Ricardo Mendes
Universidade de Rio de Janeiro, UERJ-Instituto de Letras, Brazil
Ricardo Mendes (São Paulo, 1955) is researcher in Brazilian History of Photography. MA in Architecture and Movie Studies at São Paulo University (USP). Over the last decade he has carried out several projects about the impact of Vilém Flusser's philosophy in Brazilian culture. H e has written Vilém Flusser: uma história dos diabos um breve panorama sobre o período brasileiro de Flusser (Vilém Flusser: a history of devils. A brief survey of Flusser's Brazilian period) which can be dowloaded at http://www.fotoplus.com/flusser/ . In 1999 he organized the international meeting entitled Vilém Flusser no Brasil, together with Gustavo Bernardo. He is currently working on an analysis of the philosopher's biography as part of a doctorate project at the Instituto de Letras (UERJ) in Rio de Janeiro.
Articles of Ricardo Mendes
Cartas Flusserianas: diagnóstico sobre correspondência com Sérgio Paulo Rouanet
The purpose of this essay is to comment on the reading of a set of letters exchanged by Vilém Flusser (1920 - 1991) and Sérgio Paulo Rouanet (1934). The exchang e comprising 56 letters altogether – 30 by Flusser himself – took place between 1980 and 1991. It focuse d on some of Flusser’s most important concepts: the relationship of discourse and dialogue, the idea of ‘Apparat’, the existential dimension of writing, as well as the meaning of death and entropy for a theory of communication. Rouanet’s pertinent criticism reveals also some unexpected sides of Flusser’s theoretical assumptions.