Abstract
Pandora’s Box was a gift given by Zeus to the first mortal woman created. But it contained one condition: it was never to be opened. Knowing of Pandora’s curiosity, Zeus planned to take revenge on mankind for the knowledge gained from the fire stolen from Olympus by the titan Prometheus. Pandora opened the vessel and all the evils were released into humanity, leaving only hope at its bottom. To what extent could we consider cameras, like the box in Pandora’s myth, as programmed precursors that arouse our curiosity, since they are not easily decipherable? If the “opening” of this new box led humanity to build all the other programmed machines that create the cultural goods of our time, inspired by its prototype, what progress and barbarism would these new Pandora’s Boxes have unleashed in modernity? Through a dialectical-methodological reflection on the object, our theoretical framework articulates the dialogue between the Benjaminian concepts of technical reproducibility and the loss of the aura of the work of art in favor of the value of its maximum exposure; and the Flusserian concept of technical images, which accelerated the emergence of the other Flusserian concept of “black boxes” loaded with an opacity inherent to their programming. How much of the decryption of such a box would have the potential to release knowledge to the world; how much of that knowledge has been used for destruction, inequality, and alienation; and how much hope would remain from its decryption for the benefit of humanity?
Presenters
Joao Pedro de Azevedo Machado MotaStudent, PhD Candidate, University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
PROGRESS-BARBARISM, WALTER BENJAMIN, TECHNOLOGICAL REPRODUCIBILITY, VILEM FLUSSER, BLACK BOX
