Abstract

In the traditional conception of the relation between the viewer and the image, a divide is artificially drawn between the unitary I that does the processing and the other that is processed. In this relation, the me-subject and the it-object exist as fully-determined, stand-alone entities that are linked by a Cartesian mechanical model of perception. Based on the work of Whitehead, Simondon and Deleuze, we propose a novel conception of the role of the viewer which discards the pre-constituted spectatorial “I” as an entity and replaces the linear causal chain of perception by a remapping of the experiential milieu where viewers become one with the image-world within which they are enveloped. Environmental, technological and experiential territorializations together constitute the circumstances for an associated milieu, which allows the knower-known relation to be expressed. Consequently, the perceptual process is seen not as the interpretation and synthesizing of sensory input but as the succession of percepts and affects where pure sensation is the spontaneous ultimate content as image. As such, we can articulate relation in terms of the operation of passing from the objectivity of the data to the subjectivity of the actual occasion as an imagistic process.