A thousand and three sexemes

This article puts in dialogue and extends Flusser’s articles, ‘Don Juan’ and ‘On progress’, by rendering explicit the notion of computational ontology implicit in both articles. Between ‘Don Juan’ and ‘On progress’, there is a notable shift from an extensive approach or the way of the computer to an intensive approach or the way of the camera. That is to say, Flusser’s thinking has diverged and evolved over time, or he is turning the same material towards two related but distinct hermeneutic projects. Praise flips into blame from the one to the other. The logic behind computational ontology is not unlike that behind the composition of technical images or their precursor, namely, Pointillist paintings. The article introduces an additional wrinkle by bridging computational ontology and relational ontology. Conceptually, it culminates in an ontology computed out of relations, each of which in itself is composed of relations, ad infinitum . There is something artistic, aesthetic, sophistical, indeterminate and probabilistic about such an ontology, which is synonymous with the art of autopoiesis that uses relations as raw materials, ‘subjectemes’ or ‘projectemes’. The article ends on a note of reconciling the way of the computer and the way of the camera

Bridging (networking · Ontology · Persona · Praise · Process ontology · Rendering (computer graphics · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies