A. S. Aurora Hoel (aka Aud Sissel Hoel) is Professor of Media Studies and Visual Culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She received her PhD in media studies from the Faculty of Humanities at NTNU in 2005 for her dissertation on the formative powers of pictures. Her research interests revolve around science images and technologies of vision, and branch out to topics such as photography, measuring instruments, symbolic notation, visual thinking, medical imaging, and computer vision. Hoel is co-PI of the research project Face of Terror: Understanding Terrorism from the Perspective of Critical Media Aesthetics (Research Council of Norway, 2016-2020). During fall 2020, she a Novo Nordic Foundation Visiting Professor in Art & Art History at the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University. In the period 2015-2017, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Image Knowledge Gestaltung cluster at the Humboldt University of Berlin, undertaking a project called Styles of Objectivity: Agency, Alignment and Automation in Image-Guided Surgery (European Commission). Before that she was the PI of the interdisciplinary research project Picturing the Brain: Perspectives on Neuroimaging (Research Council of Norway, 2010-2014). She has also conducted a project on photography used for identification and control, resulting in an exhibition and an authored book/catalogue (Maktens bilder/Disciplinary Images, 2007). An overarching aim that cuts across Hoel’s various projects is to develop an operational account of images, and of mediating apparatuses more generally.
Humanities, Vol. 11, No. 6, special issue: Posthumanism, Virtuality, and the Arts, 2022
This article outlines an eco-operational theory of technical mediation that centers on Gilbert Si... more This article outlines an eco-operational theory of technical mediation that centers on Gilbert Simondon’s notion of technicity. The argument is that technical apparatuses do the work of concepts. However, the eco-operational viewpoint completely alters the status of concepts: what they are, where they are, and what they do. Technicity, as understood here, concerns the efficacious action and operational functioning of a broad range of apparatuses (including living bodies and technical machines), which are conceived as adaptive mediators. The focus on technicity provides a new notion of the virtual, that of the operationally real, which resonates with Gilles Deleuze’s while also marking a new direction. What is more, by approaching mediation in terms of technicity, the eco-operational framework offers a novel understanding of concept or generality that stakes out a middle path between Kantian representational generality and Deleuzian concrete singularity.
The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 30, No. 61-62, special issue: The Changing Ontology of the Image, 2021
Images have started to do things. This is the focus of the contemporary discourse on operational ... more Images have started to do things. This is the focus of the contemporary discourse on operational images, which emphasizes the automated and machinic aspects of digital image applications. The discourse on networked images, likewise, focuses on how web images lead an existence beyond human control. In the digital condition, images, it seems, take on a life of their own. In today’s theory parlance, the quasi-autonomous lives of images are often talked about in terms of their agency. But what is this strange life of images, what is this agency? What is it, really, that images do?
Medieæstetik - en introduktion. Redigert av Jacob Lund og Ulrik Schmidt (Samfundslitteratur), 2020
Kapittelet undersøker hva begrepet «bilde» kan bety i medieestetisk sammenheng, med særlig vekt p... more Kapittelet undersøker hva begrepet «bilde» kan bety i medieestetisk sammenheng, med særlig vekt på nye (og noen ikke fullt så nye) tilnærminger som på ulike måter bryter med den tradisjonelle forestillingen om bildet som et avbilde. For å sette disse tilnærmingene i perspektiv, gir kapittelet også en kritisk gjennomgang av et utvalg etablerte tilnærminger. Mitt formål med kapittelet er å trekke noen linjer gjennom villniset av tanker og forestillinger om bildet, for slik å peke på sammenhenger mellom nye og gamle bildeteorier, samtidig som jeg løfter frem tilnærminger som baner vei for mer hensiktsmessige måter å teoretisere bildet på – det være seg tradisjonelle bilder eller de automatiserte, distribuerte og oppkoblede bildeteknologiene vi i økende grad omgir oss med.
Dynamis of the Image: Moving Images in a Global World. Edited by Emmanuel Alloa and Chiara Cappelletto (De Gruyter), 2020
Medical images are an intriguing test case for image theory. As the products of advanced technolo... more Medical images are an intriguing test case for image theory. As the products of advanced technologies, they are highly artificial, yet somehow indisputably real. Medical images, it seems, are neither transparent nor opaque in the terms of mainstream image theory. They exemplify, rather, what have come to be known as operative images. Drawing on the case of magnetic resonance imaging, this chapter contributes to the current efforts to rethink images in active terms. To this end, it draws on the thought of the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon, whose work is a rich resource for conceptualizing the active roles of images in knowledge and being. While Simondon is primarily known for his theories of individuation and technology, he also makes a significant contribution to the theory of images, setting it off on an altogether new path. As Simondon sees it, a machine is a being that operates. This implies that to firmly grasp technology in its entanglement with humans and nature, we need to consider technical objects in their operational functioning, and not as things or artifacts with fixed characteristics. Likewise, when he turns to images, the originality of Simondon’s theory lies in his operational approach: images, too, are beings that operate. Simondon’s theories of machines and images are deeply informed by his theory of individuation, which accords to machines and images a non-trivial role as adaptive mediators between humans and the world. Moreover, approaching machines and images as adaptive mediators’ in Simondon’s sense of the term serves to bring out the image value of technical objects, and—just as importantly—the technicity of images. The first part of this chapter explores the theoretical alignment of machines and images in Simondon’s thinking. The second part probes more deeply into these theoretical connections by focusing on how machines and images relate to their environment. I proceed to relate Simondon’s ideas about machines/images and their environment to the example of MRI, more specifically to the image-acquisition process. Approaching image acquisition as a more-than-technical process, I call attention to the operational and transductive dynamic that is playing out already at this stage—a mediate process that provides conditions for visibility and intelligibility even before there are any images (in the more conventional sense) to look at.In this way, I hope to show that Simondon’s ideas about images and/as machines mark a new and remarkably promising direction for image theory, one pivoting around the insight that images are active powers for reality.
Image - Action - Space: Situating the Screen in Visual Practice. Edited by L. Feiersinger, K. Friedrich and M. Queisner (De Gruyter): https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/468294, 2018
This article contributes to the ongoing attempts to develop an operational basis for understandin... more This article contributes to the ongoing attempts to develop an operational basis for understanding images. To this end, it considers a selection of contemporary approaches that, each in their own way, grant centrality to the operational aspects of images. The new line of research into the agency and efficacy of images is highly promising, breaking new ground by putting image theory on an altogether new track. More work needs to be done, however, when it comes to articulating what is meant by the term “operation” in this context. Addressing this need, the article probes the literature on operative images, discussing and comparing different approaches to operative images along four lines: from the perspective of art (section 1), from the perspective of new media production and use (section 2), from the perspective of media archaeology aspiring to become exact science (section 3), and from the perspective of visual studies (section 4).
Posthuman Glossary. Edited by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova (Bloomsbury), 2018
By offering an altogether new theory of what constitutes an ‘individual’, Simondon effectively ch... more By offering an altogether new theory of what constitutes an ‘individual’, Simondon effectively challenges the basic tenets of Western logic and metaphysics, and with that, commonly assumed ideas about unity and identity. At the same time, Simondon’s philosophy has inestimable value as a corrective to contemporary approaches that, taking inspiration from cybernetics and information theory, tend to conflate living being and technical being on the assumption that there are no significant difference between humans and other intelligent systems such as machines.
Posthuman Glossary. Edited by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova (Bloomsbury), 2018
According to Simondon, the xenophobic rejection of technical reality is based on a misconception ... more According to Simondon, the xenophobic rejection of technical reality is based on a misconception of the nature and essence of machines. This failure leads to alienation, or else, to technophobia, technophilia, or intemperate technocratic ambitions, which are all inadequate reactions towards machines. Simondon, instead, conceives the existence of humans and machines as correlative. Humans and machines are mutually related; they imply and complement each other. Technical objects intervene as mediators between humans and nature, and humans intervene as mediators between machines.
In recent years a growing number of scholars in science studies and related fields are developing... more In recent years a growing number of scholars in science studies and related fields are developing new ontologies to displace entrenched dualisms. These efforts often go together with a renewed interest in the roles played by symbolisms and tools in knowledge and being. This article brings Maurice Merleau-Ponty into these conversations, positioning him as a precursor of today's innovative recastings of technoscience. While Merleau-Ponty is often invoked in relation to his early work on the body and embodiment, this article focuses on his later work, where the investigation of perception is integrated with an ontological exploration. The resulting approach revolves around the highly original idea of the body as a standard of measurement. We further develop this idea by coining the term 'the measuring body', which to a greater extent than did Merleau-Ponty accentuates the relative autonomy of symbolisms and tools and their capacity to decentre the perceiving body.
Taking its point of departure from the current digitisation of the Harvard Astronomical Plate Col... more Taking its point of departure from the current digitisation of the Harvard Astronomical Plate Collection, this article follows the plates back to the time when the status of photography as a research tool for astronomers was still to be established. It focuses on Charles S. Peirce, who, while employed by the US Coast Survey, made astronomical observations and contributed to the deliberation over visual and photographic methods. Particular attention is paid to Peirce’s involvement in early explorations of photography’s potential as a measurement tool. The guiding assumption is that approaching photography as a tool, rather than as a sign or representation, offers new inroads into the old problem of photography’s revealing powers and its capacity to serve as a means of discovery in science. Drawing on Peirce’s scientific practice as an alternative resource for theory construction, this article contributes to the ongoing efforts to conceptualise the productive or generative dimension of photographic methods. It concludes by pointing to the diagrammatic notion of evidence developed late in Peirce’s philosophical career, proposing that photography be reconceived as a diagrammatic tool.
Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations, edited by Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek (Lexington Books, 2015), May 2015
In this chapter we aim to draw attention to the unrealized potential of the oeuvre of Merleau-Pon... more In this chapter we aim to draw attention to the unrealized potential of the oeuvre of Merleau-Ponty to give a novel account of technological mediation. The later thinking of Merleau-Ponty is characterized by the way that the investigation of the perceiving body converges on an ontological exploration that acknowledges the ontological import and transformative capacities of a broad array of mediating apparatuses (the bodily apparatus, art works, language and other symbolic systems, tools, algorithms). In the following, we hope to demonstrate the relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s indirect ontology to some of the key concerns of present-day postphenomenology, and the extent to which an engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s expansive and dynamic notion of “flesh” may serve significantly to deepen our understanding of our interaction with technologies, including computation. Like today’s postphenomenologists, the later Merleau-Ponty is concerned to show both that the body is technologized and that technologies are embodied – hence, the continued relevance of phenomenological frameworks.
This chapter develops an account of neuroimaging that conceives brain imaging methods as at once ... more This chapter develops an account of neuroimaging that conceives brain imaging methods as at once formative and revealing of neurophenomena. Starting with a critical discussion of two metaphors that are often evoked in the context of neuroimaging, the ‘window’ and the ‘view from nowhere’, Carusi and Hoel propose an approach that goes beyond contrasts between transparency and opacity, or between complete and partial perspectives. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of painting in ‘Eye and Mind’, where he sets forth an integrated account of vision, images, objects, and space, the authors argue that the handling and understanding of space in neuroimaging involves the establishment of a ‘system of equivalences’ in the terms of Merleau-Ponty. Accentuating the generative dimension of images and visualizations, the notion of seeing according to a system of equivalences offers a conceptual and analytic tool that opens a new line of inquiry into scientific vision.
This paper explores the inner connections between images and their traditional “others”, such as ... more This paper explores the inner connections between images and their traditional “others”, such as concepts, words, and numbers. Instead of inquiring into images as static entities, it focuses on what images do, that is, on their operational functioning. The aim is to develop a notion of images as “differential tools” that play an integral role in exploration, knowledge, and discovery, no matter whether they are used for artistic or scientific purposes. What I argue is that the development of such a bridging notion requires a rethinking and broadening of the notion of image, and perhaps more surprisingly, of the notion of measurement. Further, what I argue is that Cassirer’s notion of symbolic function is a promising candidate for a bridging notion of mediation that brings to the fore the inner connections between the sensible and the intelligible, the presentational and the discursive, the visual and the logical – and, by extension, between images and measurements. As Cassirer conceives it, mediation amounts to a kind of “seeing”, and simultaneously, to a kind of “measuring”. Drawing on this idea, I argue that media and technologies operate by a “differential logic”, and further, that the differential mode of operation is the inner link between imaging methods, usually classified as qualitative and observational, and measurement methods, commonly considered as quantitative and calculative.
In: Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited, edited by Catelijne Coopmans, Janet Vertesi, Michael Lynch, and Steve Woolgar (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 201-221., Jan 2014
This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice... more This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice and instrumentation of computational biology. Computational biologists work with an impressive array of visual artifacts, including microscopy images, MRI and fMRI, organ atlases, virtual organs, optical imaging of "real" organs, and simulations. Despite the clear disciplinary associations between instrumentation and methods in the field, researchers blend observational, mathematical, and computational practices in ways that demand a rethinking of the quantitative-qualitative distinction. Drawing on the later work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which conceives the ontology of vision and the ontology of nature as co-emergent, the authors develop the idea of observers and observed being in a "circuit" – originally derived from the biological writings of Jakob von Uexküll. The encounter between Merleau-Ponty’s notion of circuitry and recent ontological concerns in STS expands the toolbox for analyzing hybrid scientific practices.
This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice... more This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice and instrumentation of computational biology. Computational biologists work with an impressive array of visual artifacts, including microscopy images, MRI and fMRI, organ atlases, virtual organs, optical imaging of "real" organs, and simulations. Despite the clear disciplinary associations between instrumentation and methods in the field, researchers blend observational, mathematical, and computational practices in ways that demand a rethinking of the quantitative-qualitative distinction. Drawing on the later work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which conceives the ontology of vision and the ontology of nature as co-emergent, the authors develop the idea of observers and observed being in a "circuit" – originally derived from the biological writings of Jakob von Uexküll. The encounter between Merleau-Ponty’s notion of circuitry and recent ontological concerns in STS expands the toolbox for analyzing hybrid scientific practices.
This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive r... more This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology.
This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive r... more This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology.
Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology: Contemporary Readings, Aug 21, 2012
The paper “Technics of Thinking” explores the potential of Ernst Cassirer’s notion of symbolic an... more The paper “Technics of Thinking” explores the potential of Ernst Cassirer’s notion of symbolic and, especially, technological mediation, which allows for a fresh take on the old problems of knowledge and mind. Building on Cassirer’s core insight, delivered in the technology essay, concerning how tools ground the sort of mediacy that makes thinking possible, it sketches what is coined as a “differential” approach to knowledge. The resulting approach is at variance in significant respects from the philosophy of difference associated with poststructuralist thinking, and Hoel goes on to compare it, instead, with lines of thinking pursued in the contemporary philosophy of technology, in science and technology studies and in recent “extended mind” approaches within the philosophy of mind.
On several occasions, when he treats of the iconic and general features of cognition, Charles S. ... more On several occasions, when he treats of the iconic and general features of cognition, Charles S. Peirce employs the metaphor of a composite photograph – for example in the manuscript "Telepathy” (c. 1903), which I discuss in this paper. Comparisons between the eye and the photographic camera were, and still are, a commonplace, and by the end of the nineteenth century the method of combining two or more photographic portraits of individual sitters into a composite portrait was regarded as a solution to the problem of producing a general type from particular instances. Even if he occasionally compares the general elements of cognition to composite photographs, Peirce’s understanding of the processes of perception and abstraction goes far beyond the notions suggested by nineteenth-century camera metaphors. The present paper explores the potential of another Peircean pictorial figure – the diagram – for an alternative account of processes of abstraction. The continued relevance of Peirce’s thinking to questions concerning meaning and knowledge has to do with his insistence on an irreducible iconic element in cognition, his rejection of dualism, and, especially, his unique way of integrating the observational and the intellectual, the iconic and the symbolic, which is captured in his notions of the “diagram” and the “diagrammatic.” The present interpretation takes the notion of the “diagrammatic” in a broad sense by treating it as a resource for developing a dynamic, and what I will refer to as a “differential,” account of mediation.
Humanities, Vol. 11, No. 6, special issue: Posthumanism, Virtuality, and the Arts, 2022
This article outlines an eco-operational theory of technical mediation that centers on Gilbert Si... more This article outlines an eco-operational theory of technical mediation that centers on Gilbert Simondon’s notion of technicity. The argument is that technical apparatuses do the work of concepts. However, the eco-operational viewpoint completely alters the status of concepts: what they are, where they are, and what they do. Technicity, as understood here, concerns the efficacious action and operational functioning of a broad range of apparatuses (including living bodies and technical machines), which are conceived as adaptive mediators. The focus on technicity provides a new notion of the virtual, that of the operationally real, which resonates with Gilles Deleuze’s while also marking a new direction. What is more, by approaching mediation in terms of technicity, the eco-operational framework offers a novel understanding of concept or generality that stakes out a middle path between Kantian representational generality and Deleuzian concrete singularity.
The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 30, No. 61-62, special issue: The Changing Ontology of the Image, 2021
Images have started to do things. This is the focus of the contemporary discourse on operational ... more Images have started to do things. This is the focus of the contemporary discourse on operational images, which emphasizes the automated and machinic aspects of digital image applications. The discourse on networked images, likewise, focuses on how web images lead an existence beyond human control. In the digital condition, images, it seems, take on a life of their own. In today’s theory parlance, the quasi-autonomous lives of images are often talked about in terms of their agency. But what is this strange life of images, what is this agency? What is it, really, that images do?
Medieæstetik - en introduktion. Redigert av Jacob Lund og Ulrik Schmidt (Samfundslitteratur), 2020
Kapittelet undersøker hva begrepet «bilde» kan bety i medieestetisk sammenheng, med særlig vekt p... more Kapittelet undersøker hva begrepet «bilde» kan bety i medieestetisk sammenheng, med særlig vekt på nye (og noen ikke fullt så nye) tilnærminger som på ulike måter bryter med den tradisjonelle forestillingen om bildet som et avbilde. For å sette disse tilnærmingene i perspektiv, gir kapittelet også en kritisk gjennomgang av et utvalg etablerte tilnærminger. Mitt formål med kapittelet er å trekke noen linjer gjennom villniset av tanker og forestillinger om bildet, for slik å peke på sammenhenger mellom nye og gamle bildeteorier, samtidig som jeg løfter frem tilnærminger som baner vei for mer hensiktsmessige måter å teoretisere bildet på – det være seg tradisjonelle bilder eller de automatiserte, distribuerte og oppkoblede bildeteknologiene vi i økende grad omgir oss med.
Dynamis of the Image: Moving Images in a Global World. Edited by Emmanuel Alloa and Chiara Cappelletto (De Gruyter), 2020
Medical images are an intriguing test case for image theory. As the products of advanced technolo... more Medical images are an intriguing test case for image theory. As the products of advanced technologies, they are highly artificial, yet somehow indisputably real. Medical images, it seems, are neither transparent nor opaque in the terms of mainstream image theory. They exemplify, rather, what have come to be known as operative images. Drawing on the case of magnetic resonance imaging, this chapter contributes to the current efforts to rethink images in active terms. To this end, it draws on the thought of the French philosopher Gilbert Simondon, whose work is a rich resource for conceptualizing the active roles of images in knowledge and being. While Simondon is primarily known for his theories of individuation and technology, he also makes a significant contribution to the theory of images, setting it off on an altogether new path. As Simondon sees it, a machine is a being that operates. This implies that to firmly grasp technology in its entanglement with humans and nature, we need to consider technical objects in their operational functioning, and not as things or artifacts with fixed characteristics. Likewise, when he turns to images, the originality of Simondon’s theory lies in his operational approach: images, too, are beings that operate. Simondon’s theories of machines and images are deeply informed by his theory of individuation, which accords to machines and images a non-trivial role as adaptive mediators between humans and the world. Moreover, approaching machines and images as adaptive mediators’ in Simondon’s sense of the term serves to bring out the image value of technical objects, and—just as importantly—the technicity of images. The first part of this chapter explores the theoretical alignment of machines and images in Simondon’s thinking. The second part probes more deeply into these theoretical connections by focusing on how machines and images relate to their environment. I proceed to relate Simondon’s ideas about machines/images and their environment to the example of MRI, more specifically to the image-acquisition process. Approaching image acquisition as a more-than-technical process, I call attention to the operational and transductive dynamic that is playing out already at this stage—a mediate process that provides conditions for visibility and intelligibility even before there are any images (in the more conventional sense) to look at.In this way, I hope to show that Simondon’s ideas about images and/as machines mark a new and remarkably promising direction for image theory, one pivoting around the insight that images are active powers for reality.
Image - Action - Space: Situating the Screen in Visual Practice. Edited by L. Feiersinger, K. Friedrich and M. Queisner (De Gruyter): https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/468294, 2018
This article contributes to the ongoing attempts to develop an operational basis for understandin... more This article contributes to the ongoing attempts to develop an operational basis for understanding images. To this end, it considers a selection of contemporary approaches that, each in their own way, grant centrality to the operational aspects of images. The new line of research into the agency and efficacy of images is highly promising, breaking new ground by putting image theory on an altogether new track. More work needs to be done, however, when it comes to articulating what is meant by the term “operation” in this context. Addressing this need, the article probes the literature on operative images, discussing and comparing different approaches to operative images along four lines: from the perspective of art (section 1), from the perspective of new media production and use (section 2), from the perspective of media archaeology aspiring to become exact science (section 3), and from the perspective of visual studies (section 4).
Posthuman Glossary. Edited by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova (Bloomsbury), 2018
By offering an altogether new theory of what constitutes an ‘individual’, Simondon effectively ch... more By offering an altogether new theory of what constitutes an ‘individual’, Simondon effectively challenges the basic tenets of Western logic and metaphysics, and with that, commonly assumed ideas about unity and identity. At the same time, Simondon’s philosophy has inestimable value as a corrective to contemporary approaches that, taking inspiration from cybernetics and information theory, tend to conflate living being and technical being on the assumption that there are no significant difference between humans and other intelligent systems such as machines.
Posthuman Glossary. Edited by Rosi Braidotti & Maria Hlavajova (Bloomsbury), 2018
According to Simondon, the xenophobic rejection of technical reality is based on a misconception ... more According to Simondon, the xenophobic rejection of technical reality is based on a misconception of the nature and essence of machines. This failure leads to alienation, or else, to technophobia, technophilia, or intemperate technocratic ambitions, which are all inadequate reactions towards machines. Simondon, instead, conceives the existence of humans and machines as correlative. Humans and machines are mutually related; they imply and complement each other. Technical objects intervene as mediators between humans and nature, and humans intervene as mediators between machines.
In recent years a growing number of scholars in science studies and related fields are developing... more In recent years a growing number of scholars in science studies and related fields are developing new ontologies to displace entrenched dualisms. These efforts often go together with a renewed interest in the roles played by symbolisms and tools in knowledge and being. This article brings Maurice Merleau-Ponty into these conversations, positioning him as a precursor of today's innovative recastings of technoscience. While Merleau-Ponty is often invoked in relation to his early work on the body and embodiment, this article focuses on his later work, where the investigation of perception is integrated with an ontological exploration. The resulting approach revolves around the highly original idea of the body as a standard of measurement. We further develop this idea by coining the term 'the measuring body', which to a greater extent than did Merleau-Ponty accentuates the relative autonomy of symbolisms and tools and their capacity to decentre the perceiving body.
Taking its point of departure from the current digitisation of the Harvard Astronomical Plate Col... more Taking its point of departure from the current digitisation of the Harvard Astronomical Plate Collection, this article follows the plates back to the time when the status of photography as a research tool for astronomers was still to be established. It focuses on Charles S. Peirce, who, while employed by the US Coast Survey, made astronomical observations and contributed to the deliberation over visual and photographic methods. Particular attention is paid to Peirce’s involvement in early explorations of photography’s potential as a measurement tool. The guiding assumption is that approaching photography as a tool, rather than as a sign or representation, offers new inroads into the old problem of photography’s revealing powers and its capacity to serve as a means of discovery in science. Drawing on Peirce’s scientific practice as an alternative resource for theory construction, this article contributes to the ongoing efforts to conceptualise the productive or generative dimension of photographic methods. It concludes by pointing to the diagrammatic notion of evidence developed late in Peirce’s philosophical career, proposing that photography be reconceived as a diagrammatic tool.
Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human-Technology Relations, edited by Robert Rosenberger and Peter-Paul Verbeek (Lexington Books, 2015), May 2015
In this chapter we aim to draw attention to the unrealized potential of the oeuvre of Merleau-Pon... more In this chapter we aim to draw attention to the unrealized potential of the oeuvre of Merleau-Ponty to give a novel account of technological mediation. The later thinking of Merleau-Ponty is characterized by the way that the investigation of the perceiving body converges on an ontological exploration that acknowledges the ontological import and transformative capacities of a broad array of mediating apparatuses (the bodily apparatus, art works, language and other symbolic systems, tools, algorithms). In the following, we hope to demonstrate the relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s indirect ontology to some of the key concerns of present-day postphenomenology, and the extent to which an engagement with Merleau-Ponty’s expansive and dynamic notion of “flesh” may serve significantly to deepen our understanding of our interaction with technologies, including computation. Like today’s postphenomenologists, the later Merleau-Ponty is concerned to show both that the body is technologized and that technologies are embodied – hence, the continued relevance of phenomenological frameworks.
This chapter develops an account of neuroimaging that conceives brain imaging methods as at once ... more This chapter develops an account of neuroimaging that conceives brain imaging methods as at once formative and revealing of neurophenomena. Starting with a critical discussion of two metaphors that are often evoked in the context of neuroimaging, the ‘window’ and the ‘view from nowhere’, Carusi and Hoel propose an approach that goes beyond contrasts between transparency and opacity, or between complete and partial perspectives. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of painting in ‘Eye and Mind’, where he sets forth an integrated account of vision, images, objects, and space, the authors argue that the handling and understanding of space in neuroimaging involves the establishment of a ‘system of equivalences’ in the terms of Merleau-Ponty. Accentuating the generative dimension of images and visualizations, the notion of seeing according to a system of equivalences offers a conceptual and analytic tool that opens a new line of inquiry into scientific vision.
This paper explores the inner connections between images and their traditional “others”, such as ... more This paper explores the inner connections between images and their traditional “others”, such as concepts, words, and numbers. Instead of inquiring into images as static entities, it focuses on what images do, that is, on their operational functioning. The aim is to develop a notion of images as “differential tools” that play an integral role in exploration, knowledge, and discovery, no matter whether they are used for artistic or scientific purposes. What I argue is that the development of such a bridging notion requires a rethinking and broadening of the notion of image, and perhaps more surprisingly, of the notion of measurement. Further, what I argue is that Cassirer’s notion of symbolic function is a promising candidate for a bridging notion of mediation that brings to the fore the inner connections between the sensible and the intelligible, the presentational and the discursive, the visual and the logical – and, by extension, between images and measurements. As Cassirer conceives it, mediation amounts to a kind of “seeing”, and simultaneously, to a kind of “measuring”. Drawing on this idea, I argue that media and technologies operate by a “differential logic”, and further, that the differential mode of operation is the inner link between imaging methods, usually classified as qualitative and observational, and measurement methods, commonly considered as quantitative and calculative.
In: Representation in Scientific Practice Revisited, edited by Catelijne Coopmans, Janet Vertesi, Michael Lynch, and Steve Woolgar (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), 201-221., Jan 2014
This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice... more This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice and instrumentation of computational biology. Computational biologists work with an impressive array of visual artifacts, including microscopy images, MRI and fMRI, organ atlases, virtual organs, optical imaging of "real" organs, and simulations. Despite the clear disciplinary associations between instrumentation and methods in the field, researchers blend observational, mathematical, and computational practices in ways that demand a rethinking of the quantitative-qualitative distinction. Drawing on the later work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which conceives the ontology of vision and the ontology of nature as co-emergent, the authors develop the idea of observers and observed being in a "circuit" – originally derived from the biological writings of Jakob von Uexküll. The encounter between Merleau-Ponty’s notion of circuitry and recent ontological concerns in STS expands the toolbox for analyzing hybrid scientific practices.
This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice... more This chapter examines the dismantling of the qualitative-quantitative distinction in the practice and instrumentation of computational biology. Computational biologists work with an impressive array of visual artifacts, including microscopy images, MRI and fMRI, organ atlases, virtual organs, optical imaging of "real" organs, and simulations. Despite the clear disciplinary associations between instrumentation and methods in the field, researchers blend observational, mathematical, and computational practices in ways that demand a rethinking of the quantitative-qualitative distinction. Drawing on the later work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which conceives the ontology of vision and the ontology of nature as co-emergent, the authors develop the idea of observers and observed being in a "circuit" – originally derived from the biological writings of Jakob von Uexküll. The encounter between Merleau-Ponty’s notion of circuitry and recent ontological concerns in STS expands the toolbox for analyzing hybrid scientific practices.
This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive r... more This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology.
This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive r... more This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology.
Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology: Contemporary Readings, Aug 21, 2012
The paper “Technics of Thinking” explores the potential of Ernst Cassirer’s notion of symbolic an... more The paper “Technics of Thinking” explores the potential of Ernst Cassirer’s notion of symbolic and, especially, technological mediation, which allows for a fresh take on the old problems of knowledge and mind. Building on Cassirer’s core insight, delivered in the technology essay, concerning how tools ground the sort of mediacy that makes thinking possible, it sketches what is coined as a “differential” approach to knowledge. The resulting approach is at variance in significant respects from the philosophy of difference associated with poststructuralist thinking, and Hoel goes on to compare it, instead, with lines of thinking pursued in the contemporary philosophy of technology, in science and technology studies and in recent “extended mind” approaches within the philosophy of mind.
On several occasions, when he treats of the iconic and general features of cognition, Charles S. ... more On several occasions, when he treats of the iconic and general features of cognition, Charles S. Peirce employs the metaphor of a composite photograph – for example in the manuscript "Telepathy” (c. 1903), which I discuss in this paper. Comparisons between the eye and the photographic camera were, and still are, a commonplace, and by the end of the nineteenth century the method of combining two or more photographic portraits of individual sitters into a composite portrait was regarded as a solution to the problem of producing a general type from particular instances. Even if he occasionally compares the general elements of cognition to composite photographs, Peirce’s understanding of the processes of perception and abstraction goes far beyond the notions suggested by nineteenth-century camera metaphors. The present paper explores the potential of another Peircean pictorial figure – the diagram – for an alternative account of processes of abstraction. The continued relevance of Peirce’s thinking to questions concerning meaning and knowledge has to do with his insistence on an irreducible iconic element in cognition, his rejection of dualism, and, especially, his unique way of integrating the observational and the intellectual, the iconic and the symbolic, which is captured in his notions of the “diagram” and the “diagrammatic.” The present interpretation takes the notion of the “diagrammatic” in a broad sense by treating it as a resource for developing a dynamic, and what I will refer to as a “differential,” account of mediation.
Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for o... more Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for our understanding of scientific knowledge and of the scientific process, and challenges longstanding assumptions and traditional frameworks of thinking of scientific knowledge. Digital media and computational processes challenge our conception of the way in which perception and cognition work in science, of the objectivity of science, and the nature of scientific objects. They bring about new relationships between science, art and other visual media, and new ways of practicing science and organizing scientific work, especially as new visual media are being adopted by science studies scholars in their own practice. This volume reflects on how scientists use images in the computerization age, and how digital technologies are affecting the study of science.
Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for o... more Digitalization and computerization are now pervasive in science. This has deep consequences for our understanding of scientific knowledge and of the scientific process, and challenges longstanding assumptions and traditional frameworks of thinking of scientific knowledge. Digital media and computational processes challenge our conception of the way in which perception and cognition work in science, of the objectivity of science, and the nature of scientific objects. They bring about new relationships between science, art and other visual media, and new ways of practicing science and organizing scientific work. Not least, new visual media are being adopted by science studies scholars in their own practice. This volume gathers together thirteen contributions from science studies scholars from anthropology, visual studies and the sociology, history and philosophy of science, reflecting on the way that scientists use images in this age of computerization, and on the way digital technologies are affecting the study of science.
Contributors were involved with the Oxford University conference in 2011, 'Visualisation in the Age of Computerisation', and include:
Chiara Amrosio
Anne Beaulieu
Andreas Birkbak
Annamaria Carusi
Lisa Cartwright
Matt Edgeworth
Peter Galison
Aud Sissel Hoel
Torben Elgaard Jensen
Michael Lynch
Anders Koed Madsen
Anders Kristian Munk
David Ribes
Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone
Tom Schilling
Alma Steingart
Timothy Webmoor
Steve Woolgar
Albena Yaneva
The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) occupies a unique position in twentieth-century... more The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) occupies a unique position in twentieth-century philosophy, standing as he did on the threshold of what has come to be an ever-widening gulf separating the analytic tradition in philosophy from the continental tradition. Cassirer, who is best known for his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923-9), fought this polarizing tendency both conceptually and in his philosophical practice. Devoting equal attention to the natural sciences and the humanities, Cassirer’s thinking provides perspectives that allow for new connections between disciplines that today appear to be worlds apart. Cassirer’s thought-provoking essay "Form and Technology" (1930), which is here translated into English for the first time, considers the theoretical work performed by material instruments and, in so doing, it ascribes to technology a new dignity as a genuine tool of the mind in equal company with language and art. Germinating in this essay, we find an ambitious program for a new kind of philosophy of technology that resonates with contemporary approaches focusing on material apparatuses, relational and performative processes, and the embodied, embedded, and enacted nature of perception and cognition. Cassirer’s approach, however, is unique in the way that it integrates logical concerns, championed by scientifically oriented philosophers, with the concerns of the historical and cultural sciences. The current revival of interest in Cassirer’s thinking has precisely to do with its potential for bridging unproductive intellectual gaps. "Form and Technology," especially, provides a rich resource for current attempts, across disciplines, to develop new conceptual and ontological frameworks. Cassirer’s classic essay, translated here into English for the first time, is accompanied by ten critical essays that explore its current relevance.
Edited volume consisting of five key texts by Ernst Cassirer translated into Norwegian, including... more Edited volume consisting of five key texts by Ernst Cassirer translated into Norwegian, including the essay "Form und Technik" (1930).
Doctoral project that seeks to establish a theoretical framework that can give a positive account... more Doctoral project that seeks to establish a theoretical framework that can give a positive account of the formative power of images. The first part of the dissertation consists of critical discussions and comparisons of a series of representational theories of images, including semiological and cognitive approaches. Despite the fact that they are usually presented as opposites, my analyses show that semiological and cognitivist approaches share a great many conceptual presuppositions. This means
that they also tend to suffer from the same shortcomings. One major shortcoming is that, due to these conceptual presuppositions, any productive activity on the side of the medium is framed as a source of error. What I argue, in other words, is that none of the approaches analyzed are able to give a positive account of the formative – productive or generative – power of pictures, due to the way that both approaches conceive production in opposition to discovery. The second part of the dissertation proceeds to develop an alternative, nonrepresentational conception of symbolic mediation and knowledge formation. In this part of the thesis I draw on the philosophies of Ernst Cassirer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who give a positive account of the formative power of symbols and the formative power of the body, respectively.
Simondon and Constructivism,” Book symposium on the Philosophy of Simondon: Between Technology an... more Simondon and Constructivism,” Book symposium on the Philosophy of Simondon: Between Technology and Individuation, Philosophy and Technology, 2014
PhD course on operative images (widely construed) to take place at Humboldt University Berlin, 1-... more PhD course on operative images (widely construed) to take place at Humboldt University Berlin, 1-3 March 2017. Organized by: Inge Hinterwaldner, Jacob Wamberg and Aud Sissel Hoel. Key note speakers: Horst Bredekamp, Adrian MacKenzie and Martina Merz.
Marshall McLuhan famously claimed that media are “extensions of man”. More specifically, they cou... more Marshall McLuhan famously claimed that media are “extensions of man”. More specifically, they could be seen as prostheses of the human sensorium and its superstructure in the brain. As has become apparent in the last decades, technological extensions do not merely involve outward projections of pre-given human subjectivities. Instead, both environments and subjectivities are co-shaped through their anchorage in media. Furthermore, media amplify and co-ordinate sense experience and memories far beyond the capacities of the sensorium in its “naked” state. This transdisciplinary PhD course, which is jointly organized by Aarhus University and NTNU, focuses on artworks and aesthetic theories that examine the interaction between the human sensorium and its prostheses. Key questions include: How are the senses reconfigured, distributed and synaesthetically related in different media? Does art still have special responsibilities and capabilities to foreground sensory dimensions that tend to be downplayed by standardized media? Do new media technologies involve a rupture in human sensoria compared to traditional media? If the answer is yes, has this rupture been sufficiently explored by contemporary artists? Do new media technologies and their exploration in avant-garde art enable new alliances between affective and cognitive reactions?
Time and place: PhD course 20-22 January 2016, Aarhus University. Speakers: Siegfried Zielinski (Berlin University of the Arts), Ina Blom (University of Oslo) and Mark B.N. Hansen (Duke University) Deadline for registration: 1 December 2015
Advanced imaging technologies are currently transforming operating rooms into sophisticated augme... more Advanced imaging technologies are currently transforming operating rooms into sophisticated augmented reality studios that explore recent developments in computer visualization, navigation applications, and robotic systems. The new imaging methods promise to increase precision and improve health outcomes. However, as medical diagnosis and therapy grow more dependent on images, the status and roles of these images become increasingly controversial. Image-guided applications reshape clinical practices, impact medical decisions, and transform the relationship between physician and patient. The objective of the project is to develop a new framework that accounts for the active role of images in surgical contexts, providing a systematic basis for handling the impact of these images and assessing their controversial aspects. The project pursues its goal through a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort that involves medical practitioners. It articulates the visual knowledge of medical practitioners by undertaking in-depth operational analyses of three image-guided technologies in current use: the 3D Slicer software application, the da Vinci surgical system, and the CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery system. The analyses introduce the notion of styles of objectivity, which accounts for the key features of these applications, including agency, alignment, and automation, while acknowledging that images have a certain agency and that there is an inner connection between aesthetic and epistemic factors. A second objective of the project is to contribute to conceptual and methodological innovation through a two-way transfer of visual literacies across medicine and humanities/social science domains, by operationalising the visual knowledge of medical practitioners so that it can be fed into visual/media/science studies, and vice versa. This includes developing concepts for new ways of teaching the visual knowledge of medicine.
Neuroimaging enjoys an increasing prominence, not only among medical doctors, neuroscientists and... more Neuroimaging enjoys an increasing prominence, not only among medical doctors, neuroscientists and philosophers, but in society at large. Brain images are deeply compelling, and are claimed to provide windows into the living brain. Yet what these images really show remains a debated issue. The research project Picturing the Brain: Perspectives on Neuroimaging seeks to deepen our understanding of the epistemological roles neuroimaging technologies play in the conduct and communication of medicine and science. The primary objective is, more precisely, to develop a fine-grained understanding of socio-cultural and ethical issues that arise in relation to current applications of these technologies, as they are put to use as cognitive tools, as perceptual prostheses, and as visual rhetoric. To pursue this goal, we will carry out interactionist in-depth studies of the design and use of two key applications of neuroimaging, brain mapping and neuronavigation, proceeding from these to questions concerning computational brain modelling and simulation in science. The project will also investigate prospects and issues relating to the persuasive force of neuroimaging against the background of the current overwhelming demand for brain images. This includes exploring issues relating to neuroenhancement and to the ways that neuroimaging reframes the brain-mind relationship, fostering deep changes in how humans perceive themselves. The project is interdisciplinary and allows researchers with backgrounds in media studies, philosophy, digital media engineering, medical imaging, neuroscience, and creative arts to work together on specific tasks in varying configurations. The research is divided into three work packages focusing, respectively, on cognitive, prosthetic, and rhetorical functions of neuroimaging. A fourth package takes the form of a project laboratory for experimenting with different modes of integrating science, technology and society through artistic interventions.
The New Materialism Training School engages with the emerging and growing trend of new or neo-mat... more The New Materialism Training School engages with the emerging and growing trend of new or neo-materialism in research, art and curatorial practice. The training school will be led by renowned international scholars and members of the COST Action New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on ‘How Matter Comes to Matter’.
This PhD course explores operative images, their practices and ideas, cultural contexts, historic... more This PhD course explores operative images, their practices and ideas, cultural contexts, historical genealogies, and radius of action. When, where and how do images become operative?
Interventional digital media applications such as robotic surgery, remote-controlled vehicles or ... more Interventional digital media applications such as robotic surgery, remote-controlled vehicles or wearable tracking devices pose a challenge to media research methodologically as well as conceptually. How do we go about analyzing operational media, where human and non-human agencies intertwine in seemingly inscrutable ways? This article introduces the method of operational analysis to systematically observe and critically analyze such situated, interventional and multilayered entanglements. Against the background of ongoing efforts to develop operational models for understanding digital media, the method of operational analysis conceptually ascribes to media technologies a real efficacy by approaching them as adaptive mediators. As an operational middle-range approach, it allows to integrate theoretical discussions with considerations of the situatedness, directedness, and task-orientation of operational media. The article presents an analytical toolbox for observing and analyzing digital media operations while simultaneously testing it on a particular application in robotic radiosurgery.
This chapter theorizes the epistemic roles of technology. Focusing on the example of magnetic res... more This chapter theorizes the epistemic roles of technology. Focusing on the example of magnetic resonance imaging, it approaches scientific instruments as adaptive mediators. The notion of adaptive mediator is drawn from the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon. The proposed approach aligns with accounts that historicize the conditions of knowledge but differs by pushing into an ecological and operational conceptual terrain. Challenging the dichotomy between sensibility and understanding, the ecologicizing move has the effect of putting technical mediation at the center of epistemology. The chapter explores the philosophical implications of replacing the subject/object model with an organism/environment model, showing how the latter fosters a new notion of ecological relationality that differs in philosophically significant respects from the poststructuralist relationality that underpins much science studies research. It proceeds to examine the epistemological implications of ecological rel...
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Articles by A. S. Aurora Hoel
Contributors were involved with the Oxford University conference in 2011, 'Visualisation in the Age of Computerisation', and include:
Chiara Amrosio
Anne Beaulieu
Andreas Birkbak
Annamaria Carusi
Lisa Cartwright
Matt Edgeworth
Peter Galison
Aud Sissel Hoel
Torben Elgaard Jensen
Michael Lynch
Anders Koed Madsen
Anders Kristian Munk
David Ribes
Kathryn de Ridder-Vignone
Tom Schilling
Alma Steingart
Timothy Webmoor
Steve Woolgar
Albena Yaneva
that they also tend to suffer from the same shortcomings. One major shortcoming is that, due to these conceptual presuppositions, any productive activity on the side of the medium is framed as a source of error. What I argue, in other words, is that none of the approaches analyzed are able to give a positive account of the formative – productive or generative – power of pictures, due to the way that both approaches conceive production in opposition to discovery. The second part of the dissertation proceeds to develop an alternative, nonrepresentational conception of symbolic mediation and knowledge formation. In this part of the thesis I draw on the philosophies of Ernst Cassirer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who give a positive account of the formative power of symbols and the formative power of the body, respectively.
Time and place: PhD course 20-22 January 2016, Aarhus University.
Speakers: Siegfried Zielinski (Berlin University of the Arts), Ina Blom (University of Oslo) and Mark B.N. Hansen (Duke University)
Deadline for registration: 1 December 2015