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Vilem Flusser: On technical images, chance, consciousness and the individual
Vilém Flusser - Interview by Miklós Peternák in München, 17th October, 1991 (38') Vimeo link
2 main turning points in the history of mankind:
- linear writing
- 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
The magician knew how to avoid punishment, was capable of manipulating destiny
With the invention of 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