Useful Pictures

Vilem Flusser coined the term "technical image" to describe the way in which images model texts in a world fundamentally changed and defined by industrialized modern culture. This title is a collection of several projects, which go beyond simple textual description or image mapping in order to make connections through a hybridized visual language.

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Czech media theorist Vilem Flusser (1920-91) coined the term "technical image" to describe the way in which images model texts in a world fundamentally changed and defined by industrialized modern culture. The fascinating collection of artists' projects assembled in "Useful Pictures" develops the notion of the technical image in a series of visual diagrams that exceed Flusser's wildest dreams - going beyond mere textual description or image mapping in order to make new connections and new sense through a hybridized visual language. The thirteen artists represented here present a series of iconic projects that combine image and text into a variety of complex diagrams that not only construe existing texts, but also propose new constructions and means of communication through radical cartography, comprehensive mapping, and thought-provokingly alternative visions.