The Photographic Universe: Vilém Flusser's Theories of Photography
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2016 The Photographic Universe: Vilém Flusser’s Theories of Photography, Media, and Digital Culture Martha Schwendener Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/693 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE PHOTOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE: VILÉM FLUSSER’S THEORIES OF PHOTOGRAPHY, MEDIA, AND DIGITAL CULTURE by MARTHA SCHWENDENER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 ©2016 MARTHA SCHWENDENER Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History in satisfaction of the Dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy __________________ ________________________________________ Date Professor Anna Chave Chair of Examining Committee ____________________ ________________________________________ Date Professor Rachel Kousser Executive Officer ____________________________ Professor Maria Antonella Pelizzari ____________________________ Professor David Joselit ____________________________ Professor Alexander R. Galloway THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT THE PHOTOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE: VILÉM FLUSSER’S THEORIES OF PHOTOGRAPHY, MEDIA, AND DIGITAL CULTURE Adviser: Professor Anna Chave Despite accelerated changes in the way we create, view, and experience photographs, critics and scholars in North America continue to read and assign an accepted canon of photography theory, often predicated on old concepts and technologies. This dissertation seeks to remedy that situation. It focuses on the work of Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), author of such books as Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983), Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985), and Does Writing Have a Future? (1987), which develop a theory of technical images that reaches beyond photography to include film, television, video, computer, and satellite images. Rather than reading images textually, Flusser employed philosophy and information theory to consider the apparatuses of image making and the screens through which we communicate. Born in Prague in 1920 and forced to flee Europe in 1939, Flusser spent thirty-two years in Brazil before returning to Europe. He was a philosopher, yet practically an autodidact. His entire family was killed in the holocaust and he became a proponent of migration and wrote in multiple languages: German, Portuguese, French, and English. Moreover, Flusser was writing at a moment when digitization and biotechnology and were both emerging and these overlap in books like Vampyroteuthis infernalis (1983) and his “Curie’s Children” column for Artforum magazine (1986-1991). This dissertation will examine Flusser’s thought from its roots in European thinkers like Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Kafka, to its place alongside contemporary theorists and media philosophers such as Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Donna Haraway, Alexander R. Galloway, and François Laruelle. Not only this does this iv dissertation introduce Flusser into the U.S. conversation on photography history and theory, it coincides with renewed interest in other artists and theorists from the seventies and eighties whose work, rather than becoming “obsolete,” like early versions of technology, aids us in thinking about images and culture today. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Professor Anna Chave who saw me through this process, even into her own retirement. Her careful reading and astute editing and suggestions helped this manuscript immeasurably and taught me a great deal about both writing and advising other students. My dissertation committee, Professors Maria Antonella Pelizzari, David Joselit, and Alexander R. Galloway, encouraged me to think of new ways to address this material. Geoffrey Batchen has been an important influence, interlocutor, and mentor. I am also in debt to everyone at the Vilém Flusser Archive in Berlin, particularly the Archive’s scientific director, Daniel Irrgang. I thank my friends, classmates, colleagues, students and particularly my siblings, Mary Schwendener-Holt, Susan Schwendener, and John Schwendener for their love and solidarity. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Ann and John Schwendener. Neither lived to see its completion, but they encouraged me in myriad ways and their love and support – emotional, intellectual, financial, and spiritual – have continued to sustain me. vi Table of Contents Abstract ………………………..…………………………………...…………………….…….. iv Acknowledgements ………………………………………………...…………………….…….. vi Table of Contents ………………………………..………………………...……………..….… vii Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….……….......... 1 Chapter 1: Flusser in Brazil …………………………………………….…………………….. 17 1.1 Education in Prague and the Flight to Brazil ….............................…………... 17 1.2 The Journey to Brazil .…………………….….……..…………….…………... 22 1.3 The Brazilian Language ….…………………………………………………..... 24 1.4 The “Philosophical Self-Portrait” and Becoming a “Brazilian Writer”…….….. 26 1.5 Manuscripts from the Fifties ……………………..…………………………... 31 1.6 The “Philosophical Self-Portrait”: João Guimarães Rosa .................................. 36 1.7 The “Philosophical Self-Portrait”: Vicente Ferreira da Silva and Philosophy in Brazil ….….……….………………………………………...………... 42 1.8 Language and Reality ……….………….…….….…………………………... 47 1.9 The History of the Devil, “On Doubt,” and Of Religiosity ..……...…...….…... 52 1.10 Brazil and the 1964 Coup d’Etat …………………..……..…...…….………... 62 Chapter 2: Leaving Brazil and Flusser’s Writing in the Seventies …………….…….……….. 71 2.1 Flusser in the Art World: Brazilian Artists and the São Paulo Biennial……... 71 2.2 The Return to Europe and Writing in the Seventies ……………….……….... 85 2.3 The Force of the Everyday, The Codified World, and “Two Approaches to the Phenomenon, Television”….….……………………….……..... 91 2.4 Natural:Mind …………………………………………………………………. 102 2.5 Post-History ……………………..………………………………………….... 106 Chapter 3: The Technical Image Writings and Other Texts ………………………………… 119 3.1 Photography Theory in the Seventies ……………………………………….. 119 vii 3.2 Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida ……………………………………………...... 127 3.3 Flusser’s Writings on Photography: The Technical Image Trilogy ….…...... 133 3.4 Towards a Philosophy of Photography ………………………………………. 136 3.5 Into the Universe of Technical Images and Does Writing Have a Future? ...... 157 3.6 Flusser’s Other Writings ………………………….….………………....….... 169 3.6.a. Photography Texts ……………………………………….…......….... 169 3.7.b. Vampyroteuthis infernalis ………………………………..……..…..... 180 3.8.c. The “Curie’s Children” Column in Artforum …………….................. 191 3.9.d. Kommunicologie, The Shape of Things, and Other Texts …………. 201 Chapter 4: Flusser’s Reception and Context ………………………………………...…….. 210 4.1 Flusser and Philosophy.................................................................................... 210 4.2.a. Wittgenstein, Husserl, and Heidegger ……………………………….. 210 4.3.b. Buber, Kafka, and Ortega y Gasset ...…….…………….……...…..... 217 4.4 Flusser and Information and Media Theory …………………………..……… 221 4.4.a Norbert Wiener and Claude Shannon …………...………………….... 221 4.4.b Marshall McLuhan ………………………..…………………….…... 232 4.4.c. Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Jean Baudrillard ………………….. 238 4.4.d. Paul Virilio and Gilles Deleuze ……………………………………. 251 4.4.e German Media Theory and Friedrich Kittler .………………….…... 262 4.5 Donna Haraway and Technological Feminism ……………………….…….. 270 4.6 Flusser and Artists …………………………..…………...……………...…... 274 4.7 Flusser and the Current Moment ……………………………………......…... 296 4.7.a U.S. Media Theory: Lev Manovich, Alexander Galloway, and Branden Hookway …………………………………...…….…….…. 299 4.8 Flusser and Contemporary Art ……………………………………….....…... 307 Conclusion ……………………………………………….…………………………………. 312 Bibliography …………………………………………….…………………………………. 330 viii INTRODUCTION What is photography today? Since the advent of the digital revolution, “photography” has come to mean anything from a large scale print hanging on a gallery wall to a picture taken with a cellphone camera and posted on social media, or an image captured by a drone and transmitted halfway across the globe. Most people live in an image-saturated world. But despite accelerated changes in the way we create, view, and experience photographs, critics and scholars continue to read and assign the same photography theory, often predicated on old concepts and technologies. This dissertation seeks to remedy that situation. It focuses on the work of Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), author of such books as Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983), Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985), and Does Writing Have a Future? (1987), which develop a theory of technical images that reaches beyond photography to include film, television, video, computer, and satellite images.1 Starting with the premise that the term photography today encompasses