電腦運算時代的圖像

The Self-Meaning of Image in the Computer Age

圖像、藝術與社會的關係是什麼？電腦的引入與廣泛地使用如何改變了這三者的關係？本文首先鋪陳圖像具有自身的意義所可能具有的理論結構，接著，我們將簡要地在西方歷史演化的進程中區分部族社會、古代文明、現代社會這三種社會自我組織的型態，並說明圖像在此三者中如何將自身穩定成一種溝通上的自我形式，接續上面的認識，我們聚焦在現代社會這個時期，指出「科技物」的大量生產如何在論述上為原本以靜態圖像來再現世界的這種方式提出挑戰，並同時影響藝術理論整體架構往媒介方向的偏移。接著在第四節，我們將會處理電腦在如何的媒介史意義上可能成為下個社會的主導性媒介，而最後一節我們將討論以演算法為內涵的程式這個電腦的核心能力為圖像與相關的研究開啟了什麼樣的問題空間。

What is the relationship among image, art, and society? How do the prevalence and advance of computer alter this relationship? This article proceeds in five parts. The first section depicts the theoretical framework of image's self-meaning. The second section distinguishes between tribal society, ancient civilization, and modern society, thereby explicates the ways that image stabilizes itself into a form of self communication in the three types of society. The third section focuses on modern society, and points out that how the mass production of "technological things" discursively challenges the way of representing the real world through static images. The fourth section investigates that, in what kind of media historical meaning, computer may become the predominant medium of the next society. The final section discusses the studies of algebraic language of computer program as an image, and concludes with the suggestions for further research that they can provide.