The processes of computation and automation that produce digitized objects have displaced the concept of an image once conceived through optical devices such as a photographic plate or a camera mirror that were invented to accommodate the human eye. Computational images exist as information within networks mediated by machines. They are increasingly less about what art history understands as representation or photography considers indexing and more an operational product of data processing.
Through genealogical, theoretical, and practice-based investigation, this dissertation project traces a lineage of computation through images from early cybernetics to contemporary machine learning under algorithmic capitalist conditions of political economy. Objects include mundane examples such as smartphone cameras to sublime examples such as the imaging of black holes. It articulates new conditions and forms of perception and surveillance that result from contemporary technological development in computation.
The project builds on theorists of computational media such as Friedrich Kittler, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Jussi Parikka, Shane Denson, and Alexander Galloway to examine the interplay between perception, computation, and epistemology. Further theoretical contribution builds on the work of Luciana Parisi and Jacques Ranciére’s articulation of aesthetics, and Michel Foucault’s gesture towards a heterotopia. Finally, it draws from Donna Haraway’s metaphors of the cyborg and sympoiesis to frame the capacity of art to transfigure the limitations of digital network culture into new possibilities for being. Here, it curates practices by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Harun Farocki, Morehshin Allahyari, and Pierre Huyghe.
","abstract_html":"<p>The processes of computation and automation that produce digitized objects have displaced the concept of an image once conceived through optical devices such as a photographic plate or a camera mirror that were invented to accommodate the human eye. Computational images exist as information within networks mediated by machines. They are increasingly less about what art history understands as representation or photography considers indexing and more an operational product of data processing.</p> <p>Through genealogical, theoretical, and practice-based investigation, this dissertation project traces a lineage of computation through images from early cybernetics to contemporary machine learning under algorithmic capitalist conditions of political economy. Objects include mundane examples such as smartphone cameras to sublime examples such as the imaging of black holes. It articulates new conditions and forms of perception and surveillance that result from contemporary technological development in computation.</p> <p>The project builds on theorists of computational media such as Friedrich Kittler, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Jussi Parikka, Shane Denson, and Alexander Galloway to examine the interplay between perception, computation, and epistemology. Further theoretical contribution builds on the work of Luciana Parisi and Jacques Ranciére’s articulation of aesthetics, and Michel Foucault’s gesture towards a heterotopia. Finally, it draws from Donna Haraway’s metaphors of the cyborg and <em>sympoiesis</em> to frame the capacity of art to transfigure the limitations of digital network culture into new possibilities for being. Here, it curates practices by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Harun Farocki, Morehshin Allahyari, and Pierre Huyghe.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Joudat, Samine"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Cultural Studies, PhD","degree_level":"Open Access Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Cultural Studies with Media Studies","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Carlin Wing","Nadine Chan"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:40:49Z","subjects":["Artificial Intelligence","Critical Theory","Digital Aesthetics","Generative AI","Media Studies","Philosophy","Artificial Intelligence and Robotics","History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/838","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Carlin Wing","Nadine Chan"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Joudat, Samine"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2024-09-10T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Cultural Studies with Media Studies"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Open Access Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Cultural Studies, PhD"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Artificial Intelligence","Critical Theory","Digital Aesthetics","Generative AI","Media Studies","Philosophy","Artificial Intelligence and Robotics","History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/838"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["The processes of computation and automation that produce digitized objects have displaced the concept of an image once conceived through optical devices such as a photographic plate or a camera mirror that were invented to accommodate the human eye. Computational images exist as information within networks mediated by machines. They are increasingly less about what art history understands as representation or photography considers indexing and more an operational product of data processing.
Through genealogical, theoretical, and practice-based investigation, this dissertation project traces a lineage of computation through images from early cybernetics to contemporary machine learning under algorithmic capitalist conditions of political economy. Objects include mundane examples such as smartphone cameras to sublime examples such as the imaging of black holes. It articulates new conditions and forms of perception and surveillance that result from contemporary technological development in computation.
The project builds on theorists of computational media such as Friedrich Kittler, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Jussi Parikka, Shane Denson, and Alexander Galloway to examine the interplay between perception, computation, and epistemology. Further theoretical contribution builds on the work of Luciana Parisi and Jacques Ranciére’s articulation of aesthetics, and Michel Foucault’s gesture towards a heterotopia. Finally, it draws from Donna Haraway’s metaphors of the cyborg and sympoiesis to frame the capacity of art to transfigure the limitations of digital network culture into new possibilities for being. Here, it curates practices by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Harun Farocki, Morehshin Allahyari, and Pierre Huyghe.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The Specter of Representation: Computational Images and Algorithmic Capitalism"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Carlin Wing","Nadine Chan"],"dc:creator":["Joudat, Samine"],"dc:date.available":["2024-09-10T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["The processes of computation and automation that produce digitized objects have displaced the concept of an image once conceived through optical devices such as a photographic plate or a camera mirror that were invented to accommodate the human eye. Computational images exist as information within networks mediated by machines. They are increasingly less about what art history understands as representation or photography considers indexing and more an operational product of data processing.
Through genealogical, theoretical, and practice-based investigation, this dissertation project traces a lineage of computation through images from early cybernetics to contemporary machine learning under algorithmic capitalist conditions of political economy. Objects include mundane examples such as smartphone cameras to sublime examples such as the imaging of black holes. It articulates new conditions and forms of perception and surveillance that result from contemporary technological development in computation.
The project builds on theorists of computational media such as Friedrich Kittler, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Jussi Parikka, Shane Denson, and Alexander Galloway to examine the interplay between perception, computation, and epistemology. Further theoretical contribution builds on the work of Luciana Parisi and Jacques Ranciére’s articulation of aesthetics, and Michel Foucault’s gesture towards a heterotopia. Finally, it draws from Donna Haraway’s metaphors of the cyborg and sympoiesis to frame the capacity of art to transfigure the limitations of digital network culture into new possibilities for being. Here, it curates practices by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Harun Farocki, Morehshin Allahyari, and Pierre Huyghe.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/838"],"dc:subject":["Artificial Intelligence","Critical Theory","Digital Aesthetics","Generative AI","Media Studies","Philosophy","Artificial Intelligence and Robotics","History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology"],"dc:title":["The Specter of Representation: Computational Images and Algorithmic Capitalism"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Cultural Studies with Media Studies"],"thesis:degree_level":["Open Access Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Cultural Studies, PhD"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T01:40:49Z"}