Tiago da Mota e Silva
Tiago da Mota e Silva is a researcher in Communication and Semiotics, with a PhD in the area by the Pontificial Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), with a focus on Vilém Flusser’s work. Since 2016, he has worked extensively at the Vilém Flusser Archive in São Paulo, where he contributes to the preservation, dissemination, and analysis of Flusser’s Brazilian writings. His studies on Flusser have been published in academic outlets such as Flusser Studies, InTexto, and Líbero, offering insights into the political dimensions of the philosopher’s thought. In addition to his work on Flusser, Tiago is engaged in research and reporting on issues in the Amazon region. He has conducted studies that examine Scientific communication practices and socio-environmental challenges, and his reports have appeared in media outlets including Mongabay, UOL, and Nexo.
Articles of Tiago da Mota e Silva
They are all Auschwitz: The Impact of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship on Flusser’s Communication Theory
This essay argues that Vilém Flusser’s experience with Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–1985) not only shaped his personal narrative but was also crucial for his theoretical thinking, especially his later theoretical production, particularly his contribution to Communication Theory. By exploring an unpublished corpus of correspondence from the Vilém Flusser Archive in São Paulo, along with complementary essays and published texts, this essay seeks to bridge the gap between Flusser’s personal experiences under political repression and his theoretical assertions. Methodologically, the article adopts an exploratory qualitative approach. It categorizes extensive letter exchanges with figures like José Bueno, Miguel Reale, and others associated with the Brazilian Institute of Philosophy (IBF), the epicentre from which the ideological and legal defence of the 1964 coup emanated . This triangulation between private correspondence, unpublished essays, and Flusser’s published work provides a framework for analysing his nuanced engagement with repression and the notion of the apparatus. The results indicate that although Flusser’s published writings on the Brazilian context are relatively ambiguous, his correspondence unveils a thinker deeply affected by the repressive climate. His cautious yet critical stance against the military apparatus is based on his original notion of politics as a communicational phenomenon – emphasizing the continuous rearticulation of social relationships and advocating transformative dialogue.
The (a)political dimension of school: Vilém Flusser's project with no purpose for education
Drawing on still unpublished texts by Vilém Flusser found in the Vilém Flusser São Paulo Archive, this essay explores the crisis in education described in those texts, and a possible way of resolving it. Underpinning the discussion is the understanding politics the informs these and other selected passages in Flusser's work, calling attention to an aspect of his thought little explored in research about Flusser to date. The essay argues that politics is a fundamental notion in Flusser's communicology, and further, that politics can be interpreted as a way of integrating intersubjectivity, that is, integrating positive results of education into a whole capable of using, rather than being used by the apparatus. However, the victory of education in the face of the apparatus’ project would pass through the conquest of apolitics. Supporting evidence for these notions was sought in letters from Flusser, exchanged, mainly with his Brazilian friend José Bueno.