International Journal of Communication, Vol. 5 (2011)

The International Journal of Communication is an online, multi-media, academic journal that adheres to the highest standards of peer review and engages established and emerging scholars from anywhere in the world. The International Journal of Communication is an interdisciplinary journal that, while centered in communication, is open and welcoming to contributions from the many disciplines and approaches that meet at the crossroads that is communication study.

Special sections: Network Theory, New Media in International Contexts.
Features: Academic Labor, The Arab Spring.

Editors: Manuel Castells, Larry Gross
Published by University of Southern California, Annenberg Press, Los Angeles, CA, 2011

PDF (PDF articles)

Vilém Flusser: Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985–) [DE, HU, CZ, EN]

Poised between hope and despair for a humanity facing an urgent communication crisis, this work by Vilém 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.

Originally published in German as Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, European Photography, 1985

Czech edition: Do universa technických obrazů
Translated by Jiří Fiala
Publisher OSVU, 2002
ISBN 8023875698
162 pages

English edition
Translated by Nancy Ann Roth
Introduction by Mark Poster
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2011
Volume 32 of Electronic Mediations
ISBN 0816670218, 9780816670215
224 pages

Review (Bob Hanke, International Journal of Communication)

Translator (EN)
Publisher (EN)

Ins Universum der technischen Bilder (German, 1985, added on 2016-8-4)
A technikai képek univerzuma felé (Hungarian, trans. József Maleczki, 2001; revised trans. Dalma Török, 2011; HTML, added on 2014-2-14)
Do universa technických obrazů (Czech, Jiří Fiala, 2002, no OCR, added on 2013-4-1)
Into the Universe of Technical Images (English, trans. Nancy Ann Roth, 2011, updated on 2012-7-17)

Vito Campanelli: Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society (2010)

“We live in a world of rapidly evolving digital networks, but within the domain of media theory, which studies the influence of these cultural forms, the implications of aesthetical philosophy have been sorely neglected. Vito Campanelli explores network forms through the prism of aesthetics and thus presents an open invitation to transcend the inherent limitations of the current debate about digital culture.

The web is the medium that stands between the new media and society and, more than any other, is stimulating the worldwide dissemination of ideas and behaviour, framing aesthetic forms and moulding contemporary culture and society.

Campanelli observes a few important phenomena of today, such as social networks, peer-to-peer networks and ‘remix culture’, and reduces them to their historical premises, thus laying the foundations for an organic aesthetic theory of digital media.”

Publisher NAi Publishers, Rotterdam; in association with the Institute of Network Cultures at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences, October 2010
Studies in Network Cultures series
ISBN 9056627708, 9789056627706
276 pages

Reviews: Greg J Smith (Rhizome, 2011), Alessandro Ludovico (Neural, 2011), Regine Debatty (We Make Money Not Art, 2011).

Book website
Interview with the author (Geert Lovink)
Interview with the author (Pasquale Napolitano, Digicult)

Publisher
Co-publisher

PDF, PDF (25 MB, updated on 2019-3-24)