ABSTRACT
Images are developed through analog or digital means and sometimes as a hybrid condition. Images seem to have an image problem. They are indefinable and indefatigable. They are vague, ephemeral, and shape-shifting. They operate with both stupidity and intelligence. They threaten stability and circulate surreptitiously. Images are charged. Perhaps the frustrating slipperiness of imaging explains why there are so few unabashed, serious advocates of imagery and image thinking. Brains and machines are evolving too rapidly and too thoroughly to understand either, fully, in real time. Yet, each pressures our understanding of the other in ways that have advanced knowledge in computation and neuroscience. Ironically, photography initially had proved to be a major impediment or distraction to the emergence of speculative imaging practices. Throughout the nineteenth century, photography all too easily was assumed to affirm, or was captivated by, the model of internal imaging as a representation or reflection of things in the world.
