West: Without Firm Ground Vilém Flusser and the Arts

19.03.2016 – 07.05.2016

West: Without Firm Ground Vilém Flusser and the Arts

Without Firm Ground
Vilém Flusser and the Arts

In cooperation with the ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe & Akademie der Künste Berlin

‘Synthetic images as an answer to Auschwitz’ (‘We Shall Survive in the Memory of Others’) asserted Vilém Flusser (1920–1991) forcefully in an interview shortly before his death. Only by passing through radical abstraction could a new concretization, and thus a new and exciting life become imaginable: With this, post-history would begin. Flusser proactively took up the challenge of rethinking the arts, in the face of the fact that our existence is essentially determined by technology. To connect the methods of science with a new understanding of culture is the key concern of his special anthropology.

Flusser’s thought and texts were a continual experiment of living and surviving in the diaspora. When he was nineteen, he fled from his native Prague to England and then to Brazil, where he lived for thirty years. During the military dictatorship he returned to Europe, where he lived in the Italian provinces and Switzerland for a time, then in France for ten years. In the late 1980s, he became the star of media theory in Europe, with frequent appearances in the academic forums and arenas of Germany.

Wandering, without an academic discipline, and out of time in a twofold sense: Rather like a minimal obstacle course, the exhibition ‘Without Firm Ground – Flusser and the Arts’ invites visitors to imagine the fugitive existence of Vilém Flusser as a model of the violent context we call the 20th century. Confronted with a past that had become unreal, Flusser met what characterized the beginning of the twenty-first century with heightened anticipation – through the arts and his writing.

West Museumkwartier
Lange Voorhout 102
2514 EJ, Den Haag
The Netherlands

No Firm Ground : Vilém Flusser and the arts

15.08.2015 – 18.10.2015

No Firm Ground : Vilém Flusser and the arts

Vilém Flusser (1920– 1991) is one of the outstanding art and media philosophers of the 20th century. Many of his texts foresaw the future of technology-based communication and networking. Today his works are inspiring; Flusser was convinced that changes in communication structures through codes and new media would ultimately affect all areas of society. He called for a fundamental study of technical images and the apparatuses which generate them. The exhibition “No Firm Ground – Vilém Flusser and the Arts” provided an additional, important aspect to the reception of Flusser’s writings: the close and multifaceted connection between his work and the art world. The ZKM in Karlruhe presented collages, drawings, video and audio works, early computer works and the philosopher’s personal items from the Vilém Flusser Archive in Berlin, along with contemporary works by international artists which make direct reference to Flusser’s work. Many prominent artists, such as Mira Schendel, Louis Bec and Fred Forest, had been close friends with Flusser, with whom they had carried out joint projects. In focussing on the arts, the exhibition presented Flusser’s works in an entirely new context. In this way, the project highlighted the connection between media and art theory from a Flusserian perspective. The exhibition wished to provide an important contribution to international study and research of Flusser’s works. During the exhibition, a scientific conference took place. Researchers developed a trilingual dictionary of terms from Flusser’s world of thought, the “Flusseriana”. The project has been organised in cooperation with the Academy of the Arts in Berlin, together with institutions in the Czech Republic and Brazil.

Artistic director: Siegfried Zielinski with Peter Weibel
Curators: Baruch Gottlieb with Siegfried Zielinski and Norval Baitello jr.

Artists: Louis Bec (FR), Michael Bielicky (CZ), Harun Farocki, Alex Flemming (BR), Samson Flexor (BR), Joan Fontcuberta (ES), Fred Forest (FR), Marcello Mercado (AR), Anthony Moore (GB), Andreas Müller-Pohle, Mira Schendel (IT/ BR) a.o.

Pages 14 – 15