Towards a Philosophy of Photography:  Vilém Flusser

Lexicon of Basic Concepts (83-85):

• apparatus/machine

• concept/idea

• game/program

• history/post-history/magic

• industrial society/post-industrial society

• idolatry/ textolatry

• information/entropy

photography is elevated to an allegory of post-industrial and post-historical thought : he is presenting a way of thinking about history post-photography; argues for way of thinking about concepts in which criticism of tech images is broadened into general cultural criticism; phil of photography is a criticism of functionalism; act of photography is one of "phenomenological doubt"  (89-90)

Issues/ideas:

• • dismayed capitulation to postmodern sensibilities

    • the disappearance of historical references, devastation of history and ushering in of dislocated world view, groundlessness

    • phil of photography as only form of revolution left

    • need new approach to understand restructuring of experience, knowledge, evaluation that results from shift to technological media

• • conception of history as in crisis

    • invention of writing (circular time of magic into linear time of history & birth of historical consciousness & conceptual thinking); texts took magic out of images; texts became incomprehensible (end of history)

    • technical images invented to in order to make texts comprehensible, to put them under magic spell and overcome history; photography to put magic back into texts

      • TI: abstractions of third order: signify texts, not world "out there," so appear as if they need no decoding

      • dangerous: function of tech images is to liberate by magic the necessity of conceptual thinking, also replacing with second-order imagination

    • all aspects of EDL aspire to be photographed; mass culture is result, loss of historical character of things as unique and informative

• • Apparatus challenges traditional Marxist conception of mode of production and ideologically

    • intention is symbolic unlike tools/machines; this is no longer a means to an end, but the end itself (program)

    • power shift from ownership to programmers/operators; from material to symbolic

    • characterizes "information society" and "post-industrial imperialism"; in cult analysis, cat of "work"  must be replaced by "information"

    • intention of photographer and camera are conditioned by program; freedom is a function of the programs which are embedded in the social order

    • "the program of the world and the camera are only preconditions for the image, possibilities to be realized"; "a reversal of the vector of significance" (37)

    • act of photography is "phenomenological doubt":  approaches phen from multitude of view points; photographers act in post-ideological way

• • Task of photography criticism:  identify tension btw human intentions and intentions of camera

    • photographers: "inform" others with their "concepts"

    • camera€™s program: use of society as feedback mechanism

    • hierarchy of programs: to act in interest of progressive improvement of apparatuses

    • communication: process of manipulating information; creation, then distribution in memories for storage

      • cameras programmed for transmission of info

      • photographs distributed by reproduction

      • "objectivity" of photograph is misleading

      • loss of original; info valuable, not the thing

      • info classified as indicative, imperative, optative

      • switch-over to another channel takes on new significance; "division of photographs into channels is in no way simply a mechanical process but rather an ecoding one" (54); channels determine the significance of the photographs

    • Struggle btw distribution and photographer is over encoding; struggle is concealed, making "media" invisible for audience; reception is uncritical, "able to program receiver to act as if they are under a magic spell"

      • function of text in relation to image is subordinate; vector of significance reversed

      • reversal of text-photo relation typical of post-industrial age, rendering historical action impossible

      • symbols undecodable suppress historical consciousness

      • photo serves suspension of critical awareness, serves functionality; "we are manipulated by photographs and programmed to act in a ritual fashion in the service of feedback mechanism for the benefit of cameras" (64)

• • Photographic Universe:  

    • conceals by habit

    • product of cameras and distribution appartuses

    • redundant photos make progress uninformative; we are accustomed to permanent change, the "new" as automatic

    • the subliminal programming of colors of PU are ritual, automatic actions (66)

    • concepts no longer signify the world out there; instead the universe signifies the program with cameras

    • "PU is a means of programming society€¦to act as a magic feedback mechanism for the benefit of a combination game, and of the automatic reprogramming of society into dice, into pieces in the game, into functionaries" (70)

    • invention of photography is point of shift from linear structuring to "staccato structure of programmed combinations;" camera is ancestor of process of robotizing human lives

    • PU is human creation; focus on human intention shields critical examination of interests behind apparatuses

      • traditional (humanistic) criticism misses automaticity of apparatuses

      • struggles against is assimilated and programs are enriched by resistance

      • philosophy of photo should expose this struggle

Questions:

How do Flusser€™s terms and reification/personification of the camera and technological imagery buy or deny him theoretical clout?

Why does Flusser reduce the analysis to the relationship of camera/ photograph specifically?  Is the moment of inception the point (enabling the encoding of thought into numbers) or is there something metaphorical going on? Is this a theory of technological determinism?

How does theory signal point of departure from Marxism?

How does phil of photography restore agency or is resistance futile?