Metaimage: The image beyond visual representation

Abstract

Advances in technologies and digital media give rise to complex apparatuses and systems increasingly implicated in image production processes. In the context of computational and algorithmic revolution, computational systems can produce images and interpret distinct processes related to them. In this sense, we examine the notion of self-reference as a contemporary phenomenon of image and which implications are related to the emergence of new logic and functions of representation. Then, we draw attention to the need to expand the idea of image as a visual representation presenting the notion of metaimage. From a systemic and semiotic perspective to image, we underline metaimage as a cultural phenomenon stretched by the digital culture. The paper discusses inter-transdisciplinary relevant works in the Arts, Design, and Media that feature the metaimage phenomena. It highlights the scope of the technical image's systems, functions, and positions through technological transformations: from a visual representation to process and operation.Metaimage. Self-referentiality. Digital culture. Creation processes.