Technological Unconscious

Benjamin wrote to begin with in his brief essay on photography and then in his most famous work that “It is indeed a different nature that speaks to the camera from the one which addresses the eye; different above all in the sense that instead of a space worked through by human consciousness there appears one which is affected unconsciously”¹.

Franco Vaccari argues that Benjamin sees the “optical unconscious” as “what the individual does not grasp due to their [perceptive] limits, but that is revealed to the means ‒ not through a structuring process but through a revealing one”. Having acknowledged the limits of a (natural) perception which is unable of organising in a satisfactory way the data emerging from direct experience, the means (that is to say the camera or video camera) becomes what is able to speak about that information that the human eye cannot see. Following this thesis, Vaccari ‒ who is from the Italian city of Modena ‒ puts forward the idea of a shift from constant references to the individual to a focus on the tool, which must be seen as “having the capacity to organise images autonomously into forms that are already symbolically structured, independently from the intervention of the individual”².

According to Vaccari, the unconscious is an “independent centre of productive activity that gives structure and form to the inarticulate elements crossing it”. The Modena artist states that alongside the human unconscious (defined as “plastic”) lies another type of unconscious, i.e. the technological one, which one can see at work when human beings delegate activities to tools and machines:³ “every machine follows rules [conventions] that shape up its production and such rules work just like the unconscious, although on a static and incredibly rudimentary level”⁴. According to Vaccari, if we accept McLuhan’s well-known view of media as extension and enhancement of human capabilities, we cannot deny that the unconscious is also, somehow, projected towards the exterior. Therefore the activities of the technological unconscious are “autonomous in two ways”: firstly, they are unconscious, but they are also delegated to external tools for which we cannot deny some form of autonomous action.

Vaccari has stated on several occasions that his vision of the unconscious is that of a “social unconscious” which works autonomously and therefore symbolically gives shape to human action. Referring specifically to photography, it is important to specify that what others define “a photomechanical depiction of reality” is in Vaccari’s eyes a process which is already in itself symbolically structured and as such does not require the intervention of the individual. We could even argue that the human intervention attempting to give meaning or expressive value to the image constitutes a “photographic misunderstanding” and the removal of its deepest reality (that is to say the one that is autonomously structured by the technological unconscious).

In Vaccari’s view, photography is a tool which is suitable to obtain previously coded information. Indeed, his thesis is based on the supposition that the western civilisation placed a symbolic code in the camera mechanisms reflecting the “most deep-rooted and widespread conventions of the culture in which it emerged”. If the photograph is “already coded” then this means there is no need for human intervention: thanks to the technological unconscious the machine can culturally shape up a picture without needing a conscious operator. Therefore we could say that – in Vaccari’s case – “the photographer does not have to see, because the camera sees for him”.




Adopting this attitude implies accepting the crisis of the principle of distinguished and creative authorship ‒ that is to say putting aside one’s individuality and originality to “let the means talk”⁵In other words this means admitting that the photographer can at the most “connote” an image which already has meaning in itself. On this subject Vaccari states: “by shaping up the image according to his own aesthetic conventions and by seeing them as objective, the photographer is caught up in a tautological situation in which he only encounters his own projections; the imaginary is experienced as reality and photography becomes the place of illusion and ghosts”⁶.

According to Vaccari, the machine should be considered a “living fragment of the unconscious”. In fact, the machine’s structure is comparable to the structure of the unconscious, which also lacks depth and has nothing to do with the flows crossing it⁷. He is convinced that the machine works according to the following pattern: the machine is transplanted onto a flow of images (and therefore information) and it works according to a series of operations which are all associated with a predefined code (“blocked”). The machine produces the same operations whatever flow it is inserted onto. This “blind indifference” is due to the fact that the machine never departs from the code “that owns it”. Therefore we have to acknowledge that the machine produces uniformity (a concept which should be interpreted from the perspective of repetition of the same operations independently from the type of flow concerned).⁸.

Automatic features of the apparatuses producing images

The concept of ‘autonomy’ is fundamental in both Vaccari’s and Vilém Flusser’s interpretations, which means that from a certain point of view the readings of the artist from Modena and the Bohemian researcher are complementary.⁹. Using the terms of Flusser’s media philosophy, we could say that machines tend towards entropy by contributing to homogeneity. What emerges from Flusser’s analysis is that the conceptual aspect is always more important than the visual one. Therefore he sees photography more as a form of memory than the development of previous symbolic forms (frame, Alberti’s window, etc.). On the basis of this assumption, Flusser cannot overlook the issue of the decline of memory and precisely for this reason he works on a perspective according to which the human search for immortality ‒ that is to say the counter movement of human beings against the tendency of information to melt away and therefore the death of the universe ‒ is informing. According to the Bohemian researcher, human beings build up the “apparatuses that produce images” in order to grant them automatic production of (informative) improbable situations. The aim is to concretely turn one of the infinite possibilities of an invisible universe based on probability into an “improbable visible” ‒ therefore the apparatuses fight against the universe’s tendency towards the loss of information (and the breaking up of every “form”). However we must also take into account what Flusser calls “strange internal dialectics”, which refers to the fact that the apparatuses are programmed to produce improbable situations ‒ implying that such improbable situations were inserted (by humans) in their programmes.

If on the one hand, what is improbable from the universe perspective can be foreseen by who knows the apparatus programme, on the other hand the technical images ‒ which came into being with the intention of going against the entropic tendency of the universe ‒ become probable from the receiver’s perspective, and therefore less informative and, finally, entropic.



Flusser ascribes the contradiction inside the apparatuses to the automatic features. Indeed, the apparatuses work according to the same method as the universe, that is to say automatically ‒ which means that in their programmes possibilities occur randomly just “like programmed accidents”. Flusser’s definition of ‘automation’ helps clarify his way of thinking and also makes him closer to Vaccari’s interpretation: automation is “an autonomous assessment of cases from which human initiative is excluded, and an interruption of this development in informational situations set up by humans”. The issue caused by the automatic aspect of the apparatuses emerges as soon as there is awareness of the risk that these may not stop when they get to the planned informative situation (which was programmed), but instead continue to produce redundant images/information (similarly to the universe that continues its progression towards thermal death).¹⁰.

Stated more clearly, even if we wanted to admit that the involuntary information (highlighted by Vaccari and comparable to Flusser’s “programmed accidents”) which enters a photograph is the main guarantee to counter the risk of redundancy, we must acknowledge that this information cannot delay the phase in which the photographic apparatus uses up all its possibilities. Rather, precisely in the case of a camera, intuition leads to the understanding that each photo (although it contains a high amount of involuntary information) achieves one of the several but not never-ending possibilities expected in the apparatus programme. The involuntary information/programmed accidents are located on the level in which the machine operates automatically following its own programme/code. Because the amount of possibilities forecasted by each programme is not infinite, the result is that when all the expected possibilities have been achieved all that can be done is repeat ones that have already been achieved ‒ which leads to images that Flusser calls “superfluous”¹¹, that is to say redundant, or else images that do not carry any new information.

We may therefore conclude ‒ referring to Flusser’s theories ‒ by stating that automatic machines tend towards entropy. In fact, they are destined to use up all the possibilities of their own programme, thereby producing images which are not informative. Therefore we must fight against the automatic features of apparatuses ‒ apparatuses we cannot, in any case, live without ‒ and in other words we have the mission of “turning automatic production against automation”¹².

Real time and feedback

Another key element in Vaccari’s artistic and intellectual discourse is time lapse, that in cases in which space is given to the autonomy of the machine, allows the image to “reveal elements of meaning that would be completely deleted if they were dominated by the human conscience”¹³. A photograph ‒ because of its high degree of autonomy ‒ has the power to observe things that become clear with time (and that were unknown before). This could be called a “further development” which makes latent meanings become obvious (with time).¹⁴.

In Vaccari’s view, a photograph differs from a painting in that it “leaves outside the structured image a margin on which the symbolic does not produce any effect”, that is to say a collection of data “whose meaning is produced and unfolds with time”. This margin (which is exactly what Vaccari is referring to with the term ‘technological unconscious’) represents the only way to get away from the framework and stereotypes of social conventions. Indeed, only when the machine’s unconscious carries out its selection or “selective structuring” then freedom from “institutionalised conventions” becomes possible. In these cases, the technological unconscious “gives rise to additional meaning in the photograph” that ‒ as previously stated ‒ unfolds its own meaning with time¹⁵.



The so-called “real time” also offers a chance of interaction between phenomenon and observer¹⁶. In order to fully grasp this aspect, we must introduce another key concept in Vaccari’s thought and artistic practises. I am referring to the concept of ‘feedback’ that he explains as follows: “a retroaction or feedback process occurs when a more or less global assessment of a situation allows the orientation of this situation towards new outcomes, and, if this occurs before the situation has evolved by itself, we can state that the operation occurred in real time”¹⁷. “Real time” and “feedback” are the two concepts at the core of Vaccari’s artistic production. This is why his exhibitions are called “exhibitions in real time” ‒ precisely because they are conceived to interact with the environments they are set up in. The favourite means is ‒ ça va sans dire ‒ snap-shots, chosen because they can facilitate strong synchronisation between the consciousness of the event and the unfolding of the event itself¹⁸.

An unequalled example of the staging of the concepts of “real time” and “feedback” was the project Esposizione in tempo reale n. 4: Lascia su queste pareti una traccia fotografica del tuo passaggio (Exhibition in real time n. 4: Leave your photographic trace on these walls), that was set up as part of the 36th Venice Biennale (1972). Vaccari chose to fill his exhibition space with a Photomatic booth to print ID photos. The audience was involved through a written explanation in four languages encouraging people to leave a photographic trace of their visit. In practice, visitors were asked to enter the Photomatic booth, take pictures and then hang their series of photos on the wall. From the very first day when the exhibition was inaugurated, it became immediately popular and attracted many a visitor creating a sociable environment. The visitors’ photo series were gradually arranged by Vaccari on a wall. The global image formed little by little is clearly a quantified image in which single frames are not simply added to others, as would happen in a process of mere accumulation, but rather interact with one another according to the forces that nowadays belong to the Web and a remix culture.

From this point of view, it would perhaps not be too far-fetched to see Vaccari’s wall at the 1972 Biennale as a forerunner of the Web (although certainly on an extremely reduced scale) in which the machine’s (the Photomatic’s) technological unconscious is self-revealed. In a similar way, the automatic mechanism producing the photos is fundamental in that it makes any manipulation by the user impossible averting any personalist usage of the means¹⁹ Vaccari’s work of art-event takes the focus off conventions and certainties as the involved visitors have to look at things differently, or else, in the words of the artist, they have to “see what they do not know”²⁰.

Correspondence channels

In Flusser’s interpretation, the feedback relationship established between the image and its recipient aims in reality at creating contact between the apparatus and society through the so-called “correspondence channels” ‒ through which (moving in the opposite direction compared to those with which the information is transmitted) the reactions of the image’s recipients can be received. Although this mechanism seems identical to the one described by Vaccari, the two differ because while in Vaccari’s case retroaction is favoured in order to involve visitors more and more in the dynamic environments where the “exhibitions in real time” take place, in Flusser’s case feedback is predestined in connection with the continuous improvement of images and apparatuses. Due to the feedback which is established between apparatus and society, a mechanism develops according to which images become better and better and more suited to what the recipients would like, “so that the recipients become more and more like the images want them to be”.

According to Flusser, there is a “mutual nourishment” relationship based on consensus between the images and the recipients: for example, a cinema spectator nowadays is the result of nourishment that began when the first films were shown, while the film shown on the screen is the outcome of a type of “counter-nourishment” that started with the recipients of films in the past. The consensus between image and human being ‒ which is automatically strengthened thanks to feedback ‒ represents in Flusser’s view the core of a society which is dominated by technical images.

The recipients must react to receiving the image, functioning towards the exterior, but also towards the interior which is to say towards the received image. “They have to take nourishment from it” ‒ Flusser writes ‒ intending that the correspondence relationship between image and recipient is aimed at making the image “fatter”. Moreover, we should add that the feedback relationship does not always give rise to a closed circuit (otherwise the images would fall into entropy through infinite repetition). This does not occur because the images are not only nourished by the recipients but also take nourishment from current or past stories. However, this source of nourishment is not destined to renew itself infinitely because, on the one hand the sources of historical events start running out, and, on the other, history reached its end when human beings stopped acting to change the world and began acting to be photographed ‒ as a consequence, the occurring does not extend towards the future anymore but towards the image. Therefore a new type of feedback comes into being, this time between the image and the occurring: “the occurring feeds the images and the images feed the occurring”. For instance, the aim of a wedding is a photo album, while the wedding (the wedding photos) are in the programme of the photo apparatus²¹.

In my view, Vaccari’s work is a marvellous example precisely of this second type of feedback. Regardless of Vaccari’s intentions, it appears to me that Exhibition in real time n. 4 is totally emblematic of an occurring (the actions performed during the real time of the exhibition itself) that nourishes the images (the wall that gradually becomes covered with snap-shots during the course of the exhibition) and of the feedback relationship because of which in turn the images (the photos of the previous visitors) nourish the occurring (the new actions of the new visitors).
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¹ Walter Benjamin, (1931) Piccola storia della fotografia (A Short History of Photography), Milano, Skira, 2011, translated by M. C. Coldagelli, p. 16; see also Id., (1936) L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction), Einaudi, Torino 2000, pp. 62-63

² Franco Vaccari, (1979) Fotografia e inconscio tecnologico (Photography and the Technological Unconscious), Torino, Einaudi, 2011, pp. 18-19

³ Id., Fotografia e inconscio (Photography and the Unconscious). Photo, quote, p. 3. During a recent talk given at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Naples (8th October 2014), Vaccari described the technological unconscious as the “autonomous capacity of technological tools to produce sense”

⁴ Ibid., p. 10. With the terms ‘rules/conventions’ Vaccari refers to that “series of concepts that are typical of western culture regarding space, time, representation, memory, etc.”. Ibid, p. 11

⁵ See: Daniela Palazzoli, (1972) “La placenta azzurra” (“The blue placenta”), in Nicoletta Leonardi, (edited by), Feedback, quote, p. 27

⁶ Franco Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio (Photography and the Unconscious), quote, p. 13

⁷ Ibid., pp. 3-5

⁸ Ibid., p. 6

⁹ In a recent article Valentina Bonizzi described the meeting between Vaccari and Flusser, which took place in Italy in 1985. Valentina Bonizzi, “Che cosa legittima la fotografia? La produzione di un incontro tra Flusser e Vaccari” (“What makes photography legitimate? The production of a meeting between Flusser and Vaccari”), in Flusser Studies, n. 19, May 2015

¹⁰ Vilém Flusser, (1985) Immagini. Come la tecnologia ha cambiato la nostra percezione del mondo (Images. How Technology Changed Our Perception of the World), Roma, Fazi, 2009, pp. 24-26. See also Vito Campanelli, L'utopia di una società dialogica. Vilém Flusser e la teoria delle immagini tecniche (The Utopia of a Dialogue Society. Vilém Flusser and the Theory of Technical Images), Bologna, Sossella, 2015

¹¹ Vilém Flusser, (1983) Per una filosofia della fotografia (Towards a Philosophy of Photography), Milano, Bruno Mondadori, 2006, pp. 28-29

¹² Id., Immagini (Images), quote, pp. 26-28

¹³ Franco Vaccari, Fotografare, guardare (Photographing, seeing), quote, p. 152

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 157

¹⁵ Id., (1977) “Il buco nella lingua. Conversazione tra Franco Vaccari e Pietro Bonfiglioli” (“The hole in the tongue. Conversation between Franco Vaccari and Pietro Bonfiglioli”), in Nicoletta Leonardi, (edited by), Feedback, quote, p. 115

¹⁶ Id., (1979) “Il movimento tortuoso e opaco del senso” (“The windy and murky movement of sense”), in ibid., p. 124

¹⁷ Id., (1974) “Analisi dell’esposizione in tempo reale. Lascia su queste pareti una traccia fotografica del tuo passaggio” (“Analysis of the exhibition in real time. Leave your photographic trace on these walls”), in ibid., p. 111

¹⁸ Franco Vaccari, Fotografia e inconscio (Photography and the Unconscious), quote, p. 70

¹⁹ Id., Analisi dell’esposizione (Analysis of the exhibition), quote, p. 112

²⁰ Ibidem. see also Claudia Zanfi, (edited by), Franco Vaccari. Photomatic e altre storie (Photomatic and Other Stories), Milano, Electa, 2006

²¹ Vilém Flusser, Immagini (Images), quote, pp. 72-79