Conceptualizing the Bio-Techno Image in Gilbert Simondon’s Thought

In this article, Gilbert Simondon’s Theory of the Image is used to problematize the imagistic approach in digital art. To think of the image in art, science, and technology, and in digital practices such as artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, and responsive objects and milieus, we need to review what we understand by image. This calls for a broader approach to the digital and algorithmic image—sometimes excessively technical and instrumentalist, but also at times decontextualized from cultural problematizations. As such, I propose the bio-techno image approach based on the ontogenetic conception of the Simondonian image that consists of a four-phased cycle comprising biological, perceptive, affective-emotive, and inventive aspects. In this perspective, we can no longer speak of the image as only mental or pictorial, and as a result I feel compelled to think of it in terms of a psychosomatic and psychosocial image. This conceptualization of the image engages with contemporary techno-aesthetic experiences, where technologies become incorporated into the organic body, giving rise to bio-techno images. Hence, the image appears as an intermediary reality, as both germ and product, in the relation between the individual and the milieu, which associates everything from the biological to the technological. Thus, in conceptualizing the bio-techno image, I explore the continuity bridging biology and technology in Gilbert Simondon’s thought.