Vilém Flusser: Does Writing Have a Future? (1987/2011)

“In Does Writing Have a Future?, a remarkably perceptive work first published in German in 1987, Vilém Flusser asks what will happen to thought and communication as written communication gives way, inevitably, to digital expression. In his introduction, Flusser proposes that writing does not, in fact, have a future because everything that is now conveyed in writing—and much that cannot be—can be recorded and transmitted by other means.

Confirming Flusser’s status as a theorist of new media in the same rank as Marshall McLuhan, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, and Friedrich Kittler, the balance of this book teases out the nuances of these developments. To find a common denominator among texts and practices that span millennia, Flusser looks back to the earliest forms of writing and forward to the digitization of texts now under way. For Flusser, writing—despite its limitations when compared to digital media—underpins historical consciousness, the concept of progress, and the nature of critical inquiry. While the text as a cultural form may ultimately become superfluous, he argues, the art of writing will not so much disappear but rather evolve into new kinds of thought and expression.”

Originally published in German in 1987 as Die Schrift. Hat Schreiben Zukunft?, Göttingen.
Translated by Nancy Ann Roth
Introduction by Mark Poster
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2011
Volume 33 of Electronic Mediations
ISBN 0816670234, 9780816670239
208 pages

Review: Bob Hanke (Int’l J of Communication)

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2020-2-29)

Luciano Floridi: Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction (1999)

“Philosophy and Computing explores each of the following areas of technology: the digital revolution; the computer; the Internet and the Web; CD-ROMs and Mulitmedia; databases, textbases, and hypertexts; Artificial Intelligence; the future of computing.

Luciano Floridi shows us how the relationship between philosophy and computing provokes a wide range of philosophical questions: is there a philosophy of information? What can be achieved by a classic computer? How can we define complexity? What are the limits of quantam computers? Is the Internet an intellectual space or a polluted environment? What is the paradox in the Strong Artificial Intlligence program?”

Publisher Routledge, 1999
ISBN 0415180252, 9780415180252
242 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2015-2-21)

John Zerzan, Alice Carnes (eds.): Questioning Technology: Tool, Toy or Tyrant? (1991)

“The rich array of commentators in this anthology looks at the way technology is waven into the fabric of our lives, and asks: is this what we really want? Questioning Technology is sharp, eloquent, and provocative.

Some of the writers fully intend to shake us up. Russell Means’ essay “Fighting Words on the Future of the Earth” is an inspired case in point. Some suggest solutions: Carolyn Merchant’s “Death of Nature” advocates a restructuring of our priorities in favor of decentralization, “soft” and labor-intensive technologies, and simpler lifestyles. All the contributors face the consequences of our technology-dependency unflichingly and often wittily.

Questioning Technology is an impassioned plea for us to think before we act – and to know that we can, if we want to, ‘unplug ourselves.'”

Publisher New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, Santa Cruz, CA, and Gabriola Island, BC, 1991
ISBN 0865712042, 9780865712041
222 pages

PDF (no OCR; updated on 2012-8-4)