„Para documentar algo que no existe.“ Vilém Flusser – Joan Fontcuberta: una colaboración / „To document something which does not exist.“ Vilém Flusser – Joan Fontcuberta: A Collaboration
This paper is not only dedicated to Flusser’s and Fontcuberta’s letter exchange between 1984 and 1988, it also contains an analysis of their theoretical view of the practice of photography. Joan Fontcuberta wrote on Flusser’s philosophy of photography in a series of texts mainly focusing on its relevance for the work of the avant-garde photographer and the ontological status of the photographic image. Between 1984 and 1988 Flusser wrote a few texts that are directly linked to the work of Fontcuberta: the essays Releaser and Counter-vision as well as an introduction to Fontcuberta’s Herbarium published in 1985. These texts and their relevance for the relationship between Fontcuberta and Flusser and for a definition of the status of photography situated on the border of science and art are also discussed in the paper. Flusser asked Fontcuberta to take a picture of his ‘Bibliophagus convictus’ a hybrid insect between a bee and an ant. This picture, however, was never taken because of lack of time.