Presumption, Poetry, Deviation:

The Art Concept in the Flusserian Thought

Abstract

This paper presents how the concept of art was approached ontologically in Vilém Flusser's early books, particularly in “Language and Reality” and “The History of the Devil”, to subsequently follow the political approach of some of his texts of the seventies and eighties. In his early philosophy, Flusser's allegory of the web and the language globe diagram both show that artistic (or poetic) activity creates language, which is the totality of civilization, culture, mind, nature, in short, of reality. In later texts, specially those that concern the notion of post-history, art appears as a way of emancipation from the technocratic discourse – in which the human being is established as an operator, a piece within the apparatus – and as redemption of knowledge and practices of strictly technical, commercial and programmed use. Continuities and differences between these perspectives point to the urgency of thinking about art, at the present time, as a reconstruction of politics.