The Society of the Screen: Vilém Flusser's Radical Prescience

Predicting the importance of technology and images for the twenty-first century as early as the 1970s, Vilém Flusser warned, "the basic structure of our thinking is about to experience a mutation." The bewitching images and screens that surround us could lead toward a centrally programmed, totalitarian society--or to another, better one characterized by dialogue and collaboration among humans and new forms of intelligence.

In this book on the idiosyncratic and prescient Czech-Brazilian philosopher, Martha Schwendener explores the profound effect of art on Flusser's thought. The Society of the Screen reveals how Flusser's lifelong engagement with experimental practices--from abstract painting and concrete poetry in Brazil to video, cybernetics, and photography in Europe and the United States--as well as his extensive involvement with the São Paulo Biennial informed his belief that we were moving from "history"--a civilization informed by linear writing--into "post-history," dominated by technical images.

Schwendener documents the importance of Flusser's correspondence and collaboration with artists like Mira Schendel, Fred Forest, Wen-Ying Tsai, Harun Farocki, Louis Bec, and Karl Gerstner for the evolution of his ideas.