in ways that are not immediately known or shaped by its operator. For example, he described the act of photographing as follows: Roughly put, the person using a camera might think that they are operating its controls to produce a picture that shows the world the way they want it to be seen, but it is the pre-programmed character of the camera that sets the parameters of this act and it is the apparatus that shapes the meaning of the resulting image. Given the central role of photography to almost all aspects of contemporary life, the programmed character of the photographic apparatus shapes the experience of looking at and interpreting photographs as well as most of the cultural contexts in which we do so. Flusser developed a lexicon of terms that have proven influential and that continue to be useful for thinking about contemporary photography, digital imaging technologies and their online uses. These include: the 'apparatus' (a tool that changes the meaning of the world in contrast to what he calls mechanical tools that work to change the world itself); the 'functionary' (the photographer or operator of the camera who is bound by the rules it sets); the 'programme' (a 'system in which chance becomes necessity' and a game 'in which every virtuality, even the least probable, will be realized of necessity if the game is played for a sufficiently long time'); the 'technical image' (the first example of which is the photograph, with its particular kind of significant surface that looks like a traditional image but harbours encoded and obscure concepts that cannot be 'immediately' deciphered). While Flusser did write a number of short essays on the work of specific photographers, his major focus was the critical and philosophical need to understand late 20th-century media culture and the emergent possibilities and threats presented by the larger forces at work in an increasingly technical and automated world. Flusser's Vampyroteuthis Infernalis has also been interpreted as a fable about photography. Concept of Home and Homelessness Flusser was deeply influenced by the loss of his native Prague, and his relocations throughout his life which can be seen in his writings and causing him to proclaim his homelessness, "because there are so many homelands that make their home in me". His personal biography was particularly helpful for his studies in interpersonal communication and how to facilitate it. Communication, which are the gaps between