## IMAGE AGENTS

## A. S. Aurora Hoel

In  the  digital  condition,  images,  it  seems,  have  started  to do things. This is the focus of the contemporary discourse on operational images, which emphasizes the automated and machinic aspects of digital image applications -or 'machine images' for short.  Admittedly,  the  discourse  on  operational  images  originates from a dark place: it was the infamous 'filming bombs' of  the  1991  Gulf  War,  along  with  the  repeated  broadcasting  of bomb's-eye-view  footage  to  horrified  and  fascinated  TV  audiences, which prompted Harun Farocki to coin the term 'operative  image.' 1 While  image-guided  war  technologies  (including drones) remain central to the discourse, much attention is also paid to machine vision and algorithmic image operations more generally. A key concern is that machines have now started to 'see for themselves.' 2

During the same period, there have been other developments, including  the  camera  phone  and  the  social  web,  which  have transformed photography to a screen-based communal activity that mostly takes place online. The new opportunities for instant sharing have given rise to the 'networked image,' which promotes 'a life more photographic,' as Daniel Rubinstein and Katrina Sluis beautifully put it. 3 While photo-sharing and social networking sites have made images a more ingrained part of human social life, the networked images as such seem to lead an existence beyond human control.

This  is  a  point  where  the  two  discourses  focusing  on operational and networked images, respectively, start to align. In the digital condition, images, it seems, take on a life of their own. This is most obvious, of course, in the case of automated or semiautomated image applications. To stick to the military range of examples, think of, say, a heat-seeking missile that uses infrared light emission to track its target. In the case of photo-sharing, we can also talk about a relative autonomy: as soon as an image is let loose on the web, it gains a peculiar independence. In today's theory parlance, the quasi-autonomous lives of images are often talked about in terms of their agency . But what is this strange life of images, what is this agency? What is it, really, that images do? In the following, I will make some suggestions.

THEY OPERATE. The notion of machine image can be understood in different ways. One way is to focus on image production: a machine image is an image made by a machine. In this sense, the notion includes a broad range of technical images, such as camera obscura, photography, film, and medical imaging. Another way is to focus on image consumption: a machine image is an image made  to  be  seen  by  machines.  The  discourse  on  operational images,  which  explores  the  effects  of  computation  on  visual culture,  typically  combines  the  two  understandings.  Trevor Paglen puts it thus:

Visual culture has changed form. It has become detached from human eyes and has largely become invisible. Human visual culture has become a special case of vision, an exception to the rule. The overwhelming majority of images are now made by machines for other machines, with humans rarely in the loop. 4

The  discussion  of  machine  images  tends  to  identify  the operational and the machinic with automation. Moreover, the influx  of  computational  machines  into  visual  culture  is  often framed in terms of a replacement logic, which casts humans and machines as adversaries. Another approach would be to adopt a broader understanding of the operational and the machinic, no longer identifying it with automation. The broader take on the operational has the advantage of pushing beyond the adversarial model,  allowing  us  to  conceptualize  the  relation  between humans and machines in less antagonistic  ways.  In  the  latter approach, the image itself can be seen as a machine of sorts -now conceptualized as a 'being that operates.' 5

Independent of how the human-machine relation is understood, the discourse on operational images calls attention to the highly consequential  yet  often  invisible  activity  of  images,  to  their organizing  and  (infra)structural  power.  To  get  a  grip  on  this power, I propose that we rethink images as apparatuses in  the dual sense of material appliance and theoretical dispositif.

THEY  INFORM  VISION. Approaching  images  as  apparatuses, whose operation to a large extent happens in the background, shifts the relationship between images and the human sensible apparatus.  No  longer  conceptualized  as  visible  things  that passively  appear  to  the  human  perceptual  system,  they  are considered,  rather,  in  terms  of  the difference they  make  to perception. The question, then, is not whether a certain image modality (say, photography, x-ray or computer vision) conforms to,  emulates,  transgresses  or  outperforms  human  vision.  The question, rather, is how the introduction of a 'foreign' apparatus allows humans to see otherwise -sometimes even permitting an outsourcing of perception through the setup of an external system that 'sees' on our behalf. The amplifying role of images, however, is  not  always  recognized.  In  the  discourse  on  operational images,  for  example,  computer  vision  is  frequently  taken  to mark a break with the human order, as in the quote from Paglen, which emphasizes its detachment from human eyes. However, computer vision could also be conceived as a mediate process that simultaneously amplifies and decenters the human order through the establishment of a new hybrid order where the human is still in the loop, even if no longer the once taken-for-granted center of things.

The question, in other words, is whether to understand human perception  and  computer  vision  as competitors ,  or  whether  to understand them in their coupling -as forming a mixed visual system that expands the boundaries of the visible, no longer to be defined solely in terms of the perceptual powers of the human body considered in isolation. Amplified visual systems see more and differently . They do not imitate the already visible; they make visible . And, in so doing, they open new world aspects.

THEY INSTRUCT ACTION. In the discourse on operational images, the paradigmatic example of an image is a utility image. The utility aspect is accentuated in Farocki's definition, which puts the spotlight on images that 'do not represent an object, but rather are  part  of  an  operation.' 6 Thomas Elsaesser accentuates  the utility aspect even further, by characterizing operational images as 'instructions for action' -indeed, he maintains that, in today's digital media environment, the instructive function have become 'the  new  default  value  of  all  image-making.' 7 Thus  conceived, operational images are image-instruments : action-enabling tools constructed to serve practical human purposes. Certainly, the construction of image-instruments long predates the digital age. However, as pointed out by Lev Manovich, the common focus on the history of images in terms of illusion may lead us to ignore the parallel history of image-instruments. 8

The  use  here  of  the  term  'image-instrument,'  does  not imply that operational images are mere instruments for human intentional actions. Far from it. As is the case with other actionenabling technologies, the introduction of a new instrument or tool shifts the human-world relation and transforms the very practice it is meant to support. A good example of such a shift is found in contemporary surgery, where a broad range of image-guided technologies have been introduced to minimize invasiveness and increase the precision and efficiency of diagnostics and treatment. The new tools enhance surgeon perception and navigation, but at  the  same  time  they  transform  the  surgical  profession  by demanding new sets of skills that increasingly involve handling computer interfaces. 9

Drawing on the surgical example, we can specify in more detail in what sense operational images instruct action: they release new perception and action potentials, they assist and guide the actions performed by human practitioners, and they change the nature of these actions by requiring the development of new practical know-how.

THEY INTERVENE. Approaching images as beings that operate, that inform vision and instruct actions, has implications for how we are to understand their mediating role. As I have proposed elsewhere, the images that interest us here take on a non-trivial role  as  'adaptive  mediators.' 10 This  means that they have the power to alter the relation of humans to the world. Operational images have efficacy : they warrant our attention due to the way they intervene (for better or worse) into the individuation of other beings (ourselves included). Operational images do more than depict or refer to phenomena. They participate in the genesis of things by launching new processes of becoming through which the phenomena they target come to be delineated and individuated. The images in question operate, in other words, by instituting an environment of individuation (the hybrid order talked about earlier) in and through which other beings come to be articulated (seen, acted-upon) in a highly specific way.

An example would be magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),  a  medical  imaging  method  that  relies  on  the  magnetic characteristics of hydrogen atoms which abound in the human body.  The  strong  magnetic  field  of  the  MRI  scanner  quite literally institutes an environment of individuation by shifting the behaviors of the magnetic moments of hydrogen atoms, making them line up along the center of the scanner, and thus rendering them susceptible to the systematic manipulations by which the differential MRI signal is generated, which in turn forms the basis of the characteristic MR image contrast. 11 Subsequently, when the radiologists consult the resulting scans, the interventional process is repeated on a new level, the MRI scans now playing the  role  of  adaptive  mediators -informing  the  vision  of  the radiologists and instructing their actions, and thus, participating in their individuation qua radiologists.

Approaching images as adaptive mediators helps us realize that images have ontological import : they intervene into phenomena by shifting their style of being.

THEY EVOLVE AND MULTIPLY. So far, I have characterized operational  images  as  machines/beings-that-operate,  apparatuses, image-instruments, adaptive mediators and environments. I will also add that the images we are concerned with here are artifacts . They have been fabricated by humans, often (since we are dealing mostly with image-instruments) to fulfill specific practical tasks. Even so, I have talked about them as beings (that operate, that have a mode of existence) and ascribed to them some kind of life .

The life of images has to do with their autonomy. Images gain a relative autonomy thanks to their existence as material artifacts. As material artifacts, they exist independently from their maker(s); they can be shared, passed on to others, and translocated to other times and places. They gain a relative autonomy, also, through their coupling to the surrounding environment. They come to life  by  installing  a  mixed  environment  in  which,  and  through which, they become efficacious. Importantly, though, they also depend on this mixed environment for their own functioning, and they are themselves individuated by it. This is how images, as technical artifacts, come to evolve in quasi-autonomous ways not foreseen by their makers.

As  beings  that  operate,  images  are  inherently  plural  and serial,  characteristics  that  are  even  more  accentuated  in  the digital condition. An MRI scan, for example, is never a singular entity. It forms part of a series (indeed, several series) of scans acquired in the same scanning session, which together make up a navigable image space. Besides, in the digital condition, images are  inherently  shareable,  which  again,  grants  them  a  relative autonomy. When let loose on the web, they have the power to go viral, to spread quickly and widely in uncontrollable ways. Also in this case, images take on the role as adaptive mediators, such as when internet memes serve as cultural touchstones for collective individuation by facilitating the formation of online communities. 12

The list of actions and doings of images could go on.

What are we to say then about the status of images in the digital condition?  To  what  extent  can  we  talk  about  a  change  in  the ontology  of  the  image?  To  my  mind,  the  ontology  question becomes  more  interesting  if  we  rephrase  it  in  terms  of  the ontological import of images, to a question about to what extent, and how, images make a difference in the world.

The discourse on operational images is undecided about the extension and meaning of the term 'operative image.' In coining the  term,  Farocki  defined  operational  images  in  opposition to representational images (images that 'represent an object'). This  seems  to  suggest  that  operational  images  are  a  separate category  of  images  that  supplements  the  (supposedly  larger) category  of  representational  images, or that  the  operational and  the  representational  are  nothing  but  context-dependent functions.  Another  way  would  be  to  think  of  the  operational as  a  new  theory  of  images  as  such.  By  characterizing  images as adaptive mediators, I propose an eco-operational approach that acknowledges the ontological import of images of all sorts, positing them as agents -image agents.

A. S. AURORA HOEL is professor of media studies and visual culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Hoel's research investigates the mediating roles of bodies and machines in knowledge and being, seeking to establish an operational aesthetics. She has published widely in the overlapping fields of image theory, media philosophy, and science studies.

- 1 Harun Farocki, 'Phantom Image,' Public , no. 29 (2004).
- 2 Trevor Paglen, 'Operational images,' e-flux , no. 59 (November 2014), accessed May 24, 2021, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/59/61130/ operational-images/.
- 3 Daniel Rubinstein and Katrina Sluis, 'A Life More Photographic: Mapping the Networked Image,' Photographies 1, no. 1 (2008).
- 4 Trevor Paglen, 'Invisible Images (Your Pictures are Looking at You),' The New Inquiry (December 8, 2016), accessed May 24, 2021, https://thenewinquiry.com/ invisible-images-your-pictures-are-looking-at-you/.
- 5 I have developed the idea of machines and images as 'beings that operate' in more detail elsewhere. The idea draws on Gilbert Simondon's non-mechanical understanding of machines. See A. S. Aurora Hoel, 'Images as Active Powers for Reality: A Simondonian Approach to Medical Imaging,' in Dynamis of the Image: Moving Images in a Global World , eds. Emmanuel Alloa and Chiara Cappelletto (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020).
- 6 Farocki, 'Phantom Image,' 17.
- 7 Thomas Elsaesser and Alexander Alberro, 'Farocki: A Frame for the No Longer Visible: Thomas Elsaesser in Conversation with Alexander Alberro,' e-flux , no. 59 (November 2014), accessed May 24, 2021, http://e-flux. com/journal/59/61111/farocki-a-frame-for- the-nolonger-visible-thomas-elsaesser-in-conversation-withalexander- alberro/.
- 8 Lev Manovich 2001, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), 167.
- 9 Kathrin Friedrich and A. S. Aurora Hoel, 'Operational Analysis: A Method for Observing and Analyzing Digital Media Operations,' New Media & Society , OnlineFirst (first published March 29, 2021), https://journals. sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444821998645.
- 10 Hoel, 'Images as Active Powers.'
- 11 See Hoel, 'Images as Active Powers,' for more details about the MR image acquisition process.
- 12 Adrienne L. Massanari, Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit (New York: Peter Lang, 2015).