Human communication from Vilém Flusser: a reading of the communicational phenomenon in post-history

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineties, informatics was already a reality in developed countries, sparking much interest in a new generation of designers, intellectuals and artists, who were excited by the advancement of new technologies. Within this scenery, Flusser was recognized as a groundbreaking thinker of the new media. The aim of our work is to discuss the human communication in the thought of Vilém Flusser, with special reference to the mature period of his theoretical convictions. We will take our bearings from Bochum’s Conferences (1991), where the problem of human communication was debated, and from the book Kommunikologie, first published in Germany in 1998. The human being seems to be the only phenomenon capable of producing information in an intentional way, as well as of transmitting and stocking pieces of information - not just inherited information, but also acquired information. As a consequence, the justification of our argument will be divided into three topics: the stocking of acquired information, the processing, and the transmission of information.