Sobre a Casa da Cor – Entrevista com Philippe Henry
In this interview, Philippe Henry talks about himself, his intellectual formation, his intense friendship with Vilém Flusser, Karl Gerstner, Louis Bec and Gottfried Jäger, but above all about the cultural and philosophical significance of colour and the project of the Casa da Cor. The most salient philosophical attribute of colour is what Henry calls the “spectral continuum”, a notion that was also central to Flusser’s and Karl Gerstner’s understanding of colour. Colours project a fluid borderless world. Henry discusses at length the importance of Gerstner’s and Goethe’s colour theory and their criticism of Newton. In early 1987, Henry got to know Flusser through a student of FAAP (Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado). He visited Flusser several times in Robion that with the time became a kind of second headquarter of the Casa da Cor. After the failure of the project in Brazil in late 1989, Flusser and some friends, among them Jean Digne, attempted to transfer it to France. Heny also speaks about the planned journal “Revista da Casa da Cor” for which Flusser had written a few texts. Unfortunately, both projects were not realized. He concludes the interview by referring to Flusser’s attempt to move beyond physics and physiology in order to develop a cultural colour code: “Therefore, behind a new Color Code, there should always be a Cultural Theory of Colors. That was the task of the Casa da Cor. And it still is.”
Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, le podcast comme format de recherche-création
For this special issue of Flusser Studies on Vilém Flusser's relations with France, I would like to propose a research-creation format, which is embodied in a podcast that is part of the Bio Is The New Black series. The podcast is a creation based on reading the Vampyroteuthis Infernalis and research conducted at the Vilém Flusser Archive in Berlin under the supervision of Anita Jóri. Bio Is The New Black is a podcast around design, biology and technology that invites artists, designers, philosophers, scientists and engineers to explore the multiple ethical, critical and creative questions that arise with bio-manufacturing technologies.
Vampyroteuthis as a bioluminescent lighthouse to think under the livings. Some mutations: From 1981 to 1991
This contribution is about a translation of the book Vampyroteuthis Infernalis into a dialogic media. In Vampyroteuthis Infernalis, Vilém Flusser describes an abyssal creature, opposite in every point with humans. From 1981 to 1991, the book mutates within the writing process of Flusser engaging with letters, oral dialogues, essays, courses and translations. There is a genealogy of the Vampy and of the Vampyroteuthian model from the French version to the Brazilian one. I will call this model Vampy, a borrowed term from the relationship between Louis Bec and Vilém Flusser (Marburger 2016). The article emphasizes Flusser’s programmatic vision in the Vampyroteuthis. How can the philosophy of Flusser’s programs, embodied in the Vampyroteuthis, serve us as a lighthouse in the “moment of the living” (Worms 2016) that we are going through nowadays? Taking into account the three different versions of the vampy, from the French to the Brazilian one, I propose to contextualize the Vampyroteuthis inputs into the thinking of the livings. In this regard, the French version, which is the first unpublished version, is a typescript given as a gift to his friend, the artist Louis Bec. It deals with an important scientific context. We have to note the existence of the French molecular school of biology with Jacob and Monod, and the presence of thinkers such as Bergson and Canguilhem. In the late 1960s, biology is redefined by DNA discovery and the notion of code: that’s the historical moment of molecular biology. It changed our entire way of seeing living beings. However, it may happen that this moment also lacks the critical point that Flusser made about our programmatic condition of existence.
5. Zoosystematica profundorum – Experimental Studies in Deep Sea Communication
The installation Varia Zoosystematica Profundorum models a specific notion of how deep sea communication between specimens and across species might happen, inspired by the work of zoosystematicien Louis Bec and philosopher Vilém Flusser. The video of the installation featured here, is a documentary of the version of the installation shown at the Singuhr Hörgalerie, Großer Wasserspeicher in Berlin, during the SuperCollider conference in Berlin in 2010.
