This positionality can be readily deployed to manage – regulate, govern and occupy – and contain the present and, inevitably, the future. To impose a perpetual command entails the development of increasingly capacious models of programmed perception. The ‘technical image’ is, accordingly, ‘an image produced by apparatuses’ – the outcome of sequenced, recursive computations rather than human-centric activities. In the final part of Farocki’s Eye/Machine trilogy (2001–2003) there is a conspicuous focus on the non-allegorical, recursively relayed image – the ‘operational image’ – and its role in supporting contemporary models of aerial targeting. Despite the opacities involved in their methods, however, the consequences of ‘operational images’ in contemporary theatres of warfare is repeatedly revealed in their real world impact.

Source: New York Times August 05, 2024 09:41 UTC