Die Geste des Streamens. Ein ironisch-kritischer Kommentar zu Vilém Flussers 106. Geburtstag
Conceived as an ironic homage to Vilém Flusser on the occasion of his 106th birthday, “The Gesture of Streaming” seeks to extend Flusser’s phenomenology of gestures into the digital platform age. By referring to his reflections on media nomadism, technical images and telematic society, the essay considers streaming as a predominant gesture of the twenty-first century.
The text argues that streaming fundamentally alters the relationship between users and media. Whereas previous media cultures were structured by ownership and material possession, digital platforms increasingly privilege temporary access and permanent availability. Music, films, and books are no longer collected and preserved but encountered within continuous streams of information. As a consequence, cultural consumption becomes detached from responsibility, care, and lasting commitment. The gesture of streaming is thus characterized by fluidity and the perpetual search for meaning within a society where all media seem to be disposable and accessible at once.
The essay further contends that this logic has transcended the realm of media and progressively shapes social relations themselves. Through dating-apps, individuals encounter one another as elements within a stream of profiles, images, and data. Humans stream each other in the way they stream media: infinite availability, replaceability, and continuous selection form their relationships. By transferring the logics of streaming from media to interpersonal encounters, the essay offers an insight into digital culture and reflects on the anthropological consequences of online-communication in the light of Flusser.
Dancing Data. Come riportare lo spazio e il tempo nell'universo digitale
Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all fields of human life will lead towards complete automation, and the programs running this technology will be progressively integrated within a large meta-program, a “super-black-box,” working independently from human intention. This analysis echoes Evgeny Morozov’s (2013) writings against the idolization of “The Internet,” the magic machine that is believed to offer a solution for every human problem. As Flusser predicted, and Morozov showed with contemporary examples of digital mediation, this super-black-box works in fact only towards the implementation of its own mechanisms of control. Flusser’s apocalyptic prediction, however, is counterbalanced by the idea that forms of “play against the apparatus” will offer mankind the means to regain freedom of action. This paper looks at forms of control and emancipation in the relations between club culture members and digital media. Social media changed the way clubbers share and represent their experiences, undermining presence in a culture that was traditionally based on intense bodily experiences. Therefore, new forms of playful interaction, such as forms of dance or fights between clubbers and the digital apparatus might emerge; new forms of DJ-ing that might lead towards a new understanding of presence and participation.