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In 1945, Vannevar Bush published his landmark essay AS WE MAY THINK. In the age of computing, he argued, traditional forms of organizing, addressing, and processing information by “indexing” will be replaced by a much more flexible and associative machine-driven method he called memex. “Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.”
In 1986, Harun Farocki finished his film AS YOU SEE, a mesh of associative trails in which the Jacquard loom, the invention of the machine gun, and manifold alternative histories of technology are woven into a complex pattern of thoughts. What do Bush, Farocki, and other thinkers and practitioners of the image have to tell us today, when digital platforms, ubiquitous computing, and so called “generative artificial intelligence” are the norm?
The event AS WE MAY SEE pays homage to Farocki by discussing the complex and contradictory state of the technical image today. Ten years after Farocki’s premature death, we invite everyone to convene, think, and discuss – with, about, along with or against Farocki and Bush.
AS WE MAY SEE is organized by the Farocki Forum at the Department of Film Studies at the University of Zurich in cooperation with the Center for Arts and Cultural Theory (UZH and ZHdK). Concept: Volker Pantenburg and Roland Meyer.
