Flusser: On writing, complexity and the technical revolutions
FLUSSER: On writing, complexity and the technical revolutions
Modernity is characterize by a shift from a written based language, to a technical and quantifiable language.
The old linguistic commons are not anymore capable to transmit the thoughts and concepts of our society.
Our new codes to understand the world are based on technical images produced by technological devices.
To communicate clearly our concepts we make use of “syntethic images” rather than words.
This quantifiable system of language derives from the necessity to calculate what we perceive as world, to give a number -an ideographic code or an image- to our thoughts.
Although we don’t posses yet enough knowledges to approach this new language, we can certainly say that this is a revolution in perceiving and experiencing the world we live in.
Similar to this kind of revolution, the previous shift from orality to the written word gave birth to a new kind of language. A new communication system was born, with a consequent revolution in experiences and actions.
Before this fundamental passage, orality was the medium used to transport informations. The form to communicate these informations was the myth.
The mythical thought was based on history and the meaning of the informations that this kind of medium was communicating was strictly linked to a sense of the history. A history that was still mediated by the mythological language.
History, designated by a linear structure, structured the forms of languages of the “writing” period with the same horizontal and causal structure.
This causal thinking was consequently shaping the subjectivity of the time.
The new revolution which we’re living now, is based on the computability of our thoughts.
If we would like to resume these three different periods in three categories, we could say that the “before writing era” was represented by a pre-historical thought, the “writing era” by an historical conscious, and our “after-writing era” by a post-historical structuralist way of thinking.
Our post-historical era is based on a distinction between structural and functional way of thinking: our modern systems are complex in their structure (so in the way they create relations) and in their functions (so in their usage).
These two complexities are independent and not necessarily related to each other.
Another fundamental characteristic of our time is that our technologies can be complex in their structure and extremely simple in their usage, while in the past a complex structure was symbol of a simple way to use that structure.
Functionally complex systems are a challenge to creative thoughts, because of the active role of their user.
The complex systems of nowadays are structurally complex but potentially simple in the usage, however this simplicity is still belonging to the user. The decision of how to embrace certain levels of complexity belongs to our actions and choices: the choice of living a technology in a passive or active way is completely subjective.
We can see this friction between structure and usage as a metaphor of our position in the relationships with new technologies. We are asked to choose, for the first time in history, to manipulate the function of our technologies.
In order to make an ethical use of those, we should learn how to transform their complexities into a functional complexity.
On the Philosophy of images:
According to the greek philosophy of images, an image is based on the prejudice that it can only exist as a copy of reality.
That’s the reason why historically images were forbidden to exist, or seen without trust.
The images of nowadays are complex articulation of thoughts based on projections and models.
These articulations are working as direct stimulators of our nervous system, we can say in this sense that for the first time a technique is working in shaping our bodies as immaterial and spiritual revolutionary tool.