***Ankündigung auf Englisch - Veranstaltung in englischer Sprache ***
Flusserian Philosophical Friday with Erick Felinto
Friday 20.05.2011, 3pm, Vilém Flusser Archive
Flusserian Philosophical Friday (FPF) is an international research
colloquium open to anyone interested in reading and discussing the
works of Vilém Flusser. These events are held in English.
Location: _vilém_flusser_archive, room 208, Grunewaldstr.2-5, 10823
Berlin
Erick Felinto
"Of Animals and Stones: From Benjamin's 'Unmensch' to Flusser's
"Bichos'"
(Posthumanism and the Metaphor of Natural History)"
Abstract:
Vilém Flusser's Vampyroteuthis Infernalis reenacts and actualizes the
time-honored tradition of a mental experiment that purports to efface
the boundaries between man and animal. This ancient conceptual
device, known in Baroque times as physica naturalis, seeks to
illuminate the world of culture by means of its approximation with
the world of nature. Instead of opposing poles, nature and culture
become reflecting mirrors where man can acknowledge his ties to
nature and the animal kingdom. More than just a rhetorical trope, the
so-called allegory of natural history comprises what could be defined
as a "philosophy of animality," espoused by thinkers such as Walter
Benjamin, Gilbert Simondon and Jacques Derrida. In Vampyroteuthis,
Flusser resorts to a strange marine creature in order to elaborate a
sophisticated meditation on human existence and our relationship with
the technological apparatuses we incessantly devise. The goal of this
talk is to examine the recent history of the allegory, tracing its
developments in the works of contemporary scholars, such as Siegfried
Zielinski, Manuel de Landa and Vilém Flusser himself. Moreover, it
investigates the applicability of the "philosophy of animality"
within the field of art and film theory, suggesting an approach to
filmic experience that focuses on the "material" aspects of cinema
and regards the spectator's body as a site for the translation of
images into affect and sensation.
Bio:
Erick Felinto is a full professor in the Department of Media Studies
at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He is the author of five
books on topics such as cyberculture, cinema studies and comparative
literature. He holds a masters degree in Communication Theory from
the Federal University of Rio and a PhD in Romance Languages and
Linguistics from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). He is
currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Universität der Künste Berlin.--
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