The Networked Image

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Our definition of an ‘image’ here is not just a picture but any sensory impression, percept or idea. Because of the multivalent, embedded and contingent nature of networked media, the image no longer has such a strong representational or poetic function of its own. So how does it now function in contemporary culture and how can we give it a new power?


The internet is the largest network of desire for wealthy countries. From net porn to ebay, these desires are usually encountered in a diffused and piecemeal fashion, one page at a time. How can we reveal these unconscious desires for cultural intervention?

One of our approaches is to examine the context we can give the image. How much can be put under software control and how much can be gleaned from an existing context, its ownership or its accessibility?

Another approach is the aesthetic of the network. Is the aesthetic of montage still relevant? We wish not just to reduce the image to content that is ‘managed’ or ‘appropriated’ by an ‘organising principle’ but part of the structure itself where it can find a richer function.

We have found that picture based content is much more attractive and accessible to peoples coming from marginal locations then content that is dependent on predominantly English text.