He was born in Prague (Czech Republic) in 1920, and spent much of his life in Brazil, after all his family of origin, made up of Jewish intellectuals, was exterminated by the Nazis. In São Paulo, where he lived for more than three decades before returning to emigrate to Europe, he was professor of Philosophy of Language, Cinema and Theory of Communication, and for years wrote a column in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.

Its production is vast and was written in several languages, especially in German, Portuguese and English. Thanks to his most popular book, Towards a Philosophy of Photography (also known as Filosofía da caixa preta), published in German in 1983 and translated into fourteen languages, he became an inescapable reference for studies on new media and Information societies. He died in 1991 in a car accident. The Archive-Flusser of the Academy of Arts and Media is located in Köln, Germany.