The post-digital imagery as relational object

Abstract

I would like to re-examine the category of representation for the post-digital imagery which is understood in terms of “the continuous actualization of networked data” or “networked terminal” [Marie, Hoelzl 2015: loc. 146, Kindle]. I will specifically address the imagery accompanying distributed sensing networks (sensor-based visual monitoring systems), being the outcome of the automatic or quasi-automatic data exchange involving both human and non-human actors. I would like to argue that analysis of this new visual environment should not be limited to the procedures of data processing. I propose it fully acknowledges the complex procesuality of the visual objects' production and circulation within networked media. Hence the images produced in such arrangements are considered not so much the means to represent the world “out there” but rather the part of the “computationally articulating” [Gabrys, 2014] new ecological arrangements, understood as the performance in the lived world and with the lived world, beyond the confines of the representationalism [Kember, Zylinska, 2012]. Offering the processual and performative understanding of the category of representation, I will propose to perceive the post-digital, networked and sensor-based imagery as relational object [Hui 2016] but not the one confined to the purely digital milieu. I will argue that its ability to bridge and mediate different modes of reality (physical space, organic entities and abstract codes) should be considered as one of the core elements of the updated theory of representation that would adequately address the post-digital condition.

Marie R., Hoelzl I. (2015), Softimage. Towards a New Theory of the Digital Image, Bristol – Chicago: Intellect, (Kindle version), Gabrys J. (2014), Program Earth. Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, Hui Y. (2016), On the Existence of Digital Objects, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, Kember S., Zylinska J. (2012), Life After New Media. Mediation as a Vital Process, Cambridge – London: MIT Press