Chess
Philosophers and thinkers have often used
chess to reflect on their ideas; for instance, the
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the philosophers
Walter Benjamin and Charles Sanders
Peirce. Some were even Grandmasters, like
Emanuel Lasker, or avid players like Bertrand
Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre (Hale, Philosophy
Looks at Chess, 2008).
Vilém Flusser should be added to this list. He
enjoyed playing chess during intellectual discussions:
“Anyhow, this will be an opportunity
to exchange experiences and views, play some
chess, and have a good time,” as he wrote to Lewis
Weiner (correspondence with Lewis Weiner, May
6, 1987). There are also many ways in which Flusser
uses the analogy of chess in his writings: “Again
and again I go back to the game of chess, because
it is so easy.” (Radio DRS, broadcast on September
30, 1991; translated from the German)
One of Flusser’s most important chess analogies
is the following: in his essay “Schach” [Chess],
Flusser uses a phenomenological approach to
discuss chess (“Schach,” in: Dinge und Undinge,
1993). He says that chess is a structurally simple
and a functionally complex principle. The objects
are simple and made of wood, but in the game
the rules and the possible decisions are complex.
The analysis of technical principles, in the
sense of functional and structural complexity, is
continued in his essay “Die lauernde schwarze
Kamera-Kiste” [The Lurking Black Camera Box]:
„[…] the camera […] is a structurally complex
but functionally simple toy. In this respect it is
the opposite of chess, which is structurally simple
and functionally complex.” (“Die lauernde
schwarze Kamera-Kiste,” in: Vipecker Raiphan,
no. 3 ½, 1983, pp. 96–97; translated from the German)
In Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1984) Flusser goes further: the photographer does not have to understand the complexity underlying the apparatus – the photographer needs only to focus on the creation of the technical image. In Into the Universe of Technical Images (2011) this view is then expanded to the level of society to illustrate the prevailing spirit as to how information is produced in the telematic society, and at the same time to characterize the emerging homo ludens. This “new man” uses the structurally complex and functionally simple technical principles with ease, and takes advantage of the possibilities of the dialogic and playful creations.
Original article by Anita Jóri in Flusseriana