Vilém Flusser: Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985–) [DE, HU, CZ, EN]
Filed under book | Tags: · communication technology, computing, cybernetics, database, entropy, image, media, media theory, philosophy, photography, postmodernism, technical image, technology, theory, virtual reality
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)
Filed under book | Tags: · aesthetics, computing, digital media, internet, media, media culture, memes, networks, new media, remix, spam, subjectivity, technology, theory, virus, web
“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)
PDF, PDF (25 MB, updated on 2019-3-24)
Comments (7)Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin: Remediation: Understanding New Media (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · computer games, digital art, film, media, new media, painting, photography, radio, remediation, self, technology, television, ubiquitous computing, virtual reality, web
Media critics remain captivated by the modernist myth of the new: they assume that digital technologies such as the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and computer graphics must divorce themselves from earlier media for a new set of aesthetic and cultural principles. In this richly illustrated study, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin offer a theory of mediation for our digital age that challenges this assumption. They argue that new visual media achieve their cultural significance precisely by paying homage to, rivaling, and refashioning such earlier media as perspective painting, photography, film, and television. They call this process of refashioning “remediation,” and they note that earlier media have also refashioned one another: photography remediated painting, film remediated stage production and photography, and television remediated film, vaudeville, and radio.
Publisher: MIT Press, 1999
ISBN: 0262024527, 9780262024525
295 pages
PDF (CHM; updated on 2012-9-3)
PDF (low quality PDF; added on 2012-9-3)