## THE ALGORITHMIC APPARATUS OF NEO-COLONIALISM: OR, CAN WE HOLD 'OPERATIONAL IMAGES' TO ACCOUNT?

## Anthony Downey

'What do I have against images? Perhaps it is that they all have the same flaw: euphoric amnesia. They no longer remember what they signify, where they come from, who they are related to, and yet none of this bothers them.' -Maria Stepanova

Images made by machines for machines are void of an aesthetic context. They are part of a machine-based operative logic and do not, in the words of Harun Farocki, 'portray a process but are  themselves  part  of  a  process.' 1 Defined  by  the  operation in  question  rather  than  their  referential  logic,  and  following Farocki's formulation, such images are commonly referred to as 'operational images.' Structurally, they are not propagandistic (they  do  not  try  to  convince),  nor  are  they  instructive  (they are  not  interested  in  directing  our  attention).  They  are  not, moreover,  content-based,  inasmuch  as  they  exist  as  abstract binary code rather than pictograms. Void of anthropological or aesthetic intention, the practical process-based functionality of 'operational images' effectively anticipates the obsolescence of 'perception' as a human-defined activity.

Although  'operational  images'  would  seem  to  be  largely understood in negative terms (based as they are on insular and closed procedures), they have a purposiveness that is revealed in their real world impact -the way they are used, for example, in surveillance technologies and in the establishment of autonomous models of warfare. This recursive and yet purposive functioning of 'operational images' foreshadows the opaque architecture of 'black box' technologies and the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that underwrite contemporary structures of data gathering and aerialbound forms of warfare. Needless to say, the technologies that commandeer and exploit airspace are demonstrably detrimental to those who are subject to their autonomous apparatuses, which raises  a  crucial  question: how do  we  conceptualize  the  threat associated with both the opacity of 'black box' assemblies and the all-too-real impact of air-bound technologies that, to a large extent, remain beyond the purview and control of the vast majority of the world's population?

In  order  to  more  fully  understand  the  logic  of  apparatuses that produce  present-day  realities,  through  cartographic, photographic, and digital means, we need to observe the degree to  which  'operational  images'  and  surveillance  systems -in terms  of  their  organizational  structures,  taxonomic  methods, and  conceptual  foundations -found  purchase  in  the  racially deterministic  discourse  of  colonisation.  The  will  to  calculate, measure, and qualify the other -the ambition to 'fix' the other as an objectified, calculable and thereafter commodifiable entity -is the link between the deterministic rationale of colonial discourse in the 18th and 19th centuries and the biopolitical re-inscription of the algorithmically quantifiable other through the technologies of  surveillance  employed  by  neocolonial  powers  today.  The history of drone warfare and satellite surveillance -predicated by and thereafter powered through 'operational images' -is, in sum, irredeemably linked with the history and technologies of colonization.

The  will  towards  bio-political  control  and  the  reductive, calculating determination of life and death that are algorithmically programmed  into  autonomous  surveillance  and  weapons equipment reveals the operative, utilitarian, and extractive logic of  colonisation.  This  logic  of  appropriation  and  annexation, not  to  mention  the  violence  involved  in  the  summoning  forth of  resources,  was  all  too  amply  captured  in  Aimé  Césaire's succinct phrase: 'colonisation = thingification.' Through this resonant  formulation,  Césaire  highlighted  both  the  inherent processes of dehumanisation practised by colonial powers and how, in turn, this produced the docile and productive -that is, monetized and commodified -body of the colonized. As befits his time, Césaire understood these methods primarily in terms of wealth extraction (raw materials) and the exploitation of physical, indentured labour: 'I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands  confiscated,  religions  smashed,  magnificent  artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.' 2 The exploitation of raw materials, labour and people, effected through the violent proficiencies of western knowledge and power, was a process of dehumanization that deferred, if not truncated, the quantum possibilities of future realities.

Whereas  colonisation  was  first  and  foremost  preoccupied with  wealth  and  labour  extraction  through  occupation,  neocolonisation,  while  furthering  such  ambitions,  is  indelibly implicated with forms of data extraction through surveillance that establishes and, increasingly, pre-determines if not controls the future. Both effect an epistemological and actual violence on communities and individuals, and both reveal the extractive technologies of (neo)colonial imperialism. The line connecting the two involves both the epistemological violence of applied knowledge  and  the  actual  violence  of  applied  data  effected through the operative logic of the algorithms that power aerial surveillance systems and drone warfare.

If  'operational  images'  are  wholly  disinterested  in  human agency,  apart  from  the  initial  programming  process  and  the occasional calibration of their operative status, then our input into  these  forms  of  'image'  production  and  their  real-world impact -consider how drones use algorithmically trained 'data sets' to target and eliminate subjects -remains circumstantial at best. 3 Realized through machine-led forms of image-production, interpretation and empirical deduction, this apparatus of machine vision -given  its  often  binary  and  exponentially  algorithmic functioning -advances the historically deterministic reasoning, if not racial determinism, of the imperial strategies we associate with  the  rationalizing  procedures  of  colonization:  reality (the actual) must be fixed if it is to be exploited in the name of exercising a command over a region and its people.

We might want to probe further here and enquire into whether the  moment  of  visualizing  these  activities  effects  a  form  of engagement  that  can  re-conceptualize  the  military-industrialcorporate entanglements of airspace and, in so doing, productively hold  such  technologies  to  account?  What  would  a  counteroperational image look like? Can the mise-en-abyme of blackbox-like technologies be negotiated with or, indeed, moderated by methods of envisioning its operative logic -and, if so, how might this be achieved? How, that is to enquire, can we hold 'operational images' to account?

All of which returns us to our original question, with a supplementary twist: What are the real-world implications of 'operational images' in an age where we have devolved responsibility for, and our responsiveness to, their impact on communities who have long lived under the objectifying, calculating realities of unaccountable (neo)colonial  power?  Has  the  recursive,  unaccountable  'black box' logic of 'operational images' and their role in presaging the operative logic of algorithms given additional license to the racially  determined  parameters  of  what  legally,  ethically  and politically defines human being (ontology) in the world as opposed to what constitutes their calculable, measurable (ontic) realities?

Thereafter, we must consider that any ontological crisis in the production  and  reception  of  images  is  likewise  an  existential crisis in what constitutes the value of being and, perhaps more profoundly, the significance of not being in the world.

If Berkeley's historical adage -esse est percipi ; or, to be is to be perceived -has  any  leverage  in  our  post-digital  age,  then  we must ask a parting question: What forms of being are  brought forth if the event of 'perception,' if not the formal actualization of humanness ( being ), is performed by a machine? What forms of being are eradicated or rendered null and void (value-less) by such calculations? Have we disavowed our responsibility for and responsiveness  to  the  work  of  'operational  images'  precisely because they autonomize the rationalizations of neo-colonial exploitation? Finally, do these affordances of image production and digital technology render extractive forces relatively palatable while also, more cynically, placing them beyond the purview and oversight of political and ethical considerations regarding the human right to life?

ANTHONY DOWNEY is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa (Birmingham City University) and the Cultural and Commissioning Lead on a four year AHRC Network Plus award that examines education provision, visual culture, and digital methodologies in Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon (2020-2024). He sits on the editorial boards of Third Text (Routledge), the Journal of Digital War (Palgrave Macmillan), and the Journal of Memory, Mind & Media (Cambridge University Press). He is currently researching his upcoming volume Unbearable States: Digital Technologies, Cultural Activism and Human Rights (forthcoming, 2022).

- 1 Farocki used the phrase 'operational images' to describe images made by machines for machines, the full implications of which he explored throughout his three-part film Eye/Machine I, II, III (2000-3). These machine-oriented images are not produced in relation to representing either subjects or objects; rather, they are part of an operation.
- 2 Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonisation (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2000; orig. 1950), 42-43; emphasis in original.
- 3 A recent United Nations Security Council Report, published on 8 March 2021, observed that a Turkishmade Kargu-2 drone may have acted autonomously in selecting, targeting, and possibly killing, militia fighters in Libya's civil war. See: https://documentsdds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/037/72/PDF/ N2103772.pdf?OpenElement. If this is proven to be the case, it would be the first acknowledged used of a weapons systems with artificial intelligence capability operating autonomously to find, attack, and kill humans. For a fuller account, see https://www. nytimes.com/2021/06/03/world/africa/libya-drone. html?referringSource=articleShare.