Er(r)go, (paste the English text) Wojciech Kalaga

Edyta Stawowczyk

"Philosophical Aspects of Visibility"

The development of new digital technologies has resulted in a cultural revolution unlike any other that has taken place so far. Digital interfaces make it possible to visualise hitherto unseen and unimaginable things and processes. The possibility of creating hitherto unseen and unimaginable images, of visualising events, of recording non-visual data and of the unlimited transformations connected with the binary form of recording data — all these make theorists of culture describe our times as the era of „driftingimages" or „visionics". The proliferation of images makes us reflect on the technoculturat conditions of seeing, and, in consequence, on the philosophical contexts of the new media images. Allthat contributes to the popularisation of the notion of visibility. Relying on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as well as on other philosophical conceptions (developed by Foucault, Virilio, Baudrillard and Bohm), the author seeks to describe the epistemological and ontological consequences of the media revolution.

Andrzej Gwóźdź

"Electronic Spaces of Seeing"

The author of the essay reiterates the questions posed by Merleau-Potty about the subject of seeing, the activity of seeing and the object or the world which is visible. He pays particular attention to the formula video ergo cogito, which appears to be an affirmation of reflection qua metaobservation: since, as radical constructionists insist, we cannot get to to know, and subsequently describe, what we see „from outside", all we can do is focus on how we observe and thus we ascend to a metalevel of observation although we still remain within the world we observe. Furthermore the author of the essay explores the consequences of our reliance on electronic devices which create teleoptic spaces of seeing/being seen. In the typology he introduces the space of seeing comprises the spaces of cognition, representation, monitoring, ritual, transaction, activity and memory.

Marcin Mazurek

"The Condition of Spectacle. Product, Vacuum, Acceleration"

'The article aims at a critical explication of two attempts to frame the distorted sense of the real, firstly. through the notion of the spectacle (Guy Debord) and then the simulacrum (Jean Baudrillard). Both concepts, though they originated in political and media-related discourses, stress the autonomy of representation and its close relationship with conditions of contemporary social existence as well as with the process of identity formation, the latter to a large extent informed by the total substitution of the material by the mediated.

Barbara Kita

"Travelling: Going, Seeing, Thinking"

The author describes modern space in the light of the change in the model of travelling. The medium of television plays an important role in this practice: it mediates space and replaces its proper experience. The postmodern urban nomad (Deleuze, Maffesoli), the teleurban fliineur or the tourist-telanthrop (Berger) represent roles characteristic of a mediated perception of reality. It is the static _audiovisual vehicle" (Virilio), by introducing the spectator to a kind of inertia, that, in contact with mediated space, makes it possible for us to travel by merely seeing.

Wojciech Chyła - Man in the Age of Media – Media in the Age of Biotechnology

The Author, by placing the media in a broader context of the biotechnological paradigm discusses natural environment, culture and ethics.

Paweł Polit, Gravel in Place of the Subject. On Robert Smithson’s Early Works.

The article explores the emergence of a new type of subject in the post-war minimalist art.

Dragan Kujundzic, Devisions, Inscryptions and Scenotaphs: Kieślowski Filming Mourning

The essay puts forth a cryptic interpretation of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Veronica in the context of psychoanalysis.

Katarzyna Smyczyńska, The World According to Briget Jones.

The article analyses the phenomenon of “Femino-Polo” in the context of popular literature

Marcin Mazurek, Bukatman’s Virtual Subject – Introduction

The essays the concept of terminal identity as introduced by Scott Bukatman.

Marcin Mazurek's Polish translation of an excerpt from Scott Bukatman's "Terminal Identity. The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction" (1993).

Tomasz Stępień's review of "Widzieć, myśleć, być. Technologie mediów," edited by Andrzej Gwóźdź (2001).

Małgorzata Tomaszkiewicz-Ostrowska's review of "Becoming Virtual. Reality in Digital Age" by Pierre Levy (1998).

Marcin Mazurek's review of "Terminal Identity. The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction" by Scott Bukatman(1993).

Olga Kałuża's review of "Źródła podmiotowości. Narodziny tożsamości nowoczesnej" by Charles Taylor (2001).

Critical notes on books

List of books received.

Summaries of the feature texts of the issue.

Colophon