ABSTRACT
To date, fantasy and the production of pictures, vision and conceptualization, imagination and creativity are the key terms that guide occidental enquiries into what makes images or pictures what they are. The ambiguous pictorial thing, the meaningful iconic sign, pictorial representation or iconic presence—all these determinations of what distinguishes an image from reality—ultimately refer to human consciousness and our imaginative power. Even though the performative aspect has recently been put into focus in image theory, it always seems to be the imago and the event of its appearing which are thematized by relevant theories. However, can this perspective account for the entire range of possibilities as to how images happen to be images, or how pictures operate as pictures?
