57

The philosopher, Vilèm Flusser described the advent of photography as the sign of a new age of civilisation. Effectively, the era can be defined by the use of camera devices, that is, instruments or functional devices programmed to produce technical pictures. It put an end to the predominance of linear writing and historical time which, in turn, had ended the subservience of screen pictures of the traditional world. This new culture ensued from a more direct vision of reality, in the form of pictures stemming from the use of camera devices : photos, films, videos. However, such technical pictures, far from being spontaneous, are the result of symbol writings and digital calculations which produce and operate visualisation devices. And, due to the widespread use of these devices, black boxes, as Flusser refers to them, their programmes finish in determining individual behaviour. The automatic and combinatorial processing of information thus becomes the under-lying law of a new visualisation. From such an evolution one can, by way of example, observe the consequences for the image of the human body in pornography. Can one thus assert that technology has come to renew the former magic circle of the picture, which is again in need of breaking ? Whilst both holding with and diverging from V. Flusser’s analysis, we maintain that to perceive, to say, to represent, to inscribe, to show, to simulate and to display are all profoundly different. Through such a theory on images, it is decidedly a question of the nature of signs which bears raising.