A / Polemical Statement:This atlas will operate off of a
permutation of Flussers idea of the technical image. Flusser states
that the technical image generates a post-historical mode of
perception -- a non-linear sense of time. A chief factor of the
technical image is its synthesis of texts (such as scientific
theories). In this atlas, we propose that technical images ability
to generate other technical images, which can modify the
originating technical images, necessitates non-linear and
post-historical modes of image analysis.
Technical images defy genealogical and historically-minded
approaches. While useful as a way to track particular conditions,
relations, and histories imprinted into an image -- they will never
successfully achieve their aim: creating a complete and definitive
history of an image.
This atlas will use Deleuze and Guattaris concept of the
assemblage as a tool for performing non-linear image analysis. In
particular, we will map the multiplicities of an image to in order
to trace the constellations of visuality that an image generates.
We will not prioritize its mode of articulation, conditions of
production, or historical contexts, but rather, we will use the
visual qualities that emerge when its various possible permutations
are placed into affinity groups.
An atlas constructed in this manner will form a coherent visual
experience, with neighboring images that will differ drastically in
time, space, geography and medium. This atlas will posit that
images are ahistorical entities, and are not bound to geographic,
historical or cultural conditions (although acknowledging that the
permutations carry the imprints of these circumstances). Rather,
this atlas will posit that images function much more like elements
of a probabilistic field that can transmit and manifest
non-linearly through time, space and medium, such as electrons
within an atom.
Image AssemblagesThe concept of assemblage, developed by Deleuze
and Guattari, derives from
the English translation of their concept in French of agencement
(arrangement), or the processes of arranging, organizing, and
fitting together. According to Deleuze and Guattari there is both a
horizontal and a vertical axis associated with assemblages. The
horizontal axis deals with machinic assemblages of bodies, actions
and passions and a collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts
and statements, of incorporeal transformations of bodies. The
vertical axis has both territorial sides, or reterritorialized
sides, which stabilize it, and cutting edges of
deterritorialization, which carry it away (D&G 1987: 88).
Through its multiplicity an assemblage is shaped by and acts on a
wide range of flows. Assemblages as conceived of by Deleuze and
Guattari, are complex constellations of objects, bodies,
expressions, qualities, and territories that come together for
varying periods of time to ideally create new ways of functioning.
(Parr, 18)
Technical Image
Technical Image
TextTextText
Traditional Image
Traditional Image Traditional Image
Technical Image
TextTextText
Traditional Image
Traditional Image Traditional Image
Technical Image
TextTextText
Traditional Image
Traditional Image Traditional Image
Technical Image as Assemblage
Deleuze and Guattaris Concept of Assemblage
B / Format: The atlas will be constructed on 3 layers of
organization. The levels ascend in priority.Level 1 is more
important than 2, which is more important than 3.
Toyota HiLux Toyota HiLux profile shots
Toyota HiLux Rear shots
Commercial aesthetics
CGI Aesthetics
Amateur shots
Emergent Permutational
CGI Aesthetics
Commercial aesthetics
Toyota HiLux profile shots
Toyota HiLux Rear shots
Pro-Am Aesthetics
1. A core visual/linguistic category. (For example Toyota
HiLux)
2: Create a formal visual structure that can organize the images
on a compositional level. A transition in the formal structure will
occur on an axis. (For example, the Toyota HiLux will rotate in
angle from left to right.) These horizontal axes will serve as
aesthetic reference points -- visual latitude lines. (For example,
the equator could be the truck imaged through advertising aesthetic
standards).
3: Plate-designers can construct permutational image sequences
or juxtapositions on a secondary axis (organized via
secondary/tertiary priorities such as medium, temporality,
geography). Scale, cropping and other tools can be used to
emphasize certain details over others to construct these
sequences.
The technical images are surfaces that function the same way as
dams. Traditional images flow into them and become endlessly
reproducible: They circulate within them (for example in the form
of posters). (Flusser 19) Towards a Philosophy of Photography
The significance appears to flow into the complex on the one
side (input) in order to flow out on the other (output). (Flusser
16) Towards a Philosophy of Photography.
Flusser, Vilem. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Reaktion
Books. 8-20.
The easiest way to imagine the future of writing, if the present
trend toward a culture of techno-images goes on, is to imagine
culture as a gigantic transcoder from text into image. It will be a
sort of black box that has texts for input and images for output.
(Flusser 65)
Flusser, Vilem. The Future of Writing. Minneapolis, Minnesota:
University of Minnesota Press, 1984. 63-116.
Information is a synthesis of prior information. (Flusser
89)
Flusser, Vilem. Into the Universe of Technical Images.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 2-22;
86-107.
Parr, Adrien. The Deleuze Dictionaryi. Edinburgh University
Press, 2010.
Bibliography
