Vilém Flusser: Towards A Philosophy of Photography (1983–) [DE, EN, PT, ES, HU, CZ, RU]

“Media philosopher Vilém Flusser proposed a revolutionary new way of thinking about photography. An analysis of the medium in terms of aesthetics, science and politics provided him with new ways of understanding both the cultural crises of the past and the new social forms nascent within them. Flusser showed how the transformation of textual into visual culture (from the linearity of history into the two-dimensionality of magic) and of industrial into post-industrial society (from work into leisure) went hand in hand, and how photography allows us to read and interpret these changes with particular clarity.”

Publisher European Photography, 1983
ISBN 3923283016
58 pages

New English edition
Translated by Anthony Mathews
Publisher Reaktion Books, London, 2000
ISBN 1861890761, 9781861890764
94 pages

Review: Sean Cubitt (Leonardo, 2004).

Publisher (EN)

Für eine Philosophie der Fotografie (German, 1983, no OCR, added on 2013-9-26)
Towards A Philosophy of Photography (English, ed. Derek Bennett, 1984, added on 2013-12-14)
Filosofia da caixa preta. Ensaios para uma futura filosofia da fotografia (Portuguese, trans. Vilém Flusser, 1985, unpaginated, updated on 2014-2-13)
Hacia una filosofía de la fotografía (Spanish, trans. Eduardo Molina, 1990, no OCR, added on 2013-9-26)
A fotográfia filozófiája (Hungarian, trans. Panka Veress and István Sebesi, 1990, HTML, added on 2014-2-14)
Za filosofii fotografie (Czech, trans. Božena Koseková and Josef Kosek, 1994, updated on 2017-11-15)
Towards A Philosophy of Photography (English, trans. Anthony Mathews, 2000, updated on 2012-9-18)
Za filosofiyu fotografii (Russian, trans. G. Khaydarova, 2008, added on 2014-2-14)

Computer/Culture 83 / Informatique/Culture 83 (1983) [EN/FR]

“The programme booklet and programme flyer of a festival (“rencontre”) on computer culture organised by the French organisation C.I.R.C.A. in Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, 8-31 July 1983.

This was an important meeting of the French (and US-American) art, technology and science scene at the time; participants included Vilém Flusser, Edmond Couchot, Ted Nelson, Lilian Schwartz, Benoît Mandelbrot, Jean-Pierre Balpe, and many others. The programme included workshops e.g. by Michel Bret, Hervé Huitric, Monique Nahas, and by ALAMO.

This is also four months before the exhibition ELECTRA opened in Paris, in November 1983.”

Publisher CIRCA, Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, 1983
12+16 pages
via Andreas Broeckmann

PDF (20 MB)

Timothy Druckrey (ed.): Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation (1996)

“A rich compilation of essays by some of today’s leading theorists and media critics, this book gathers a series of explorations into diverse forms of visualizations in a cultural environment wired into the global network. With its emphasis on the impact of the digital revolution in the late 20th century and the historical context in which it arose, Electronic Culture could not be more timely or relevant.”

Texts by Vannevar Bush, Martin Heidegger, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Jean-Louis Comolli, Kathy Rae Huffman, Lev Manovich, Vilém Flusser, N. Katherine Hayles, Siegfried Zielinski, Slavoj Žižek, Friedrich Kittler, Sherry Turkle, Pierre Levy, Hakim Bey, Adilkno/Geert Lovink, Critical Art Ensemble, a.o.

Preface by Allucquère Rosanne Stone
Illustrations by Critical Art Ensemble
Publisher Aperture, New York, 1996
ISBN 0893816787, 9780893816780
447 pages

Review: Andreas Broeckmann (Leonardo, 2000).

WorldCat

PDF (155 MB)