Andreas methods 06-03-19

First Reading: Vilém Flusser – Towards a philosophy of photography

In the chapter The Photograph Flusser works out two intentions of the photographs:
First, photographers are ‘encoding their images to give others information, as to produce models for them and thereby to become immortal in the memory of others’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48)
Second, ‘The camera encodes the concepts programmed into it as images in order to program society to act as a feedback mechanism (…)’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48)
The author is stating that social systems are based on abstractions to distinguish good from bad and connects this to the abstraction of black-and-white photographs. ‘They translate a theory of optics into an image and thereby put a magic spell on this theory and re-encode theoretical concepts like ‘black’ and ‘white’ into states of things.’ (Flusser, 2000,, p. 43). He is saying that colour photographs are on a higher level of abstraction than black-and-white photographs since black-and-white photographs are more concrete and in this sense more true. The more ‘genuine’ the colours of the photograph become, the more untruthful they are, the more they conceal their theoretical origin. (Flusser, 2000,, p. 44) He underlines this with his assumption that the colour in a photograph is always just based on the idea of the world. There might be a indirect connection to the real world, but it will always stay an image of the concept of the colour, (…) ‘as it occurs in chemical theory, and the camera (or rather the film inserted to it) is programmed to translate this concept to the image.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 43) Flusser also argues, that the camera is making use of the photographer – ‘except in borderline cases of total automation (for example, in the case of satellite photographs) (Flusser, 2000,, p. 48) – as a feedback mechanism for its progressive improvement.

In the chapter The Distribution of Photographs the author points out that photography fulfils the urge of massification and that it can be distributed by means of reproduction (contrary to original cave paintings or tomb frescoes, also being attached to the surface). ‘As long as the photograph is not yet electromagnetic, it remains the first of all post-industrial objects’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 51). He states that ‘It is not the person who owns a photograph who has power but the person who created the information it conveys.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 52) and calls this Neo-imperialism. Here I disagree with his perception, since a photograph sold i.e. at an art market inherits a big value that is being transferred to the highest bidder.

The chapter The Reception of Photographs deals with the fact that everybody can nowadays take photos or so-called snapshots and thereby are received as objects without value. However, the author states that we are being manipulated to act in favour of cameras. Flusser comes up with a magic circle that ‘is being formed by photographs around us in the shape of the photographic universe.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 52)

Important for the further reading: ‘The intention behind apparatuses is to liberate the human being from work; apparatuses take over human labour – for example, the camera liberates the human being from the necessity of using a paintbrush. Instead of having to work, the human being is able to play. But apparatuses have come under the control of a number of individual human beings (e.g. capitalists), who have reversed this original intention. Now apparatuses serve the interests of these people; consequently what needs to be done is to unmask the interests behind the apparatuses. According to such an analysis, apparatuses are nothing but peculiar machines, the invention of which has nothing revolutionary about it; there is no point therefore in talking of a “second Industrial Revolution.” Thus photographs also have to be decoded as an expression of the concealed interests of those in power: the interests of Kodak shareholders, of the proprietors of advertising agencies, those pulling the strings behind the US industrial complex, the interests of the entire US ideological, military and industrial complex. If one exposed these interests, every single photograph and the whole photographic universe could be considered as having been decoded. Unfortunately this traditional kind of criticism with its background in the industrial context is not adequate to deal with the phenomenon. It misses the essential thing about apparatuses, i.e. their automaticity. And this is precisely what needs to be criticized. Apparatuses were invented in order to function automatically, in other words independently of future human involvement. This is the intention with which they were created: that the human being would be ruled out. And this intention has been successful without a doubt. While the human being is being more and more sidelined, the programs of apparatuses, these rigid combination games, are increasingly rich in elements: they make combinations more and more quickly and are going beyond the ability of the human being to see what they are up to and to control them. Anyone who is involved with apparatuses is involved with black boxes where one is unable to see what they are up to. To this extent, one can't talk of an owner of apparatuses either. As apparatuses function automatically and do not obey any human decision, they cannot be owned by anybody. All human decisions are made on the basis of the decisions of apparatuses; they have degenerated into purely ‘functional’ decisions, i.e. human intention has evaporated. If apparatuses were originally produced and programmed to follow human intention, then today, in the ‘second and third generation’ of apparatuses, this intention has disappeared over the horizon of functionality. Apparatuses now function as an end in themselves, ‘automatically’ as it were, with the single aim of maintaining and improving themselves. This rigid, unintentional, functional automaticity is what needs to be made the object of criticism. The 'humanistic' criticism of apparatuses referred to above is in opposition to this portrayal of apparatuses being transformed into superhuman, anthropomorphic Titans and of thus contributing to the obscuring of the human interests behind apparatuses. But this objection is erroneous. Apparatuses are actually Titans, since they were created with this sole intention. This portrayal attempts to show precisely that they are not superhuman but subhuman – bloodless and simplistic simulations of human thought processes which, precisely because they are so rigid, render human decisions superfluous and non-functional. Whereas the ‘humanistic’ criticism of apparatuses, by calling upon the last vestiges of human intention behind apparatuses, obscures the danger lying in wait within them, the criticism of apparatuses proposed here sees its task precisely in uncovering the terrible fact of this unintentional, rigid and uncontrollable functionality of apparatuses, in order to get a hold over them.’ (Flusser, 2000, p. 72)

Bibliography:
Flusser, V. (2000). Towards a philosophy of photography. 1st ed. London: Reaktion Books