Quotes from Vilém Flusser

Both those taking snaps and documentary photographers, however, have not understood 'information.' What they produce are camera memories, not information, and the better they do it, the more they prove the victory of the camera over the human being.

The task of a philosophy of photography is to reflect upon this possibility of freedom - and thus its significance - in a world dominated by apparatuses; to reflect upon the way in which, despite everything, it is possible for human beings to give significance to their lives in the face of the chance necessity of death. Such a philosophy is necessary because it is the only form of revolution left open to us.

Changing the question 'free from what?' into 'free for what?'; this change that occurs when freedom has been achieved has accompanied me on my migrations like a basso continuo. This is what we are like, those of us who are nomads, who come out of the collapse of a settled way of life.

Our thoughts, feelings, desires and actions are being robotized; 'life' is coming to mean feeding apparatuses and being fed by them. In short: Everything is becoming absurd. So where is there room for human freedom?

Custom is a shroud that conceals everything. Not without first encountering the uncustomary will we be able to recognize what is customary and, more importantly, to change it. Such is the impulse behind our conversation with the vampryoteuthis

Communication is an artificial, intentional, dialogic, collective act of freedom, aiming at creating codes that help us forget our inevitable death and the fundamental senselessness of our absorb existence.

All incoming bits of information have, simultaneously, a tentacular, optic, and sexual dimension. Its world is not doubtful, but surprising; vampyroteuthic thinking is an unbroken stream of Aristotelian shock.

Human beings forget they created the images in order to orientate themselves in the world. Since they are no longer able to decode them, their lives become a function of their own images: Imagination has turned into hallucination. This

Human engagement for the storage of information in opposition to death cannot be measured with the same scales used by the natural scientist. Carbon-dating tests measure the natural time according to the information loss of specific radioactive atoms. However, the artificial time of human freedom ("historical time") cannot be measured by simply turning carbon-dating formulas around, so that they now measure the accumulation of information.

For there is a general desire to be endlessly remembered and endlessly repeatable.

Texts do not signify the world, they signify the images they tear up. Hence, to decode texts, means to discover the images dignified by them

Traditional images signify phenomena whereas technical (produced by an apparatus) images signify concepts.

This apparently non-symbolic, objective character of technical images lead whoever looks at them to see them not as images but as windows

This, I think, shows what being free means. Not cutting off one's ties with other but making networks out of these connections in cooperation with them.

Nossos pensamentos, sentimentos, desejos e ações estão sendo robotizados; 'vida' passa a significar aparelhos de alimentação e ser alimentados por eles. Em resumo: tudo está se tornando absurdo. Então, onde há espaço para a liberdade humana?

Olvidar es una función tan importante de la memoria como recordar.

Photographers, it is true, do not work but they do do something: They create, process, and store symbols.

...there is no everyday activity which does not aspire to be photographed, filmed or videotaped. For there is a general desire to be endlessly remembered and endlessly repeatable.