Vilém Flusser's What If? On Designing Radical Futures
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2353243 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amanda Finger (0000-0001-8448-314X, University of Connecticut, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 7-8 |
| Pages | 91-101 |
| Publication date | 2023-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory Culture & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/02632764231168582 |
| OpenAlex | W4367181888 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 7 |
While Vilém Flusser's writings on (media) philosophy and communication have found a wide readership across the globe, another 'Flusser' has been present all along, interwoven perhaps, namely that of the 'obsessive futurologist'. Flusser, the futurologist, does not only imagine or predict media-technological universes unfolding with, among, and for us, but he, in his insistence that 'communication is anthropology', also imagines scenarios of possible worlds to come. In his little-known book Angenommen: Eine Szenenfolge (1989), available in English translation as What If? Twenty-Two Scenarios in Search of Images (2023), he designs sketches of an Anthropocene fraught with nightmares and wonders. What If? offers insight into the radical futures of a slipstream Anthropocene that have to do with speculative design, with Flusser's concept of design as 'crafty' or slippery, and with art and the immense creative potential of failure versus reasonable, 'good' computing or calculability
Aesthetics · Anthropocene · Art · Art history · Audience measurement · Environmental ethics · Futures contract · Globe · Political science · Sociology · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Media and Philosophy · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |