User:Clàudia/methods

28-09-2016, Vilém Flusser

Summary of the concepts from Flusser interview in 1988.

Humans have shifted from understanding the world through words, to mesure it with numbers, and next, to make machinery that do calculations and creates synthetic images. According to Flusser, words are not sufficient to describe our actual history and model of thought anymore. Nowadays, we need to communicate these concepts and models trough new codes. However, people is not used to it yet.

Prior to the alphabet, people constructed and represented reality around traditional images. It made people see the world mythically. After the alphabet was created, people started seeing the world in a linear way, and started thinking in a critical and historical manner. At the present moment, this linearity has been fragmented into points. According to Flusser, it gives birth to a systemic and structural way of understanding reality. This change in the way of thinking is as revolutionary as when humans started thinking linearly due to the creation of the alphabet.

Next, Flusser analyses the complexity of structure and functionality of the new systems. When the functionality of a system is complex, it challenges creative thought, whereas when it is simple, it makes the user to act and think passively. According to him, because most of these systems have a simple functionality, intellectuality of population has been lowering. Nonetheless, it is the responsibility of the user the way in which these systems are used.

In the past there was a prejudice about images. Those were seen as a representation of reality, therefore, not as valid as reality. Now images do not try to represent the world anymore. Those have shifted to represent ideas, concepts, projects and models.

To conclude, the difference between all the other revolutions and this one is that “the others were representing the body, and this one is representing the nervous system”. Whereas the other revolutions were in regard of the physical world, this one is more about ideas, it is an immaterial revolution.

Main stated points

• Our present model of thought needs to be communicated with synthetic images rather than with words or calculations.
• The way humankind have to collect and remember history, shapes the way of thought on each period of time. He specifies three ways of thought: “pre-historical, historical, and post-historical”
• He analyses the structure and functionality, in terms of complexity, of the current systems which shape the way we think. He says that it has an impact on the creative and critical thought, improving it or lowering it. And that it is up to the user, using it in a profitable way or not.
• Images have changed from representing reality, to represent models and concepts. This is why we need a new attitude towards images.
• All the historical revolutions are technical. But the difference between all the others and this one, is that this one is based around something intangible (“immaterial and spiritual”).

More intellectuals who reflect on the same topic

• Walter Benjamin
• Roland Barthes
• Marshall McLuhan
• Abraham Moles

14-09-2016, Glitch

The answer of the questions: WHAT, HOW and WHY of one of my projects: Glitched images.

Glitched images are digital pictures whose code has been hacked. The outcome is a digital image that resembles the original but reveals its technological nature through its visual distortion. It looks broken and faulty, being no longer a loyal copy of the palpable world. Now, you can envisage the digital.

The method I use to glitch, uses an image and the Mac Terminal. To start, the image code is accessed through the Terminal, using the command line. Once the code of the image is revealed, it can be changed at one's own will: deleting parts of the code, writing messages, copying and pasting it several times, etc. Next, when the hack has been done, the file can be saved and viewed as a normal image.

When I started glitching, the only aim was to experiment. I had felt very attracted to the aesthetic of those images and wanted to learn how to make them. However, when I started making my own glitches, and reflecting on them, other points of interest were unveiled. The randomness and surprise factor was very interesting. You never know how an image is going to look like until you accomplish the glitch. And the surprise comes when, even though it is a random output, it can be very beautiful, symmetrical, or perfectly asymmetrical. It makes me wonder how a fault in the code can make such a beautiful outcome. Another fact that draws my attention is that the medium becomes obvious. The digital medium can be envisioned, and also its vulnerability, how easily everything can be fucked. Another point of interest is the feeling of entering into another dimension: the picture is not the portrait of the so-called real world anymore, it shows something that you can't touch but that is everywhere, and that, under my point of view, has became a world as real as the physical one.