Into the Universe of Technical Images
Published on 25. February 2011
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-8166-7020-8 (ISBN)
Description
Poised between hope and despair for a humanity facing an urgent communication crisis, this work by VilEm Flusser forecasts either the first truly human, infinitely creative society in history or a society of unbearable, oppressive sameness, locked in a pattern it cannot change. First published in German in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, Into the Universe of Technical Images outlines the history of communication technology as a process of increasing abstraction.
Flusser charts how communication evolved from direct interaction with the world to mediation through various technologies. The invention of writing marked one significant shift; the invention of photography marked another, heralding the current age of the technical image. The automation of the processing of technical images carries both promise and threat: the promise of freeing humans to play and invent and the threat for networks of automation to proceed independently of humans.
Flusser charts how communication evolved from direct interaction with the world to mediation through various technologies. The invention of writing marked one significant shift; the invention of photography marked another, heralding the current age of the technical image. The automation of the processing of technical images carries both promise and threat: the promise of freeing humans to play and invent and the threat for networks of automation to proceed independently of humans.
Reviews / Votes
"VilEm Flusser's flashes of brilliant insight, his intuitions about the psychology of gadgets and convergences, his deeply well-read and philosophically grounded investigations of wide-ranging consequences of a new literacy, are widely admired and deserve an Anglophone audience. Into the Universe of Technical Images and Does Writing Have a Future? are of the first rank in the canon of new media studies and digital culture." -Peter Krapp, author of DEjA Vu: Aberrations of Cultural Memory"Perhaps a turn to Flusser will change the disregard for media that so characterizes the cultural theory of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. For Flusser, however flamboyant and polemical his writing at times is, thought deeply about the emergence of electronic media and its implications for not only Western but truly global culture." -Mark Poster, from the Introduction
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-7020-8 (9780816670208)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Vilem Flusser (1920-1991) was born in Prague; emigrated to Brazil, where he taught philosophy and wrote a daily newspaper colum; and later moved to France. Among his many books that have been translated into English are The Shape of Things, Towards a Philosophy of Photography, The Freedom of the Migrant, and Writings (Minnesota, 2004). Nancy Ann Roth is an arts writer and critic based in the United Kingdom. Mark Poster is professor of history at University of California, Irvine.
Content
An Introduction to Vilem Flusser's Into the Universe of Technical Images and Does Writing Have a Future?
Mark Poster
Into the Universe of Technical Images
Warning
To Abstract
To Depict
To Make Concrete
To Touch
To Envision
To Signify
To Interact
To Scatter
To Instruct
To Discuss
To Play
To Create
To Prepare
To Decide
To Govern
To Shrink
To Suffer
To Celebrate
Chamber Music
Summary
Translator's Afterword and Acknowledgments
Nancy Roth
Translator's Notes
Index
Mark Poster
Into the Universe of Technical Images
Warning
To Abstract
To Depict
To Make Concrete
To Touch
To Envision
To Signify
To Interact
To Scatter
To Instruct
To Discuss
To Play
To Create
To Prepare
To Decide
To Govern
To Shrink
To Suffer
To Celebrate
Chamber Music
Summary
Translator's Afterword and Acknowledgments
Nancy Roth
Translator's Notes
Index