this is the repository for the research exercise I undertook while writing the article "Mapping the Multifarious Image in the Global Time" following the symposium Deluge & Globalization at the University of Geneva in June 2024 and its subsequent publication in the Artl@s Bulletin of Purdue University.
"The question that must be posed today is this: in the rising tide of things to see, what image will we be left with on the shore when it retreats? Where is that rebel who will be the embodiment of our current freedom?"
Marie-José Mondzain
icon
Following the symposium on the Deluge of Images we were proposed to write for a special volume of the Artl@s Bulletin under the title Floating Icons: Difference and Repetition in the Global Flood of Images.
This title, and specifically the terms 'floating icons' raised a lot of questions for me. First to understand and redefine what is an icon today, then perhaps imagine and attempt to envision what floating icons could be... For this I ran a little experiment searching online images for different terms 'icons', 'an icon', 'the icon', 'iconic' and 'floating icons' on different platforms and search engines.
Screenshot of Google image search on Firefox browser in Private Window mode for "an icon"
This is the only search which immediately returns religious paintings, several of them in the first line of results, even in private mode and logged out of any personal. The role of the indefinite article 'an' plays a major role in Google's algorithm since all other searches for the term icon do not return any similar results.
Screenshot of Google image search on Firefox browser in Private Window mode for "an icon"
The same search on DuckDuckGo used on Tor offers radically different results, placing only one religious painting on the 8th line of results. This is coherent with the other search for the term icon on the same platform which also return one religious painting albeit further down.
collective mapping
Here is a board that is open to collective mapping of the concept of the image across disciplines and references as well as according to Flusser's concept of the technical image. This working map of the concept of Einbildungskraft attempts a kind of genealogy: to locate its origin, its understanding as well as its different role and influence historically in order to understand how Flusser's vision of a "new imagination" related to synthetic images can help us today in understanding generative images. Contributions across disciplines are needed but access cannot be widely open, please email me here to get access and start collaboration.