Flusser and the city as Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork)

Abstract

This paper discusses how technical images theory led philosopher Vilém Flusser to a theory of the city as Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork). This concept originated in Romanticism, became more familiar through Wagner’s operas (that were described as total artworks), and was radically changed by Flusser, who imagined a cybernetic society populated only by artists. Art now became technical again, in a totally artificial society in which everything is also art and the artist population builds its great works, which are the cities.