---
title: "What is an image?"
whom: Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox
tags: image, diagram, text
link: https://hackmd.io/@siusoon/diagram
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

### What is an image?

/*latest version as of 3 May, 2021
- Authors: Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox
- Graphviz version: 2.38.0 (20140413.2041)
- Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
- Open Font: Cutive Mono by Vernon Adams
- License: CC BY-SA 4.0
*/
digraph img {

node[fontname="CutiveMono", fontsize="26"];

//key references in clusters
subgraph cluster_1 {
label=< <B>What is an image?</B>> style="dashed" fontsize="35" fontname="CutiveMono" labeljust="l" margin="12pt";
    "How" -> "to" -> "See" -> "the" -> "World";
    "The" -> "Right" -> "to" -> "Look";
    "Seeing" -> "Machines";
    "Ways" -> "of" -> "Seeing";
    "Ways" -> "of" -> "Machine" -> "Seeing";
    "Invisible" -> "image";
}

subgraph cluster_2 {
label="Post-image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" labeljust="l" margin="12pt";
    "From" -> "Softimage" -> "to" -> "Post-image";
    "What" -> "is" -> "the" -> "Post-digital" -> "?";
    "Electricity" -> "Made" -> "Visible";
    "Is" -> "Photography" -> "Over" -> "?";
    "Too" -> "Much" -> "World";
    "Is" -> "the" -> "Internet" -> "Dead" -> "?";
}

subgraph cluster_3 {
label="Poor image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" margin="12pt" labeljust="l";
    "In" -> "Defence" -> "of" -> "the" -> "Poor" -> "Image";
    "The" -> "Wretched" -> "of" -> "the" -> "Screen";
    "How" -> "Not" -> "to" -> "Be" -> "Seen";
}

subgraph cluster_4 {
label="Operative image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" margin="12pt" labeljust="l";
    "Operational" -> "images";
    "Phantom" -> "image";
    "Eye/Machine";
}

subgraph cluster_5 {
label="Networked image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" margin="12pt" labeljust="l";
    "Life" -> "More" -> "Photographic";
    "ImageNet";
    "The" -> "Distributed" -> "Image";
}

subgraph cluster_6 {
label="Nonhuman image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" margin="12pt" labeljust="l";
    "Nonhuman" -> "photography";
    "Inhuman" -> "Vision";
}

subgraph cluster_7 {
label="Algorithmic image" style="dashed" fontsize="30" fontname="CutiveMono" margin="12pt" labeljust="l";
    "What" -> "do" -> "images" -> "know" -> "?";
    "Excavating" -> "AI";
    "Decolonizing" -> "AI";
    "Discriminating" -> "Systems";
    "What" -> "Do" -> "Pictures" -> "Really" -> "Want" -> "?";
}

// relations between titles in cluster_1
"World" -> "The";
"Look" -> "Seeing";
"Machines" -> "Ways";
"Seeing" -> "Ways";
"Seeing" -> "Invisible";
// cluster 1 > first entry
"World"  -> "Whole" -> "Earth" -> "Catalog" -> "human" -> "vision" -> "sensory" -> "automation" -> "data" -> "bodies" -> "selfies" -> "visuality";
// cluster 1 > second entry
"Look" -> "gendered" -> "gaze" -> "queer" -> "gaze" -> "racialized" -> "gaze" -> "Western" -> "hegemony" -> "countervisuality" -> "commons";
// cluster 1 > third entry
"Machines" -> "post-photography" -> "unthinking" -> "photography" -> "imaging" -> "systems" -> "machine" -> "vision" -> "ImageNet";
// cluster 1 > fourth entry
"Seeing" -> "search" -> "infrastructure" -> "Platform" -> "Seeing" -> "invisual"-> "perception" -> "The" -> "Vision" -> "Machine" -> "smart" -> "weapons" -> "machine" -> vision -> "machine" -> "literacy" -> "unseeing" -> "slippage";
// cluster 1 > fifth entry
"image" -> "images" -> "look" -> "at" -> "us" -> "regime" -> "of" -> "invisible" -> "How" -> "Not" -> "to" -> "be" -> "Seen" -> "optical" -> "unconscious" -> "machinic" -> "unconscious" -> "unseeing";

// relations between titles in cluster_2
"Post-image" -> "What" ;
"Post-digital" -> "Electricity";
"Visible" -> "Is";
"Over" -> "Too" ;
"World" -> "Is" ;
//cluster 2 > first entry
"Post-image" -> "image-data" -> "machine" -> "vision" -> "posthumanities" -> "posthuman";
//cluster 2 > second entry
"Post-digital" -> "post-colonialism" -> "post-media" -> "coding/weaving" -> "posthuman";
//cluster 2 > last entry
"?" -> "post-internet";

// relations between titles in cluster_3
"Image" -> "The" ;
 "Screen" -> "How" ;
//cluster 3 > second entry
"Screen" -> "bastard" -> "image" -> "lo-res" -> "Aesthetics" -> "of" -> "Failure" -> "glitch" -> "spam" -> "porn" -> "excess" -> "commons" -> "piracy" -> "imperfect" -> "cinema" -> "New" -> "Aesthetics" -> "circulationism" -> "post-internet";

//relations between titles in cluster_4
"Images" -> "Phantom";
"image" -> "Eye/Machine";
//cluster 4 > first entry
"Images" -> "power" -> "to" -> "act" -> "images" -> "kill" -> "image" -> "as" -> "instruction" -> "computer" -> "games" -> "animation" -> "Life";
//cluster 4 > second entry
"image" -> "subjective" -> "image" -> "intelligent" -> "suicidal" -> "images" -> "war" -> "images" -> "smart" -> "weapons";
//cluster 4 > third entry
"Eye/Machine" -> "sensory" -> "machine" -> "eye" -> "automation" -> "war";

//relations between titles in cluster_5
"Photographic" -> "ImageNet";
"ImageNet"-> "The";
//cluster 5 > first entry
"The" -> "Reconfigured" -> "eye" -> "delete" -> "button" -> "snapshot" -> "forget" -> "Memex" -> "image" -> "search" -> "share" -> "like" -> "taxonomy" -> "folksonomy" -> "circulationism" -> "cats" -> "infrastructure";
//cluster 5 > second entry
"ImageNet" -> "machine" -> "vision";
//cluster 5 > third entry
"Distributed" -> "invisuality" -> "Image" -> "dialectical" -> "image" -> "at" -> "a" -> "standstill";

//relations between titles in cluster_6
"Photography" -> "Inhuman";
//cluster 6 > first entry
"Photography" -> "unthinking" -> "photography" -> "The" -> "Nonhuman" -> "Turn" -> "posthuman" -> "post-image";
"inhuman"  -> "invisible" -> "image"  -> "posthuman" -> "nature-culture" -> "unseeing" -> "infrastructure" -> "scale" -> "deep" -> "time" -> "extinction";

//relations between titles in cluster_7
"?" -> "Excavating";
"AI" -> "Decolonizing";
"AI" -> "Discriminating";
"Systems" -> "What";
//cluster 7 > first entry
"?" -> "Turing" -> "test" -> "deep" -> "learning" -> "machine" -> "learning" -> "machine" -> "vision" -> "smart" -> "weapons" -> "neural" -> "network";
//cluster 7 > second entry
"AI" -> "anatomy" -> "of" -> "training" -> "sets" -> "scale" -> "transform" -> "classify" -> "image" -> "network" -> "dataset" -> "ImageNet" -> "WordNet" -> "DeepFace" -> "Eigenface" -> "facial" -> "recognition" -> "irresolvability" -> "algorithmic" -> "literacy" -> "machinic" -> "unconscious";
//cluster 7 > third entry
 "AI" -> "negative" -> "optics" ;
//cluster 7 > fourth entry
"Systems" -> "gender" -> "race" -> "power";
//cluster 7 > last entry
"?" -> "Mnemosyne" -> "Atlas" -> "Society" -> "of" -> "the" -> "Spectacle" -> "automation" -> "desire" -> "memes" -> "images" -> "look" -> "at" -> "us" -> "power" -> "to" -> "act" -> "adversarial" -> "image" -> "fake" -> "antagonistic" -> "dialectical" -> "image" -> "at" -> "a" -> "standstill";

{rank=same; "image-data", "memes", "post-media", "post-colonialism"}
{rank=same; "post-internet", "slippage"}
{rank=same; "extinction", "circulationism"}
{rank=same; "Operational", "machinic"}
}

### References

* Mitra Azar, Geoff Cox, Leonardo Impett, “Introduction: Ways of Machine Seeing,” *AI & Society* (2021). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-01124-6
* Geoffrey Batchen, "Electricity Made Visible," in Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Thomas Keenan, eds., *New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader* (New York: Routledge, 2006)
* Jonathan Beller, “The Programmable Image,” *Fotomuseum Winterthur* (2017). https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/series/the-programmable-image/
* John Berger, *Ways of Seeing* (London: Penguin, 1972).
* James Bridle, “The New Aesthetic and its Politics” (June 2013). http://booktwo.org/notebook/new-aesthetic-politics/
* Geoff Cox, "Ways of Machine Seeing," *Unthinking Photography* (London: The Photographers Gallery, 2016). https://unthinking.photography/themes/machine-vision/ways-of-machine-seeing
* Florian Cramer, "What is Post-Digital?" *APRJA* 3(1), (2014). https://doi.org/10.7146/aprja.v3i1.116068
* Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen, “Excavating AI: The Politics of Images in Machine Learning Training Sets,” AI Now Institute (2019). www.excavating.ai
* Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images," *Public: New Localities* 29 (2004). https://public.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/public/article/view/30354/27882
* Orit Halpern, “Inhuman Vision,” *Media-N, Journal of the New Media Caucus*, “Art & Infrastructures: Information” (2015). http://median.newmediacaucus.org/art-infrastructures-information/inhuman-vision/.
* Aud Sissel Hoel, “Operative Images: Inroads to a New Paradigm of Media Theory,” in *Image - Action - Space: Situating the Screen in Visual Practice*, eds. L. Feiersinger, K. Friedrich, and M. Queisner (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018). https://www.academia.edu/37668926/Operative_Images_Inroads_to_a_New_Paradigm_of_Media_Theory_2018_
* Ingrid Hoelzl, "Postimage," in *Posthuman Glossary*, eds. Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) 361-362.
* Nicolas Malevé, “An Introduction to Image Datasets,” *Unthinking Photography* (London: The Photographers Gallery, 2019). https://unthinking.photography/articles/an-introduction-to-image-datasets
* Nicholas Mirzoeff, *How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More* (London: Pelican, 2015).
* Nicholas Mirzoeff, *The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality* (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
* W.J.T. Mitchell, “What Do Pictures 'Really' Want?” *October* 77 (Summer 1996): 71-82.
* Sarah Myers West, Meredith Whittaker, and Kate Crawford, "Discriminating Systems: Gender, Race and Power in AI," AI Now Institute (2019). ainowinstitute.org/discriminatings
* Peter Osborne, "The Distributed Image," *The Postconceptual Condition: Critical Essays* (London, Verso, 2018).
* Trevor Paglen, "Invisible Images (Your Pictures Are Looking at You)," *The New Inquiry* (Dec 2016). https://thenewinquiry.com/invisible-images-your-pictures-are-looking-at-you/
* Trevor Paglan, “Is Photography Over?,” *Still Searching...* FotoMuseum Winterthur (2014). https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/explore/still-searching/series/27031_is_photography_over
* Trevor Paglen, “Operational Images,” *e-flux* journal #59 (Nov 2014). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/59/61130/operational-images/
* Trevor Paglen, “Seeing Machines,” *Still Searching...* FotoMuseum Winterthaur (2014). https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/explore/still-searching/articles/26978
* Daniel Rubinstein and Katrina Sluis, "A Life More Photographic: Mapping the Networked Image," *Photographies* (Routledge, 2008). https://www.academia.edu/181997/A_life_more_photographic_mapping_the_networked_image
* Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox, "Algorithmic Procedures," *Aesthetic Programming: A handbook of Software Studies* (London: Open Humanities Press, 2020).
* Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image," *e-flux* journal #10 (Nov 2009). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/
* Hito Steyerl, “Too Much World: Is the Internet Dead?,” *e-flux* journal #49 (Nov 2013). https://www.e-flux.com/journal/49/60004/too-much-world-is-the-internet-dead/
* Joanna Zylinska, *Nonhuman Photography* (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017). https://www.nonhuman.photography/introduction/

### GraphViz (DOT language script) resource

* Graphviz - Graph Visualization Software: https://graphviz.gitlab.io/
* The live online graphviz editor "Graphviz it! - fiddle with diagrams": http://graphviz.it/#/new

### Image source

- Download the image in svg format [here](https://siusoon.net/doc/files/whatisanimage.svg)
- To cite the work: Soon, W., & Cox, G. (2021). What Is an Image?. The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, 30(61-62), 196–201. Retrieved from https://tidsskrift.dk/nja/article/view/127898