Flusser Studies 08 - May 2009
De Flusser a Benjamin – do pós-aurático às imagens técnicas
This text presents some elective affinities and differences between the works of two powerful media theoreticians of the 20th century: Water Benjamin and Vilém Flusser. Both authors have shaped original perspectives on the relationship between art and technology. While holding a special place for the theory of photography, both have reflected upon the history of writing and its transformations during Modernity. In addition, both Benjamin and Flusser dedicated important texts to the question of translation and the philosophy of language. This text also examines the differences between the Benjaminian theory of writing and image reproduction connected to his concept of post-auratic images, and, on the other hand, the Flusserian theory of technical and post-historical images.
O retrato de Rosa em Bodenlos
Romance comes from a human illusion: ”l'illusion de pouvoir comprendre autrui.” With this phrase, Czech writer Milan Kundera, in his book entitled Le Livre du rire et de l'oublie, satirizes the proliferation of the memorialist or intimate writing of the 20th century. Without writing romance and without intending to comprehend his own life on the basis of what sequential and causal logic may propose, the writer Vilém Flusser, also Czech, writes Bodenlos. In Bodenlos, the profile created of the Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa (in form of a portrait) helps in creating the writer’s own. This article proposes to relate Rosa and Flusser using Bodenlos as a basis for what?
Interview avec Fred Forest / Entrevista com Fred Forest
This conversation about Vilém Flusser, between new media art critic Annick Bureaud and media artist Fred Forest, took place in Paris on December 22, 2008. Forest is a pioneer of video, media and network art whose actions and interventions establish pauses and disruptions in the usual flow of communication. His works are frequently critical, often humorous and on occasion insolent. Forest also writes and theorizes his own artistic creations besides maintaining a constant dialogue with philosophers and theorists. Flusser was one of those with whom intellectual exchange was always densely rich, productive and collaborative. In this interview, Forest speaks about some of his video projects developed with Flusser, as well as his news media and public interventions in the 1973 São Paulo Bienal, for which Flusser served as curator. Bureaud and Forest’s conversation bring to life the energy and more human, intersubjective exchanges that characterized the Forest-Flusser friendship, and which are seminal to both artistic creation and intellectual thought. Bureaud insightfully points out that unfortunately such vivid encounters are rarely found in scholarly research and in the history of art. In the hands of Forest and Flusser though, often overlooked gestures, shared for instance in a seemingly banal conversation on a summer afternoon or on a subway ride in Paris, become fully meaningful.
Mídia, gestos e sociedade. Diálogos entre Vilém Flusser
The present article proposes a dialogue between Vilém Flusser’s media theory, especially focusing upon his books Filosofia da Caixa Preta (1983) and Les Gestes (1999), and the artistic projects developed by the French multimedia artist Fred Forest. Each in his own way acted towards the creation of a critical and reflective spirit about the world seen as a “black box.”
Fred Forest / Media, gestures and society. Dialogues between Vilém Flusser and Fred Forest
Dialogues Between Flusser and Young Media Artists: A Conversation with Mario Ramiro
This article focuses upon Flusser’s interest in the work of young media artists, largely based on the recollections of Mario Ramiro, a São Paulo artist who holds a master’s degree from the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne. Ramiro talks about how he met Flusser in São Paulo in the late 1970s and was immediately taken by the philosopher’s ideas and style, which for him were that of an artist. He acknowledges Flusser’s influence and support for his career throughout the 1980s.
Invisible in plain sight, and as alive as you and I: An Interview with Eduardo Kac
Eduardo Kac’s visionary oeuvre shares with Vilém Flusser an exploration of language and communication without regard for the usual disciplinary boundaries, thus often combining art, science and technology with communication, philosophy and poetry. In this interview, Kac talks about his transgenic creations, which began in 1999, and include Alba, his famous and controversial GFP Bunny born in 2000. Kac also examines the different meanings of genetic manipulation in art, science and religion, and further points to the future of bio art as well as that of his own work.
