Beyond the Image Machine A History of Visual Technologies

The Image Machine is an eloquent and stimulating argument for an alternative history of scientific and technological imaging systems. Drawing on a range of hitherto marginalized examples from the world of visual representation and the work of key theorists and thinkers, such as Bruno Latour, Michel de Certeau, Marshall McLuhan and Roland Barthes, David Tomas offers a disarticulated and deviant view of the relationship between archaic and new representations, imaging technologies and media induced experience. Rejecting the possibility of absolute forms of knowledge, Tomas shows how new media technologies have changed the nature of established disciplines. The book develops Tomas's own theory of transcultural space and makes several original contributions to current debates on the culture of advanced technology.