This blog is about two things: (1) the radical changes wrought by modern communication technology; and (2) the inability of the epistemic technologies of the written word to understand point (1).
Have you ever read "Discourse, Figure"? It's a truly insane, but also inspiring book. (Try "Veduta" in the middle).
Lyotard talks about the change of the relationship between discourse and figure. They define each other negatively, or even like: Image is somehow "bigger" than text, but is also defined by text, because our only access to the image's content is through the "script"; there's no way to decode/understand the image if you don't perceive it in the relationship to the text, very likely a negative relationship for sure.
I find this approach of considering their relationship, their balance over time as a rich view. I think contemporary texts, written by or with the eye to the recommender engines (which operate on continuous values), are moving to the "image" territory, just as the prompt-generated, or formal-current-tiktok-style produced images get closer to the text. (Meme, an image with a text, has as little extra textual information as possible).
What I like about this kind of dialectical views is that they have a bit of a way out of the progress-bad/progress-good dilemmas, which are quite pointless.
History of mathematics can be told as a war between continuous and discrete, constantly shifting the balance, discovering new ways for one to circumscribe the other. And for quite some mathematicians, they would have strong opinions on this kind of progress, as often as not annoyed, worried or sceptical. But anyway, it's not a kind of struggle where any of the sides will ever have a final say. And it's a fun way to look at the history, that allows to think about it without it becoming a constant improvement into hell.
My wish is to look at the general image/text relationship similarly. It undergoes a profound and truly fascinating rebalance, but there's definitely no question of one completely winning.
I agree that contemporary texts are not like traditional texts...but I think they can fit fairly well within Flusser's framework of the technical image.
Generally -- I agree that this kind of media dialectics is useful if we take the long view. But there is clearly something happening in terms of the decline of mass literacy. And so whatever happens in the long run, I think this is an important trend on the scale of my own lifetime
I'm wondering about the statement that there is more extra-textual information in an image than in a text. I am not clear about what you mean by "text".
"Or how about using language seriously?" I reckon this could solve most of the valid and serious issues you point out.
The problem is: I've yet to meet a human who is willing to clean up their language *on certain topics*.... coincidentally, the ones that cause all these social problems.
Culture is a hell of a drug, and it can be constantly trickle fed into the population without most people noticing. And it can't be discussed, because people refuse to use language seriously when discussing the topic.
Have you ever read "Discourse, Figure"? It's a truly insane, but also inspiring book. (Try "Veduta" in the middle).
Lyotard talks about the change of the relationship between discourse and figure. They define each other negatively, or even like: Image is somehow "bigger" than text, but is also defined by text, because our only access to the image's content is through the "script"; there's no way to decode/understand the image if you don't perceive it in the relationship to the text, very likely a negative relationship for sure.
I find this approach of considering their relationship, their balance over time as a rich view. I think contemporary texts, written by or with the eye to the recommender engines (which operate on continuous values), are moving to the "image" territory, just as the prompt-generated, or formal-current-tiktok-style produced images get closer to the text. (Meme, an image with a text, has as little extra textual information as possible).
What I like about this kind of dialectical views is that they have a bit of a way out of the progress-bad/progress-good dilemmas, which are quite pointless.
History of mathematics can be told as a war between continuous and discrete, constantly shifting the balance, discovering new ways for one to circumscribe the other. And for quite some mathematicians, they would have strong opinions on this kind of progress, as often as not annoyed, worried or sceptical. But anyway, it's not a kind of struggle where any of the sides will ever have a final say. And it's a fun way to look at the history, that allows to think about it without it becoming a constant improvement into hell.
My wish is to look at the general image/text relationship similarly. It undergoes a profound and truly fascinating rebalance, but there's definitely no question of one completely winning.
I agree that contemporary texts are not like traditional texts...but I think they can fit fairly well within Flusser's framework of the technical image.
Generally -- I agree that this kind of media dialectics is useful if we take the long view. But there is clearly something happening in terms of the decline of mass literacy. And so whatever happens in the long run, I think this is an important trend on the scale of my own lifetime
I'm wondering about the statement that there is more extra-textual information in an image than in a text. I am not clear about what you mean by "text".
I could also add an anti-science rant in here but hardly anyone likes those (another topic where people insist on using language non-seriously).
I could also add an anti-science rant in here but hardly anyone likes those (another topic where people insist on using language non-seriously).
"Or how about using language seriously?" I reckon this could solve most of the valid and serious issues you point out.
The problem is: I've yet to meet a human who is willing to clean up their language *on certain topics*.... coincidentally, the ones that cause all these social problems.
Culture is a hell of a drug, and it can be constantly trickle fed into the population without most people noticing. And it can't be discussed, because people refuse to use language seriously when discussing the topic.
Checkmate?