Experiential and behavioural aspects of emotions can be measured readily but developing a contactless measure of emotions’ physiological aspects has been a major challenge. We hypothesised that different emotion-evoking films can produce distinctive facial blood flow patterns that can serve as physiological signatures of discrete emotions. To test this hypothesis, we created a new Transdermal Optical Imaging system that uses a conventional video camera to capture facial blood flows in a contactless manner. Using this and deep machine (...) learning, we analysed videos of the faces of people as they viewed film clips that elicited joy, sadness, disgust, fear or a neutral state. We found that each of these elicited a distinct blood flow pattern in the facial epidermis, and that Transdermal Optical Imaging is an effective contactless and inexpensive tool to the reveal physiological correlates of discrete emotions. (shrink)

We re-examine Peres' statement “opposite momenta lead to opposite directions”. It will be shown that Peres' statement is only valid in the large distance or large time limit. In the short distance or short time limit an additional deviation from perfect alignment occurs due to the uncertainty of the location of the source. This error contribution plays a major role in Popper's orginal experimental proposal. Peres' statement applies rather to the phenomenon of optical imaging, which was regarded by (...) him as a verification of his statement. This is because this experiment can in a certain sense be seen as occurring in the large distance limit. We will also reconsider both experiments from the viewpoint of Bohmian mechanics. In Bohmian mechanics particles with perfectly opposite momenta will move in opposite directions. In addition it will prove particularly useful to use Bohmian mechanics because the Bohmian trajectories coincide with the conceptual trajectories drawn by Pittman et al. In this way Bohmian mechanics provides a theoretical basis for these conceptual trajectories. (shrink)

Photographs and optical images, whatever their contents, are imprints of the electromagnetic waves in the (human) visible range of wavelengths, we refer to as light. Furthermore, they are designed to portray different parts of the visible light in terms of different colours, in analogy with the human eyes, however imperfectly. The world outside our eyes and cameras, however, is permeated by electromagnetic waves with much wider spectrum of wavelengths than those in the visible range. Importantly also, colour is a (...) construct of our eye‐brains: the Universe itself has no colour, independently of us. I ask how does the knowledge of these facts change the way we perceive the colour in optical images and photographs, whatever their relationship to the world in a representational sense may be? By employing three images, with very different origins and vistas ‐ one a direct photograph, the other two synthetically constructed images using real cosmological observations ‐ I demonstrate the extent to which colour in such images can hide the underlying phenomena of which they claim to visually speak, both due to its nature as a coarse-grained visual index, and by being restricted to the visible range. The aim is not to belittle the important role that our (restricted) vision together with our perception of colour have played in the evolution of our species, and still play in the way we relate to the world informationally, aesthetically and emotionally. But rather to show that recognizing the limitations of our vision and complementing it with the knowledge of the phenomena underlying optical images and photographs can allow us to perceive them anew and provide additional tools (both conceptual and visual) to imagine and envision such images outside the bounds of the visible range and colour. (shrink)

“Although up to now the [visual] image has been [understood as] a construct of reason,” Kepler observes in the fifth chapter of his Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, “henceforth the [visible] representations of objects should be considered as paintings [ picturae ] that are actual[ly projected] on paper or some other screen.” While not intended as a historical generalization, this claim nonetheless reflects historical reality. Virtually all visual theorists before Kepler did, in fact, conceive of optical images as subjective, not objective (...) constructs – or, to put it in modern terms, as virtual rather than real entities. By current lights, of course, the distinction between virtual and real images is both obvious and common-place: whereas the latter can be physically projected upon a screen, the former cannot. (shrink)

This paper deals with Hobbes's theory of optical images, developed in his optical magnum opus, ‘A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques’, and published in abridged version in De homine. The paper suggests that Hobbes's theory of vision and images serves him to ground his philosophy of man on his philosophy of body. Furthermore, since this part of Hobbes's work on optics is the most thoroughly geometrical, it reveals a good deal about the role of mathematics in (...) Hobbes's philosophy. The paper points to some difficulties in the thesis of Shapin and Schaffer, who presented geometry as a ‘paradigm’ for Hobbes's natural philosophy. It will be argued here that Hobbes's application of geometry to optics was dictated by his metaphysical and epistemological principles, not by a blind belief in the power of geometry. Geometry supported causal explanation, and assisted reason in making sense of appearances by helping the philosopher understand the relationships between the world outside us and the images it produces in us. Finally the paper broadly suggests how Hobbes's theory of images may have triggered, by negative example, the flourishing of geometrical optics in Restoration England. (shrink)

Underwater object detection plays an important role in research and practice, as it provides condensed and informative content that represents underwater objects. However, detecting objects from underwater images is challenging because underwater environments significantly degenerate image quality and distort the contrast between the object and background. To address this problem, this paper proposes an optical prior-based underwater object detection approach that takes advantage of optical principles to identify optical collimation over underwater images, providing valuable guidance for extracting (...) object features. Unlike data-driven knowledge, the prior in our method is independent of training samples. The fundamental novelty of our approach lies in the integration of an image prior and the object detection task. This novelty is fundamental to the satisfying performance of our approach in underwater environments, which is demonstrated through comparisons with state-of-the-art object detection methods. (shrink)

This lecture argues that new optical experiences created by the lens and what we now call the virtual image were the foundation alike of ‘high’ science, associated at this historical moment with the telescope, and popular spectacle. They precipitated and renewed an enquiry into the nature and status of the image as the technologies of the phantasmagoria, the kaleidoscope and the diorama penetrated deep into the poets' worlds and words. The projected image, without a correspondence in reality, was a (...) troubling aspect of this modern technology, provoking new understandings of materiality and immateriality. Colour, reflection and refraction became central concerns as a corollary of the debate. Some poets assimilated this imagery into their work, albeit skeptically. Others violently resisted it. The lecture looks closely at image-making in poetic language, and argues that there were both ontological and political stakes in this enquiry. (shrink)

In optics, real images can be projected onto a screen, while virtual ones always remain behind mirrors. This apparently straightforward distinction is based on complex premises which emerged in the Early Modern period, and its development went hand in hand with a transformation of the notion of image, which became detached from sensual perception. In this article I will outline this historical process, and argue that the distinction between a real and virtual image still implies a reference to visual perception (...) which makes it problematic, yet useful for didactic purposes. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that (...) are better aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

Recent advances in neuroimaging technologies have rendered multimodal analysis of operators’ cognitive processes in complex task settings and environments increasingly more practical. In this exploratory study, we utilized optical brain imaging and mobile eye tracking technologies to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological differences among expert and novice operators while they operated a human-machine interface in normal and adverse conditions. In congruence with related work, we observed that experts tended to have lower prefrontal oxygenation and exhibit gaze patterns that (...) are better aligned with the optimal task sequence with shorter fixation durations as compared to novices. These trends reached statistical significance only in the adverse condition where the operators were prompted with an unexpected error message. Comparisons between hemodynamic and gaze measures before and after the error message indicated that experts’ neurophysiological response to the error involved a systematic increase in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activity accompanied with an increase in fixation durations, which suggests a shift in their attentional state, possibly from routine process execution to problem detection and resolution. The novices’ response was not as strong as that of experts, including a slight increase only in the left dlPFC with a decreasing trend in fixation durations, which is indicative of visual search behavior for possible cues to make sense of the unanticipated situation. A linear discriminant analysis model capitalizing on the covariance structure among hemodynamic and eye movement measures could distinguish experts from novices with 91% accuracy. Despite the small sample size, the performance of the linear discriminant analysis combining eye fixation and dorsolateral oxygenation measures before and after an unexpected event suggests that multimodal approaches may be fruitful for distinguishing novice and expert performance in similar neuroergonomic applications in the field. (shrink)

Seventeenth-century optics naturalizes the eye while estranging the mind from objects. A mere screen, on which rests a blurry array of light stains, the eye no longer furnishes the observer with genuine re-presentations of visible objects. The intellect is thus compelled to decipher flat images of no inherent epistemic value, accidental effects of a purely causal process, as vague, reversed reflections of wholly independent objects. Reflecting on and trespassing the boundaries between natural and artificial, orderly and disorderly, this optical (...) paradox is a Baroque phenomenon; and it is the origin of Descartes’ celebrated doubt---whether we know anything at all. (shrink)

Leonardo's drawings of optical machinery have been used as evidence for the claim that Leonardo built machines to make concave mirrors with which he could project images. This paper argues that Leonardo's drawings cannot be used as evidence for this claim. It will be shown that Leonardo used the drawings to communicate with his patrons and craftsmen, to experiment on paper, to record trials with models, and to think about 'theoretical' problems in optics. At both the theoretical and the (...) practical level, Leonardo was only concerned with the burning properties of concave mirrors, not with their imaging properties. The paper will conclude that the drawings of optical machinery allowed Leonardo to differentiate himself from the ordinary mirror-makers in his workshop. The same drawings, however, also forced him to remain within the conceptual framework of perspectivist optics. (shrink)

The article situates Kittler’s view on the question of visual technology within his general media theory and critically examines Kittler’s optical paradigm with regard to questions of (visual) technology, discourse, strategy and style. Focus is given to the link between visual technology and the Renaissance period.

The influence of light on the lives of living organisms is all-pervasive, affecting movement, vision, behavior, and physiological activity. This book is a biophysically grounded comparative survey of how animals detect light and perceive their surroundings. Included are discussions of photoreceptors, light emitters, and eyes. The book focuses in particular on the kinds of optical systems that have evolved, beginning with unicellular organisms that detect and respond to light through to more advanced and complex designs for imaging. The (...) relevance of these studies extends beyond biology, since these findings can be used to help develop photoreceptor energy conversion and information systems, and optical imaging devices with a wide range of everyday applications. The book will appeal to biophysicists, photobiologists, bioengineers, neuroscientists, and all researchers working in the area of vision and visual optics. (shrink)

Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, London, University of London Press, 2023, xiv + 343 pp., 49 halftones, $120.00 (hardback); £90.00, ISBN 978-1-908590-58-9 (Warburg Institute Studies and Texts 8). The late Abdelhamid I. Sabra (1924–2013) devoted a significant part of his work to the critical edition and English translation of the optics of Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham….

In developing a new theory of vision in Ad Vitellionem paralipomena Kepler introduced a new optical concept, pictura, which is an image projected on to a screen by a camera obscura. He distinguished this pictura from an imago, the traditional image of medieval optics that existed only in the imagination. By the 1670s a new theory of optical imagery had been developed, and Kepler's pictura and imago became real and virtual images, two aspects of a unified concept of (...) image. The new concept of image developed out of a synthesis of Kepler's determination of the geometrical location of a pictura as the limit, or focus, of refracted pencils of rays and the triangulation used by a single eye to determine the perceived location of an imago. The distinction between real and imaginary images was largely developed by Gilles Personne de Roberval and the Jesuits Francesco Eschinardi and Claude François Milliet Dechales. (shrink)

There has been much recent debate about the nature of the omnivoyant image that introduces Nicholas of Cusa’s De visione Dei. In this paper, I argue that Cusa’s concept of contraction and his ‘radical perspectivism’ lead us toward stretching the concept of omnivoyance beyond a simple dichotomy between a phenomenology of the image and a phenomenology of the icon. Instead of putting such emphasis on what is seen by the omnivoyant, we should think an omnivoyant optics starting from the material (...) milieu from which it sees. To this end, I define the concept of omnivoyance through the concept of the elemental. Using both the concept of an element derived from Presocratic Ionian philosophy and recent French and American continental philosophy, I put these discourses into conversation with Cusa in several ways: the way omnivoyance functions as a substratum of contracted seeing rather than as a transcendence, its operation as a pure frontality without objectifiable aspects, and the way in which omnivoyance implies not only a gaze that sees ‘all and each’ but also a plurality of modes of vision. To help us understand this enlarged concept of omnivoyance, I use the example of animal vision, particularly the gaze of the whale. With respect to cetacean vision, I deploy Melville’s metaphysical speculations in Moby Dick as our primary guide. (shrink)

A method is presented to compute the electron-optical phase shift for a magnetized polyhedral nanoparticle, with either a uniform magnetization or a closure domain . The method relies on an analytical expression for the shape amplitude, combined with a reciprocal-space description of the magnetic vector potential. The model is used to construct two building blocks from which more complex structures can be generated. Phase computations are also presented for the five Platonic and 13 Archimedean solids. Fresnel and Foucault (...) class='Hi'>imaging mode simulations are presented for a range of particle shapes and microscope imaging conditions. (shrink)

Given that many imaging technologies in biology and medicine are non-optical and generate data that is essentially numerical, it is a striking feature of these technologies that the data generated using them are most frequently displayed in the form of semi-naturalistic, photograph-like images. In this paper, I claim that three factors underlie this: (1) historical preferences, (2) the rhetorical power of images, and (3) the cognitive accessibility of data presented in the form of images. The third of these (...) can be argued to provide an epistemic advantage to images, but I will further argue that this is often misleading and that images can in many cases be less informative than the corresponding mathematical data. (shrink)

The screen is not a pre established object: it becomes a screen—and that screen—when it interacts with a group of elements and relates to a set of practices that produce it as a screen. In this process of becoming screen, a crucial step is played by the space in which the screen is located and where spectators gather. The confluence of screen and space changes our perception of both: the screen displays the situatedness of its action, and the space its (...) nature of medium. The landscape becomes a screenscape, in which individuals access images through which they negotiate with reality and others. Eventually, the insistence on becoming screen highlights the role of contingency and conjuncture in the process of mediation: screenscapes emerge according opportunities, conflicts, and potentialities. Hence a media archeology that, far from being linear and teleological, follows unpredicted paths and creates surprising links—a rhizomatic media archeology. (shrink)

This paper argues that Kepler considered his work in optics as part of natural philosophy and that, consequently, he aimed at change within natural philosophy. Back-to-back with John Schuster’s claim that Descartes’ optics should be considered as a natural philosophical appropriation of innovative results in the tradition of practical and mixed mathematics the central claim of my paper is that Kepler’s theory of optical imagery, developed in his Paralipomena ad Vitellionem (1604), was the result of a move similar to (...) Descartes’ by Kepler. My argument consists of three parts. First, Kepler borrowed a geometrical model and experiment of optical imagery from the mélange of mixed and practical mathematics provided in the works of the sixteenth-century mathematicians Ettore Ausonio and Giovanni Battista Della Porta. Second, Kepler criticized the Aristotelian theory of light and he developed his own alternative metaphysics. Third, Kepler used his natural philosophical assumptions about the nature of light to re-interpret the model of image formation taken from Della Porta’s work. Taken together, I portray Kepler’s theory of optical imagery as a natural philosophical appropriation of an innovative model of image formation developed in a sixteenth-century practical and mixed mathematical tradition which was not interested in questioning philosophical assumptions on the nature of light. (shrink)

Optic neuropathies are conditions that cause disease to the optic nerve, and can result in loss of visual acuity and/or visual field defects. An improved understanding of how these conditions affect the entire visual system is warranted, to better predict and/or restore the visual loss. In this article, we review visually-driven functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of optic neuropathies, including glaucoma and optic neuritis (ON); we also discuss traumatic optic neuropathy (TON). Optic neuropathy-related vision loss results in fMRI (...) deficit within the visual cortex, and is often strongly correlated with clinical severity measures. Using predominantly flickering checkerboard stimuli, glaucoma studies indicated retinotopic-specific cortical alteration with more prominent deficits in advanced than in early glaucoma. Some glaucoma studies indicate a reorganized visual cortex. ON studies have indicated that the impacted cortical areas are briefly hyperactive. For ON, brain deficits are greater in the acute stages of the disease, followed by (near) normalization of responses of the LGN, visual cortex, and the dorsal visual stream, but not the ventral extrastriate cortex. Visually-driven fMRI is sensitive, at least in ON, in discriminating patients from controls, as well as the affected eye from the fellow eye within patients. The use of a greater variety of stimuli beyond checkerboards (e.g., visual motion and object recognition) in recent ON studies is encouraging, and needs to continue to disentangle the results in terms of change over time. Finally, visually-driven fMRI has not yet been applied in TON, although preliminary efforts suggest it may be feasible. Future fMRI studies of optic neuropathies should consider using more complex visual stimuli, and inter-regional analysis methods including functional connectivity. We suggest that a more systematic longitudinal comparison of optic neuropathies with advanced fMRI would provide improved diagnostic and prognostic information. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo elucidate the clinical, radiologic characteristics of Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) associated with the other diseases.Materials and methodsClinical data were retrospectively collected from hospitalized patients with LHON associated with the other diseases at the Neuro-Ophthalmology Department at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital (PLAGH) from December 2014 to October 2018.ResultsA total of 13 patients, 24 eyes (10 men and 3 women; mean age, 30.69 ± 12.76 years) with LHON mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations, were included in the cohort. 14502(5)11778(4)11778 (...) &11696(1)12811(1)11696(1)3460(1). One patient was positive for aquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4-Ab), and two were positive for myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody (MOG-Ab). Three patients were associated with idiopathic optic neuritis (ON). Two patients were with compression optic neuropathy. Three patients were with the central nervous system (CNS) diseases. One patient was with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and one with idiopathic orbital inflammatory syndrome (IOIS). At the onset, visual acuity (VA) in eighteen eyes was below 0.1, one eye was 0.5, five eyes were above 0.5, while VA in sixteen eyes was below a 0.1 outcome, three eyes experienced moderate vision loss. MRI images showed T2 lesions and enhancement in nine patients who received corticosteroids treatment; additional immune modulators treatment was performed on two patients. None of the patients had relapse during the follow-up time.ConclusionLeber’s hereditary optic neuropathy can be accompanied with multiple-related diseases, especially different subtypes of ON, which were also exhibited with IOIS and compression optic neuropathy for the first time in this cohort. This condition may be a distinct entity with an unusual clinical and therapeutic profile. (shrink)

Optic neuropathy refers to disease of the optic nerve and can result in loss of visual acuity and/or visual field defects. Combining findings from multiple fMRI modalities can offer valuable information for characterizing and managing optic neuropathies. In this article, we review a subset of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) studies of optic neuropathies. We consider glaucoma, acute optic neuritis (ON), discuss traumatic optic neuropathy (TON), and explore consistency between findings from RS and visually driven fMRI studies. Consistent (...) with visually driven studies, glaucoma studies at rest also indicated reduced activation in the visual cortex and dorsal visual stream. RS-fMRI further reported varying levels of functional connectivity in the ventral stream depending on disease severity. ON patients show alterations within the visual cortex in both fMRI techniques. Particularly, higher-than-normal RS activity is observed in the acute phase and decreases as the disease progresses. A similar pattern is observed in the visual cortex of TON-like, open globe injury (OGI), patients. Additionally, visually driven and RS-fMRI studies of ON patients show recovery of brain activity in the visual cortex. RS-fMRI suggests recovery of signals in higher-tier visual areas MT and LOC as well. Finally, RS-fMRI has not yet been applied to TON, although reviewing OGI studies suggests that it is feasible. Future RS-fMRI studies of optic neuropathies could prioritize studying the fine scale RS activity of brain areas that visually driven studies have identified. We suggest that a more systematic longitudinal comparison of optic neuropathies with advanced fMRI would provide improved diagnostic and prognostic information. (shrink)

Herculaneum papyri found during the discovery of the Villa dei Papiri in the XVIII century are our only knowledge about Greek philosophical schools. Unfortunately, the original manuscripts are in a precarious state of conservation and the currently available editions of them have largely been made obsolete by the latest technological progress. The aim of the Advanced Grant ERC project ‘Greekschools’ is to provide a new protocol based on optical methods to increase the text reading and thus allow for a (...) new critical edition of the whole treatise of Philodemus’ "Arrangement of the Philosophers". A multi-disciplinary approach is adopted and non-invasive techniques to Herculaneum papyri investigations such as Macro X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging (MA-XRF), Shortwave-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging (SWIR), high resolution digital microscopy and Technical Photography were applied to read the text hidden on the verso, detect, classify, and replace overlapping layers and read the text concealed inside them. In this work some first preliminary results will be reported. (shrink)

No agreed-upon account of mirror reversal is currently available although it has been discussed for more than two thousand years since Plato. Mirror reversal usually refers to recognized left-right reversal of a mirror image. Depending on the nature and layout of a reflected object, however, top-bottom reversal may be recognized instead of left-right reversal; no reversal at all may be recognized; and the presence or absence of reversal may not be decidable. Takano (1998) proposed a psycho-optic theory to explain all (...) these cases of mirror image recognition in a consistent manner. The proposed theory assumes different causes of mirror reversal depending on whether an object's left-right axis is parallel or perpendicular to a mirror's surface. This theory was later criticized in that it provided no explanation when the left-right axis is neither parallel nor perpendicular but at an intermediate angle between zero and 90 degrees with a mirror. This article completes the theory by presenting psycho-optic anal.. (shrink)

In his Paralipomena Johannes Kepler reported an experimentum that he had seen in the Dresden Kunstkammer. In one of the rooms there, which had been turned in its entirety into a camera obscura, he had witnessed the images formed by a lens. I discuss the role of this experiment in the development and foundation of his new theory of optical imagery, which made a distinction between two concepts of image, pictura and imago. My focus is on how Kepler used (...) his report of the experiment inside the camera obscura to criticize the account of image formation given in Giovanbattista Della Porta's Magia naturalis . I argue that this experiment allowed Kepler to sort out the confusion between images 'in the air'—referring to the geometrical locus of images in the perspectivist tradition of optics—and the experimentally produced 'projected images', which were empirically familiar but conceptually alien to perspectivist optics. (shrink)

Late nineteenth-century German anthropology had to compete for intellectual legitimacy with the established academic humanities (Geisteswissenschaften), above all history. Whereas humanists interpreted literary documents to create narratives about great civilizations, anthropologists represented and viewed objects, such as skulls or artifacts, to create what they regarded as natural scientific knowledge about so-called 'natural peoples'-colonized societies of Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas. Anthropologists thus invoked a venerable tradition that presented looking at objects as a more certain source of knowledge than reading (...) texts. Visual representations, especially of the colonized, not only allowed anthropologists allegedly objective insight into humanity but also put them in direct contact with popular audiences of ethnographic spectacles, exotic photography, and even pornographic images. Anthropologists thus sought to create a peculiar kind of anthropological vision that both differentiated them from humanists as 'objective' natural scientists but also distinguished them from the leering 'Schaulust' that they believed characterized popular consumption of exotic images. To do so they invented technologies of visual representation that eschewed the subject position figured by linear perspective. These novel optics dispensed with the leering subject posited by popular spectacles and the knowing subject posited by humanism and created an anti-humanist form of knowledge. (shrink)

The contribution deals with some key problems of cognitive science, whose plurality transcends the boundaries of the disciplines drawn by classical epistemology. In particular, it addresses the issues of mental images, spaces of representation, and the architecture of cognitive processes in vision theory. The thesis presented is that a proper treatment of vision within psychophysics entails an analysis of a series of interconnected spaces, objects and methodologies, from psychophysics to the many virtual realities of representation.

The article deals with Béla Tarr’s longest film Sátántangó and examines relations between image, time and ways of looking, comparing it to Lászlo Krasznahorkai’s 1985 eponymous novel on which the film was based. It reveals connections between episodes and shots in Sátántangó that lead to a conception of time that passes extremely slowly. It is recurrent—leading toward similar, repetitive situations—but at the same represents an inability to change. The image in this film is often conceived as it is mediated and (...) Tarr frequently uses compositions involving ways of looking through some kind of optical device or a window. The only way of accessing reality is to look at it when there is no real opportunity, will or ability to intervene and change it. In this sense the article shows the relationship between the image of the fictional world of Sátántangó, inhabited by passive and demoralized characters, and the world of the film spectator and his or her relation to film image as such. (shrink)

Qu'y a-t-il de commun entre un manuscrit medieval, Les Menines de Velazquez, le Cameraman de Buster Keaton et On connait la chanson d'Alain Resnais? Reponse : la presence d'images inattendues, " enchassees ", telles une porte ouverte au fond de la piece dans le tableau du maitre espagnol, la queue d'un faisan pris au piege debordant largement du cadre d'une enluminure du XIVe siecle, la presence incongrue d'un navire de guerre dans les rues de New York chez Buster Keaton, des (...) meduses mobiles en surimpression a la fin du film de Resnais. Dispositifs et procedes aujourd'hui banalises au cinema et en video, les " images dans l'image " susceptibles, depuis des siecles, aussi bien d'intriguer que de passer presque inapercues aupres du spectateur, sont loin d'etre innocentes. Sous l'oeil attentif de Vincent Amiel, ces " images-secondes " inserees dans une image-englobante, injustement delaissees parfois par les estheticiens du cinema, acquierent un veritable statut theorique qui n'est pas celui d'une simple mise en abyme figee. Les images enchassees demandent a etre vues et pensees au moment ou elles deviennent images, dans l'instant de leur naissance, comme des figures cachees mais dynamiques qui, comme le souligne Amiel, " s'affirment comme monde et comme representation ". (shrink)

For Situationist, theorist and film-maker Guy Debord, the aerial view reproduced the falsely objective world-view he called ‘the spectacle’. To counter its myth of an infinitely expandable, omniscient perspective, Debord focused on reducing views from above to ‘derisory documents’ of the social and the environmental through détournement in the two films he made while the Situationist International was in existence. The films engage critically with aerial photography as a hegemonic mode of indexical media, with the aerial view’s application as information (...) image and ornament, and with the formal phenomenon of ciné-mapping. This analysis suggests that the détournement Debord performs in and across these films can be best conceptualized as a critical optic that constitutes a practice of seeing, a mode of reception and a call to action in the social space beyond its aesthetic employ. As such, the optic of détournement is the contestational counterpart to the optic of the aerial view. This remains the case despite the contemporary complexity of photographic views from above and their increased abstraction of social agents and spaces. An alternative to the testimonial function of embodied photographic views, détournement as optic represents an indexical civil contract founded upon representational inadequacy. (shrink)

The thesis explored here is that ?image technologies? prominent in today's communications technologies are acidic to traditional cultures. I parallel examples from the history of early modern science and its optical instrumentation with the rise of cinema and television and other audio?visual technologies to show a similar history and effect. One dominant contemporary phenomenon which occurs through image technologies is the appearance of pluriculture, a unique mediation of the multi?cultural. The challenge of pluriculture vis?à?vis the contemporary forms of reaction (...) to the phenomenon is also examined. (shrink)

Here, a streamlined, scalable, laboratory approach is discussed that enables medium‐to‐large dataset analysis. The presented approach combines data management, artificial intelligence, containerization, cluster orchestration, and quality control in a unified analytic pipeline. The unique combination of these individual building blocks creates a new and powerful analysis approach that can readily be applied to medium‐to‐large datasets by researchers to accelerate the pace of research. The proposed framework is applied to a project that counts the number of plasmonic nanoparticles bound to peripheral (...) blood mononuclear cells in dark‐field microscopy images. By using the techniques presented in this article, the images are automatically processed overnight, without user interaction, streamlining the path from experiment to conclusions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

Cet article a pour objet la réinterprétation, dans le sillage de la rénovation keplérienne de l’optique, de la fonction de l’image rétinienne pour la vision par Gassendi et Descartes. Une comparaison de leurs approches montre qu’elles reposent sur une interprétation différente du modèle iconique de la perception. S’ils attribuent un rôle crucial à l’imagination pour la perception visuelle, leurs positions philosophiques font jouer un rôle différent à l’image dans la perception visuelle et les amènent à concevoir de façon divergente l’imagination (...) et son rapport aux autres pouvoirs de l’esprit. (shrink)

Reseñado por CHRISTIAN ETHERIDGENational Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, DKwyvern_hoo2@hotmail.co.uk.

To speak of the nature of an image is to initiate a problematic second only to that raised by considerations of the nature of language. To inquire into the relations between image and language is to step into a very old philosophical problem. Nevertheless, I would hope at least to approach the edge of such an encounter in the attempt to see what relevance it might have for recent past art. Certainly the term “image” has had a long and embattled (...) history. A taxonomy and a genealogy of the term might be in order. Do we wish to speak of mental images or of optical ones? What about perceptual images or the verbal images of descriptions and metaphors? To consider the sense data and appearances of the perceptual, or the dreams, fantasies, memories, and ideas of the mental image is to review an entire Western philosophical discourse. We might consider the issue of what may or may not be in the mind as an image; or the relation of visual images to linguistic terms; or the relation between objects and visual images that stand for them. Certainly the ways of formulating such relations have decided the divisions of Western metaphysics. Representational theories of the mind revolve around such issues and imply the persistent division of mind from body, subject from object.Let me say right away that my interests here are not to review an entire philosophical discourse with the hope of establishing a clarity of distinctions between the imagistic and the linguistic. Rather the assumption here is that the two are inextricably entangled, and the interest is to see how certain art in this century has resisted or embraced this entanglement. Robert Morris is an artist and a professor at Hunter College. A collection of his writings is forthcoming. (shrink)