Flusser and Bec 2012

Flusser, Vilem and Louis Bec. Vampyroteuthis Infernalis. Trans. by Valentine A. Pakis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Octopoda

"We are pieces of the same game" (6) -- "We and the vampyroteuthis harbor some of the same deeply ingrained memories, and we are therefore able to recognize in it something of ourselves." (6)

earthworms; bees, ants, distributed colony animals as highest form; vampyroteuthis turned away from this track

comprehending "the basic structure of vampyroteuthic Dasein" (9)

"Certain aspects of human Dasein are evident in this structure, and certain others appear in it utterly distorted. Perhaps then a game can be built out of distorting mirrors that would enable us to recognize the basic structure, distorted and from afar, of our own Dasein. By playing a 'reflective' game of this sort, we should hope to gain a new perspective of ourselves that, though distanced, is not 'transcendent.' It will not be transcendent, that is, because its standpoint will differ from that of science, which would adopt an 'objective' position by floating above the world and looking down upon mankind. On the contrary, our analysis of humans will be made from the perspective of the vampyroteuthis, which coexists with us in the world. It is our co-being (Mit-Sein). What will be presented here is, accordingly, not a scientific treatise but a fable. The human and its vertebrate Dasein are to be criticiezd from the perspective of a mollusk. Like most fables, this one is ostensibly concerned with animals. De te fabular narratur." (9-10)