In the image and likeness: machine, man, and imaginaries in circulation 243 machine’s imaginary as discriminatory, we can reflect on the meanings orchestrated in this game of imagination: the man imagining the machine, the machine imagining the man, and the social imaginary in co-creation. Flusser already emphasized that it is not about the man-machine duality but their interaction. 7. How to imagine a becoming? Reflecting on becoming, in the dual sense of the word— both as coming into being and as a continuous flow—allows us to revisit the provocation posed in the title of this work regarding the biblical idea of image and likeness. In a fascinating es- say titled ‘Machines are as mortal as people,’ Dietmar Kamper (2001), based on a statement by Frederich Kitler, draws an analogy between God, humans, and machines, considering the role of the dreamer. According to the author, communication media, especially digital ones, have fulfilled the dream of being everywhere, which requires a kind of disembodiment. Losing the body implies becoming an image, resulting in a duplicate. How- ever, as the author rightly emphasizes, ‘To use screen-machines is to forget that things and bodies are attainable.’ It entails being impacted by both the spoken and unspoken, by senses in flow, by the construction of myself and the other, and by the ongoing process of mediatization. Nevertheless, Kamper (2001) emphasizes that ‘God dreams of humans; humans dream of machines; machines dream of God. All three dreams are fundamental; they all go side by side. They exhaust the imagination and leave the world an orbit of imaginary debris.’ In this perspective, Kamper emphasizes the place of the media imaginary, repetition, reproduction, and the set of already-seen images that often return or remain accessible, like a vast memory database. In this game of dreams, Kamper (2001) proposes God desires humans, not machines. Humans desire machines, not God. Machines desire God, not humans. That is the triadic formula of renuncia- tion. If the emphasis is slightly shifted, then there is an involuntary rejection: God dreams of hu-
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