 work Brazil or the Search for the New Man. A phenomenology of underdevelopment .

Flusser as a philosopher and communication scientist

Flusser had a dual subject orientation in both philosophy and communication science . This interdisciplinarity can be seen in the role of human communication, which plays a central role in Flusser's theory: the purpose of communication is to negate death by storing information. It is an act of freedom and aims to create codes to forget the senselessness and loneliness of people. Because man wants to forget the insignificance of his life condemned to death, he becomes a sociable animal, a zoon politikon . Communication is thus an intentional , dialogical and intersubjective act, since humans cannot live alone and alone.

literature

Selected publications

  • Be a jew. Essays, letters, fictions. Edited by Stefan Bollmann and Edith Flusser. CEP European Publishing House, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86393-055-4 .
  • Thinking communicology further. The "Bochum Lectures". Edited by Silvia Wagnermaier and Siegfried Zielinski. With a foreword by Friedrich A. Kittler and an afterword by Silvia Wagnermaier. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-18145-2 .
  • Bird flights. Essays on nature and culture. 2000, ISBN 3-446-19926-8 .
  • Into the universe of technical images. 2000, ISBN 3-923283-43-1 .
  • Letters to Alex Bloch. ed. v. Edith Flusser and Klaus Sander. Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-923283-53-9 .
  • Home and homelessness. ed. v. Klaus Sander. Audio CD, 49 minutes and booklet, 16 pages. Original sound recordings 1985/1991. supposé Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-932513-12-6 .
  • Communicology. Frankfurt am Main. 1998, ISBN 3-596-13389-0 .
  • Media culture. Frankfurt am Main. 1997, ISBN 3-596-13386-6 .
  • The information society. Phantom or reality? ed. v. Klaus Sander. Audio CD, 44 minutes and booklet, 8 pages. Original sound recording 1991. supposé Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-932513-10-X . (New edition 1999)
  • Dialogues. Interviews 1967–1991. ed. v. Klaus Sander. Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-923283-34-2 .
  • Gestures: attempting a phenomenology . Frankfurt am Main 1994.
  • As things stand: a little philosophy of design. Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-88243-249-7 .
  • Things and absurdities. Phenomenological sketches. Hanser, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-446-17321-8 .
  • Vampyroteuthis infernalis . Göttingen 1993, ISBN 3-923283-23-7 .
  • Edition Flusser . Edited by Andreas Müller-Pohle. Publishing house European Photography, Berlin 1994 ff.
    • 2006: Volume 01 - On Doubt
    • 1993: Volume 02 - The Devil's Story
    • 1983: Volume 03 - For a Philosophy of Photography
    • 1985: Volume 04 - Into the Universe of Technical Images
    • 1987: Volume 05 - Writing - Does Writing Have a Future?
    • 1987: Volume 06 - Vampyroteuthis infernalis
    • 1989: Volume 07 - Adopted. A sequence of scenes
    • 1998: Volume 08 - Viewpoints. Texts on photography
    • 1996: Volume 09 - Dialogues. Interviews 1967–1991
    • 2000: Volume 10 - Letters to Alex Bloch
  • Writings in 9 volumes . Edited by Edith Flusser and Stefan Bollmann. Bollmann Verlag Bensheim / Düsseldorf 1993 ff.
    • 1993: Volume 1 - In Praise of Superficiality. For a phenomenology of the media
    • 1993: Volume 2 - Post-History. A corrected historiography
    • 1994: Volume 3 - From Subject to Project: Becoming Human
    • 1994: Volume 4 - Communicology
    • 1994: Volume 5 - Brazil or the search for the new person. Phenomenology of Underdevelopment .
    • 1997: Volume 6 - Telematic Culture (never published)
    • 1998: Volume 7 - Waiting for Kafka. Philosophizing Between Languages (never published)
    • 1996: Volume 8 - The fairy tale of the truth. Glosses and Philosophy Fictions (never published)
    • 1998: Volume 9 - Dialogic Existence (never published)
  • After postmodernism . Düsseldorf 1992
  • Vilém Flusser: Virtual Spaces - Simultaneous Worlds . ARCH + 111, Aachen, March 1992.
  • The font. Does writing have a future? Modified edition on diskette. Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-926199-01-6 .
  • The font. Does writing have a future? Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-923283-25-3 .
  • Into the universe of technical images. Göttingen 1995, ISBN 3-923283-18-0 .
  • For a philosophy of photography. Göttingen 1983, ISBN 3-923283-01-6 .
  • Post-stories. Essays, lectures, glosses. ed. by Volker Rapsch. Bollmann Verlag, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 3-927901-00-8 .
  • Bottomless. A philosophical autobiography. Bollmann Verlag, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-927901-19-9 .

Online publications

Secondary literature

  • Oliver Bidlo : Vilém Flusser. Introduction . Oldib Verlag, Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-939556-07-7 .
  • Guido Bröckling: The subject capable of acting between TV discourse and network dialogue. Vilém Flusser and the question of socio- and media-cultural competence . Kopaed, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-86736-280-1 .
  • Christian Dürnberger: Thinking in the upheaval of symbols. Karl 'Jaspers' concept of the Axial Age in a communication-philosophical interpretation according to Vilém Flusser. Diploma thesis for obtaining the master’s degree in “Philosophy” at the Faculty for “Philosophy and Educational Science” at the University of Vienna in 2006.
  • Oliver Fahle, Michael Hanke u. Andreas Ziemann: Techno images and communicology. Vilém Flusser's media theory. Parerga, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-937262-89-5 .
  • Izabela Maria Furtado Kestler : The Exile Literature and the Exile of German-Language Writers and Publicists in Brazil Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / New York / Paris / Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-631-45160-1 .
  • Christian Gänshirt: Vilém Flusser, gestures and projects. In: Gänshirt: Tools of Design. Investigations into practice and theory of design action. Dissertation, Cottbus: Brandenburgische Technische Universität, 2008, pp. 82–97.
  • Reinhold Grether: The world revolution according to Flusser . Online Hypertext 1998.
  • Detlev von Graeve: Vilém Flusser as an art theorist and art critic. ( Memento from November 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Flusser Studies. (PDF; 101 kB)
  • Rainer Guldin: Philosophizing between languages: Vilém Flusser's work . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7705-4098-0 .
  • Rainer Guldin, Anke Finger, Gustavo Bernardo: Vilém Flusser. UTB, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-8252-3045-6 .
  • Rainer Guldin, Gustavo Bernardo: Vilém Flusser (1920−1991). A life in the bottomlessness. Biography . transcript, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-4064-9 .
  • Michael Hanke: Text - Image - Body. Vilém Flusser's media-theoretical path from subject to project. In: Kodikas / Code. 32, 2009, pp. 25-33.
  • Kai Hochscheid: Vilém Flusser. In: Stephan Moebius , Dirk Quadflieg (Ed.): Culture. Present theories. VS- Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14519-3 .
  • Rudolf Kantner, Gerhard Schaufler: From the end of the Paideia. Notes on Vilém Flusser. In: Quarterly journal for scientific pedagogy. Vol. 79, Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, pp. 192-205.
  • Susanne Klengel, Holger Siever (ed.): The third bank. Vilém Flusser and Brazil. Contexts, migration, translations. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8260-3687-3 .
  • Michaela Krützen: The Point / The Matrix. Paul Nipkow's disc, Vilém Flusser's universe and the Borg's cube. In: Archive for Media History - Light and Direction. Edited by Lorenz Engell, Bernhard Siegert and Joseph Vogl. Weimar 2002, pp. 113-123.
  • Marcel René Marburger: Flusser and Art. Dissertation, Institute for Unacademic Studies, Volume 23, Cologne, Edition_, 2011.
  • Dirk Matejovski: Fascination and misunderstanding. The media theorist Vilém Flusser. In: Yearbook 1998/99. Science Center NRW. Düsseldorf 1999, pp. 142-158.
  • Elizabeth Neswald: Media theology: the work of Vilém Flussers . Böhlau-Verlag, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-412-10097-8 .
  • Volker Rapsch (Ed.): About Flusser. The festival font for the 70th by Vilém Flusser. Bollmann, Düsseldorf 1990, ISBN 3-927901-04-0 .
  • Nils Röller : Marshall McLuhan and Vilém Flusser on the “tragedy of hearing”. In: Hans-Peter Schwarz (Ed.): Second Zurich Year Book of the Arts. Zurich University of Art and Design, Zurich 2005. online (PDF file)
  • Nils Röller, Silvia Wagnermaier (eds.): Absolute Vilém Flusser . Orange-Press, Freiburg im Breisgau 2003, ISBN 3-936086-10-9 .
  • Nils Röller Vilém Flusser: Media theory with ethical claims . Telepolis, 2001.
  • Nils Röller: An archive changing media . Mains voltage 2001.
  • Special issue of the magazine Schnitt - Das Filmmagazin . No. 24. Contains texts by: Harun Farocki: The universe is empty ; Nils Röller: Cinema theory in the "Bubertät" ; Anke Finger: From motion picture to techno picture ...
  • Andreas Ströhl: Vilém Flusser (1920–1991). Phenomenology of Communication. (= Intellectual Prague in the 19th and 20th centuries. 5). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-412-21033-5 .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Vilém Flusser: Bottomless. A philosophical autobiography. Bollmann, Düsseldorf / Bensheim 1992, p. 11.
  2. ^ Felix Philipp Ingold: Vilém Flusser prophesied the decline of the written culture and television. And he saw figures like Trump coming - a tribute to the thinker. In: nzz.ch . October 26, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018 .
  3. Christian Dürnberger: Thinking in the upheaval of symbols. Karl 'Jaspers' concept of the Axial Age in a communication-philosophical interpretation according to Vilém Flusser. Vienna 2006, p. 43ff.
  4. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 12ff.
  5. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 10.
  6. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 107.
  7. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 242
  8. A reference to this is the myth of the Egyptian god "Theuth" referred to by Plato in the dialogue Phaedrus (274 e1-275b2).
  9. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 105ff.
  10. ^ Vilém Flusser: Communicology. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 224
  11. Vilém Flusser: What for? In: Andreas Steffens (Ed.): After Postmodernism . Bollmann, Düsseldorf 1992, pp. 15-30.