Ecologies of digital image

From representation to performativity; from interaction to intra-action

Abstract

The article proposes to date, turning to the Abertinian metaphor of the winged human eye, the beginning of the Anthropocene in the Renaissance. The invention of the linear perspective places "man" as the center of the world and subject of the gaze. The perspectivist paradigm survives in the context of digitalization but, at the same time, the centrality of the human as well as the dualisms of subject and object, human and non-human, culture and nature on which it is based enter into crisis. Digital images are configured on the basis of algorithmic operations that weaken their representative dimensions in favour of performativity and communicative efficacy. Current developments in digital materialism and specially in Media Ecology address digital transformations and the ecological crisis as part of the same global dynamics. In this line, the concept of intra-action, coined by Karen Barad, is used to explore the continuities between individuals, artefacts, materials and environments, thus questioning the discourses of representation as a reflection and the relationship of human beings with images as a form of interactivity.