The assembling of public images requires the synthesising of many images, and the extraction of aspects of images according to filters (flesh tones, other colours etc). The image and
public are broken down, fragmented, reconstituted, assembled and brought into real-time.Virilio states that "...the real action lies elsewhere, in the imminent nano-technological miniaturisation of integrated circuits that will promote the iconic insemination of 'consumer' information...with the grafting of visual interference."This highlights that these changes aren't seen and understood by the human eye, what we see is a distortion and a visualisation of something far more complex. The visualisation will transform the signal, and the meaning. The technology of merging these images diminishes impact and is skewing the truth. The social body is treating the visual similarly to written text with the ability to transform meaning and to reconfigure the reach. Virilio's 'consumer' brings our 'time' into examination, the 21st Century advancements in technology create the need and want to create our own images/symbols/signs that are relevant and that align with the trends. This desire is the detriment to the truth, bringing past ideas to real-time is re-assembling the visual.
Images can be considered signs. Images are motivate signs, in comparison to textual signs that are arbitrary. Images aren't coded as they capture reality, for example photographs capture a moment in time, and the compilation of images piece together the past. Textual signs assign 'to do's,' they are more specific and are context dependent with language and cultural influencing their meaning to individuals. Digital technology has transformed these boundaries.Virilio interestingly states that "...90 per cent of micro-electronic production is engaged in the manufacture of discrete components (scanners, sensors, detectors)...capable of instantaneously transmitting information on an individual's nerve function...mental imagery." The engagement between human and new innovation in technology is creating a new way of reading mental imagery-the vision machine, capable of changing what we see and going against the order of our memory - this is a dramatic technological intervention in social relations.
Audio Visualisation
Blog WORD: social body
Paul Virilio 'Eye Lust' in Open Sky London: Verso: 89-102
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