WHEN WORDS FAIL: THE INCONCEIVABLE IMAGE FOR VILÉM FLUSSER FROM JOE HEYDECKER'S PHOTO-DOCUMENTARY

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the reading carried out by Vilém Flusser on the photo-documentary by Joe Heydecker, who portrayed in 1941 the conditions experienced by the Jewish people in the Warsaw Ghetto. For this, uses the images and texts produced by Heydecker, the analyzes produced by Flusser on this testimony and other texts produced in the early '80s to present the specifics of his thought in this period. Based on these unpublished texts, it will be possible to illustrate how Flusser reflected on the “inconceivable” of technoimages and on the possibility of photography as a means of criticizing the trivialized imagination, which helps to understand his thinking as a criticism of barbarism and fanaticism, observed by the author as determinants for understanding the current situation.