--- 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? ```htmlembedded= /*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