Operational Images

"What is the work of the image in an age of algorithmic production? The very idea of an 'image' is bound inextricably with how we make and reproduce them, with who and what interprets them, and for what ends. What happens when images pass beyond representation and even human visual senses? What is visual culture when most optical traces are generated by and for machines to interpret and operationalize? Jussi Parikka's masterful and concise book is a decisive moment in the study of 'ways of seeing' that goes beyond the standard anthropocentric tales of art history. Refreshingly, it forces us to see seeing in a whole new light."-Benjamin Bratton, University of California, San Diego

 

"This book offers a crucial study of the ‘operational image,’ revealing the complex relations that shape and surface in images that may not appear to be very interesting. Jussi Parikka’s evocative writing and juggling of topics-from artificial intelligence to remote sensing to lidar-is bound to spark thought and action in media studies and beyond."-Lisa Parks, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Rich yet understated, Jussi Parikka’s Operational Images encourages reflection on the history and politics of technical image-making more broadly." –Brooklyn Rail


"One of the first full-length accounts of the precarious status of the image in an age of ubiquitous AI and machine learning." -Film Quarterly


"Operational Images: From the Visual to the Invisual is an extraordinary map of the present that revolves around the status of algorithmic images, their philosophical potential, and their economic and political role." -Cinema & CIE


"The diverse and radically changing dynamics of the image and its clusters are traced in a captivating journey that situates their actionable and gravitating qualities in a very contemporary vision. [Operational Images] traces this essential trajectory in detail, becoming essential itself." -Neural


"Parikka understands images mediated by computer technologies not as images but instead as configurations of data and 'statistical distributions of patterns' with a graphical interface. This is an essential point that more people need to understand. In starting with it, Parikka offers a valuable account of what happens when images are homogenized as data and put to work to reshape the world." -Art in America

 

"The book offers a formidable synthesis of large swaths of scholarships in media theory, visual studies, and critical AI studies." -International Journal of Communication

 

"Operational Images is an important intervention in the study of how images of the past and those of the present have become the kind of data that have been used to convincingly empower the social, political and economic institutions that shape possibilities. Its great virtue is that the alternative it proposes offers a pathway to resistance." -Leonardo