Vilem Flusser: On technical images, chance, consciousness and the individual ============================================================================ Vilém Flusser - Interview by Miklós Peternák in München, 17th October, 1991 (38')[Vimeo link](https://vimeo.com/162190212) [Captured on pad](https://pad.xpub.nl/p/flusser_interview_notes) 2 main turning points in the history of mankind: 1) linear writing 2) the technical image **The invention of writing was a social revolution** Before writing, power was in the hands of magicians, who made decisions in function of ritual and magical volumes With writing, a new class of literary decision makers - the literati - came about e.g. priests, clerks With this came a completely different way of experiencing the world Magicians: the world was space in which time circled, by circling it put all the objects that had left their place into their just place; a world of crime and retribution Magician knew how to avoid punishment, was capable of manipulating destiny With writing, this put things back into their place An historical experience of the world came about with the literati Time no longer circulated, but became a univocal stream which flew form the past to the future, with all the objects swimming in the stream Those with a experience of linear writing think in a discursive, logical, causal way Causality took the place of destiny since the invention of linear writing Masters of the code of linear writing could explain the world in causal, proto-scientific and later a scientific way The greater part of society continued to live magically, in the cycles of the seasons, in the cycles of the feast The literati lived historically and governed history in function of their consciousness and used society as a tool for achieving historical goals "the invention of historical writing is a social revolution", but also a revolution on the level of consicenceness, as it is an emergence of historical from magical vision