To play with black boxes: deprogramming media devices

Abstract

In the proposed article, we walk through the concepts presented by Vilém Flusser, looking mainly through those who make reference to the freedom of employees in the age of the devices, acting between their loopholes of programation. We try to understand how, in this way, a subversion of the pre-determinations of programs with which we relate can be constructed as practice. The idea proposed by the author is that such transgressions are a game of creative and expansive uses of the media, as well as forms of resistance to repetition patterns, which aim at their own interests and configure the programs. We propose a theoretical approximation of Flusser's points of view, in what he called the philosophy of photography, with the concepts of Body without Organs, by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and the Foucaultian concepts of device and counter-device, presented by Giorgio Agamben. According to Flusser, the danger of being dominated by the devices lies in not challenging them and in not understanding their languages. For the philosopher, even chance is registered in the program and, as a consequence, can, at a certain moment, be realized. Although the game is in realizing how we can act based not only on the probabilities predicted by the programs, but also on human intentions that allow us to play in favor of the unlikely possibilities.