User:Francg/expub/media-writing/Vilem-Flusser

Vilém Flusser (1988 Interview)

The unceasingly development of technology have been providing us of new advanced tools for communication, transforming our society into a media based computerized organism, which has profound implications on storing, processing and transmitting data. That is to say, the effect of new smart electronic devices are seemingly turning our civilization into the ultimate self-sufficient system, in which our ability and skills to critically apply independent thinking are parallely morphing into highly dependent automatisms.

The freely, truthful and organic honesty of human expression is being gradually shifted, confronted and challenged by the strength of algorithmic commands that are no longer interested in facing the real concerns of the world, but in reckoning our thoughts. On one hand, “monitoring” can be interpreted as a meaningful process for observation, for instance used by language for insightful statements. On the other hand, it also behaves as an electronic process of psychoanalysis. In such a way, understanding the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements in the mind would be an important instrument of control and awareness (not only of a machine on men but of men on machine) to carefully judge and determine what is right or not.

Since the beginning of codified thought-generating systems based on writing, mankind has been able to continuously uprise significant reasoning for maintaining and nurturing living. Nevertheless, this socio-technological progress has also contributed to carelessly mishandle our perception by mass processing information. Such experience is formed throughout a cognitive process in which our senses, mind and emotions are involved, creating a specific impression of reality and therefore stimulating interpretations from the outer world. Although this abstract interaction might give shape to the way we see things, it is (since the creation of specific digital or analogue environments) yet an inconclusive vast experiment that analyses how human brain behaves. Therefore, assuming that something exists might set out the consideration of whether an observation is subjective or not, questioning the World we live in.