PHOTOFILE | REVIEW
MARTA LABAD
ON HOW TO HACK THE PERCEPTION MACHINE (AFTER PHOTOGRAPHY)
Joanna Zylinska, The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2023.
Paperback, 288 pp., 6 x 9 in, 31 b&w illus. ($45)
It is no secret that the photographic medium is undergoing a radical transformation. In recent years, the range of technologies capable of producing images has only increased and pictures are now created not just through camera phones, but drones, computers, AI or algorithmic image generators. We interact with and through images most of the time to the point that a world without images seems just inconceivable. In this new socio-technological context, artist and curator Joanna Zylinska brings to the table a thought-provoking book, which addresses our relationship with current imaging technologies from a feminist perspective. Borrowing from Vilém Flusser’s theory of technical images, as well as his journey “towards a philosophy of photography”[1], Zylinska seeks to outline “a philosophy of after-photography”[2].
Zylinska does not forget photography. How could we forget a medium that has shaped our ways of seeing for so long? Instead, The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI invites the reader to rethink how photographic images are produced and used today, through a wider set of media and technologies. For Zylinska, photography is understood as a category that encompasses all those images that “look and feel”[3] like a photograph but that are not necessarily created by a camera or through traditional photographic processes as we used to know. The term “after-photography” is used in the book to describe “a time that has been shaped by photography rather than any specific medium that developed from photography”[4]. The sense of afterness does not mean so much an overcoming, but a transposition or a transformation.
The book revolves around the concept of the “perception machine”, described as an “ensemble of the technical, the corporeal, and the social”[5]. It can also be seen as a “camera” or a “machinic ensemble of perceiving and image-making agents”[6], including human and non-human agents. The concept is linked to both the Foucauldian “dispositif”[7] and the Flusserian “apparatus”[8]. These theories set the ground for Zylinska’s argument. Although the book does not live up to the claim of delivering a philosophy of after-photography, Zylinska’s contribution is very successful in providing entry points to understand “what it means for humans to live surrounded by image flows and machine eyes”[9] everywhere. One of the strengths of the book lies, precisely, in extending these theories to the current technological setup through specific case studies and stimulating artistic strategies. The artist proposes alternative ways to navigate through this ensemble, attempting to escape its pre-programmed nature (using Flusser's terms), from a feminist perspective.
Another captivating aspect of the book relates to temporality. Viewing photography as part of the machinic ensemble implies a conceptual leap away from traditional notions that see the picture as memento mori or as a reference to a reality that “has been”, as conceptualized by Roland Barthes[10] or Susan Sontag[11]. Instead of being attached to memory or the past, Zylinska sees imaging as an immanent force of life. In other words, images are at this point inseparable from our process of being in the world or making sense of it. Instead of being related to the past, photography is understood as a process of future-making or framing the future. The author also encourages us to question the role and level of agency of photographers in this technological setup, where we have only a limited degree of control. We inhabit the perception machine, as co-creators of images. The argument follows the idea - in line with Flusser - that we make images in a technological environment that is pre-programmed, and thus, we are neither full authors nor full recipients. This argument prompts us to unthink photography as we know it. Is our way of looking predictable? Do we have any agency at all? Does the intentionality of the photographer count at all?
Zylinska warns us that we use photography to frame the world but are also framed by the medium. And she finds inspiring ways to explain this, such as when she reflects on her image-making process with drones. Drones began to be used for military purposes but have become extremely popular. Used by militaries, amateur photographers, or early adopters, drones provide their users with images of the land from above. Following Zylinska’s argument, we could ask: How do we frame the world by using these flying cameras and how are we framed by them? What are the implications of using a camera that is operated by remote control? This image-making technology enables and promotes a very particular way of looking: that of a dominant eye capable of flying and seeing beyond the human eye's capabilities. The drone’s gaze is a disembodied one. Yet this machinic way of looking offers smooth and easy control and has been eagerly incorporated into our way of representing the world and making sense of it. How can we hack a predictive way of looking? Zylinska gives us a hint, by presenting her work, Loser Images 1.0 (Feminist with a Drone) as a case study. As the artist observes, she developed this work as a counterpoint of the dominant structures of planetary visibility. The artwork includes a set of still and moving images captured by a drone in south-west London. Yet instead of showing the usual aerial views offered by drones, the pictures show a quite unexpected point of view. Images show crooked horizons and seem to register the drone’s clumsy attempts to take flight. It looks like the drone is out of control and is about to crash at any minute. Zylinska points out that this artistic strategy is grounded in the notion of “drone feminism”[12]. The work, made in 2021, responds to her interest in “mobilizing the same image-making technology to enact a less masterful, less domineering and less heroic way of visioning and imaging”[13]. The case study serves as a great example to follow Zylinska’s argument. The book outlines alternative ways to hack the perception machine, such as collaborating with AI to make a film, while exploring its biases and limitations. However, using image-making technologies in less predictive ways is one of the strategies I found most compelling since it offers a fine possibility of escaping constrained and automatized ways of seeing and capturing the world.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the book is Zylinska’s desire to find new ways of engaging with technology. She argues that instead of forgetting about photography, the future will be photographic. I am particularly drawn to the section where the writer thinks about the relationship between the photographic medium and the future. To address this issue, the artist introduces the work of neuroscientists Antonio Damasio and Anil Seth to analyze the key role of the image in their theories. For Damasio, consciousness is inseparable from “mental images,” and memory involves holding an image over time. As Zylinska continues to explain, self-consciousness has to do with making images of the self. On the other hand, for Seth, the brain is a predictive machine. In his theory, the brain's readiness depends on accumulating data so it can determine the best guess. The artist follows this argument to highlight how perception and prediction are deeply intertwined. She seems interested in making us understand how consciousness can be understood as a projection or orientation towards the future, and specifically, as making images of that future. In one of the chapters, she asks: “Can you photograph the future?”[14]. Although this question is used as a metaphor, the connection between photography and the future has been receiving attention in recent years[15]. Zylinska claims that prediction is a creation. She follows the argument by reminding us of those predictive technologies which are being used today in many fields, such as marketing, not only predict but shape the future. At this point, we know this too well from our own experience. As we scroll down searching for movies, books, or any other goods on platforms, our profile is usually watched and framed. Our habits, biases, and desires are translated into data that will be used to offer us our most predictable choice, which we will hardly resist. This is how the loop in platform capitalism works. Getting closer to Zylinska’s argument, we could say that the predictive machine makes an image of each “self”, which has to do with choices in the past, and uses this image to predict or frame future desires. The artist mentions another worth-mentioning example: Hewlett-Packard scored their employees according to the probability of quitting their jobs. As the artist suggests, a prediction like this has great potential to make things happen. The outcome of this predictive report would probably influence how the company behaves with the workers, and they would eventually leave. Again, predictions shape the future. After reading the book, I see more clearly that predicting implies creating an image of the future. To ask whether we can photograph the future is another way of asking: Which is the future you want? If you begin by framing it and taking a picture of it, it may eventually happen.
REFERENCES
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography [1980]. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.
Campt, Tina M. Listening to Images. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017.
Feigenbaum, Anna. “From Cyborg Feminism to Drone Feminism: Remembering Women’s Anti-Nuclear Activisms.” Feminist Theory 16, no. 3 (2015): 265–288.
Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography [1983]. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.
Flusser, Vilém. Towards the Universe of Technical Images [1984]. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 1980.
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.
Wooldridge, Duncan. To Be Determined: Photography and the Future. London: SPBH Editions, 2021.
Zylinska, Joanna. The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2023.
[1]Zylinska refers to Flusser’s philosophy of photography, as well as his conceptualization of the technical images. Unlike traditional photography, technical images belong to a universe of particles and are turned into two-dimensional images. Flusser is setting the ground for a new way of understanding the medium, which is crucial for Zylinska’s work. See Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), as well as Vilém Flusser, Towards the Universe of Technical Images, (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
[2] Joanna Zylisnka, The Perception Machine. Our Photographic Future between the Eye and AI (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2023), 25, 50.
[3] Zylinska, 4.
[4] Zylinska, 61.
[5] Ibid., 9.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Foucault used the term dispositif (also translated as apparatus) to describe the system of relations that exist between a very heterogenous ensemble, which consists of many elements, such as discourses, institutions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements or moral propositions. As Foucault explains, the dispositif is inscribed in relations of power. It has a very strategic nature and responds to an urgent need in a historical moment. See Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. Colin Gordon. (New York: Pantheon, 1980).
[8]On the other hand, Flusser uses the term apparatus to describe a thing that is ready and awaits being used. The camera is an apparatus that is pre-programmed to produce technical images. This apparatus lies waiting and ready for a photographer or a functionary to be employed. Flusser suggests that some of the activities that were carried out by photographers in the past are now taken over by the apparatus. The photographer becomes a player, dealing with the many possibilities offered by the apparatus. See Vilem Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography, (London: Reaktion Books, 2000).
[9] Zylinska, 6.
[10] In his foundational book, Barthes analyzes the medium from the perspective of the referent. Photography is understood as a technology that can freeze time or immortalize the instant. The photograph shows us what has been in front of the camera at a very particular moment. In Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981).
[11] Susan Sontag published a nowadays classical book of essays on photography, in which the photograph is understood as proof of evidence, that something did exist. It is interesting to note that Susan Sontag re-examined photography in the seventies, in a moment in which images were being produced and consumed at large, although the image was still not part of the network. She pointed out that images were becoming substitutes for first-hand experience, besides shaping people’s notion of reality or being enmeshed with economics, politics and private desires. See Susan Sontag, On Photography. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977).
[12] This concept is borrowed from Anna Feigenbaum. See Anna Feigenbaum, “From Cyborg Feminism to Drone Feminism: Remembering Women’s Anti-Nuclear Activisms,” Feminist Theory 16, no.3 (2015): 265–288.
[13] Zylinska, 184.
[14] Zylinska, 148.
[15] I am referring to the essays by Duncan Wooldridge and Tina Campt. Wooldridge writes about photography’s ability to speak of the future. The author understands the future not so much as a “prediction”, but as a way of beginning to see or anticipate a desired future, which begins to take form in the moment that an image is made. Tina Campt prompts us to “listen to images” and understand the medium’s potential to render the future we need or desired. See Duncan Wooldridge, To Be Determined: Photography and the Future, London: SPBH Editions, 2021. See also Tina Campt, Listening to images, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017.
How to cite
About the author