Artificial Presence: Philosophical Studies in Image Theory (Cultural Memory in the Present)

These collected studies on the philosophy of the image offer the fundamental insight that images alone make the artificial presence of things possible. Images present things as exclusively visible, released from the laws of physics. Taking this idea as his point of departure, Wiesing provides an overview of the fundamental positions in contemporary image studies. He describes the use of images as signs from a phenomenological perspective, reconstructs Plato's concept of mimesis by way of the canon of images it presupposes, and demonstrates the special relevance of extreme types of images— virtual reality, desktop windows, or abstract photography—for the philosophical labor of the concept of the image.