Art in the Age of Post-Media I (WS 2015/16)

In his newly translated essay Post-History, originally dating from 1983 and a lucid analysis of life under digital conditions avant la lettre, author and theorist Vilém Flusser writes: 

"Western culture reveals itself as a project that seeks to transform itself into apparatus. What characterizes the West is its capacity for objectifying transcendence. Such transcendence allows for the transformation of all phenomena, including the human phenomenon, into an object of knowledge and manipulation."[1]

In contemporary culture, algorithms are the means to carry out this transformation towards the objectification and programmability of all things living and dead, which give rise to apparatus. The term “algorithm” that derives from the name of the 9th century Persian mathematician “Al-Khwarizimi”  initially designated arithmetic operations with Arabic numerals. By now it has, through the transformation of calculation as a task of the human mind to that of (digital) electronic devices, come to generally stand for computer programs.  Since our lives are increasingly intersecting with an ever-increasing amount of such programs, algorithms have a growing impact on all levels of society, from the economical, over the political to the cultural. In this sense it becomes increasingly important to consider the impact of “algorithmic culture” from the perspective of artistic production and reception.