Technical Images
The invention of text and the textual universe
from Into the Universe of Technical Images, To Abstract
from To Envision, from Into the Universe of Technical Images
When we look at a photograph with a magnifying glass, we see grains. When we get close to the television screen, we see points. It is true that the photograph is a chemical image and the television an electronic one and that we are dealing with different ways of structuring particles. But the basic construction of particle elements is the same. As long as there are still images that rely on chemistry (presumably not much longer), the way the problem of envisioning presents itself technically (and so also perceptually) in surfaces will be different from the way it presents itself in electronic images. The point is that all technical images have the same basic character: on close inspection, they all prove to be envisioned surfaces computed from particles.
A closer look at technical images shows that they are not images at all but rather symptoms of chemical or electronic processes.
Technical images are only images at all if they are seen superficially. To be images, they require that the viewer keep his distance.
Traditional images are first-degree abstractions, abstracted from the concrete world.
Technical images are third-degree abstractions, since they are abstracted from texts that are abstracted from the concrete world. Rather than phenomena (traditional images), technical images refer to concepts (text based understanding) and absorb other images and texts implying an eternally reproducible environment.
To understand these images we must understand they represent the perspective of the maker. In Technical images this perspective is multi-dimensional because there are essential programs (texts - causal chains) embedded in the creation of these images.
"Technical images thus suck all of history in their surfaces, and they come to constitute an eternally rotating memory of society”
History is an effect of linear writing - a sequential, causal chain of events.
Technical images require an understanding of their inner programming to see them realistically.
Challenge/effect of Technical images
Flusser seems to state that the technical image is disguised and experienced as a non-technical image, and this masking tricks us. Below the surface technical images relate to, and coexist with texts in the form of the programming at the root of each technical image. As such, technical images absorb other technical images and related texts and programs. This leads to a
Technology (as applied to make technical images) is capable of massificating society. “We” are not aware of the black box that is technology and that tricks us to see "reality" in technical images (by which he simply means pictures, moving or fixed). Apart from the trickyness, he also observes the fact that through the increased exhibitional value by way of reproduction (Benjamin), we are constantly looking at traditional images that are recast as technical (as opposed to technological) and thus are bound to influence social/cultural habits and the way we think about images.