Between Images and Texts: Vilém Flusser at the Intersection of Art and the Post-Historic Crisis

Debora Pazetto; Rachel Cecília de Oliveira

doi:10.25038/am.v0i26.471

Authors

Debora Pazetto
Rachel Cecília de Oliveira

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.471

Keywords:

technical image, philosophy of language, post-history, art, communication, art criticism

Abstract

Vilém Flusser argues that human beings are active parts in a socio-historic fabric made of images, texts, numbers, spoken languages and other symbolic codes shared intersubjectively. Flusser constantly refers to three basic communication codes: written texts, traditional images directly produced by humans, and technical images produced by the mediation of apparatus. Technical images are the focus of his attention because of their critical complexity, which points to the relation with the image-text that structures them. This establishes a recurrent reception scenario in which their “textual” aspect is neglected, leading to a direct association between technical images, like videos or photographs, and reality. Since they are not perceived as symbolic codes, but as mechanical manifestations of reality, observers do not focus on the work of deciphering them. This paper points to the possibility that forms of experimentation-and-deciphering that are more common in the field of arts could work as a model to overcome this communicational crisis of post-history.

Article received: April 21, 2021; Article accepted: June 23, 2021; Published online: October 15, 2021; Original scholarly article

How to cite this article: Pazetto, Debora & de Oliveira, Rachel Cecília. "Between Images and Texts: Vilém Flusser at the Intersection of Art and the Post-Historic Crisis." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 26 (October 2021): 71-79. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i26.471

Author Biographies

Debora Pazetto

Department of Visual Arts, University of Santa Catarina
Brazil

Debora Pazetto is Adjunct Professor of Art Theory at UDESC – University of Santa Catarina and Professor of the Postgraduate Program in Visual Arts, in the research area of Contemporary Artistic Processes. She is a member of the ANPOF Aesthetics Group, served on the board of the Brazilian Association of Aesthetics – ABRE, and is the coordinator of GUARÁ – Decolonial Research Group in Contemporary Arts (CNPq), which analyzes Brazilian artistic production through the perspective of queer feminisms and Latin American decolonial theories. She was born in 1986.

Rachel Cecília de Oliveira

Department of Visual Arts, University of Minas Gerais
Brazil

Rachel Cecília de Oliveira is Adjunct Professor of the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Minas Gerais – UFMG/Brazil and a collaborator in the Post-graduation Program in Arts at the State University of Minas Gerias – UEMG/Brazil. She was editor of the ArteFilosofia journal (UFOP), served on the board of the Brazilian Association of Aesthetics – ABRE – for two terms and was a visiting professor at the Université Paris I – Pantheon-Sorbonne. She works on the intersections between philosophy, theory, and history of the arts with emphasis on decolonial thinking. Works as critic and curator. She was born in 1983.

References

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Flusser, Vilém. Universo das imagens técnicas. São Paulo: Annablume, 2008.

Flusser, Vilém. Língua e Realidade. São Paulo: Annablume, 2004.

Flusser, Vilém. “O Espírito do Tempo nas Artes Plásticas.” Suplemento Literário do Jornal O Estado de São Paulo, January 3, 1971.

Mendes, Ricardo. “Flusser: uma história dos diabos.” Masters Degree Diss. University of São Paulo, 2006. https://issuu.com/fotoplusbrasil/docs/2000-me-mendes-vilemflusserbiografi. Accessed on May 22, 2021.

Morais, Frederico. “Frederico Morais, o crítico-criador.” Interview by Gonzalo Tavares Available, 2008. http://www.cronopios.com.br/site/colunistas.asp?id=3279. Accessed on May 22, 2021.

Krause, Gustavo Bernardo and Ricardo Mendes, eds. Vilém Flusser no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumará, 2000.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.471 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.471