The Reversal of Perceptual Assumptions in the Age of Synthetic Media

Original Japanese title:映像の世紀の終焉 ― 合成映像時代における視覚受容前提の反転 ― This concept note proposes the idea of the “reversal of perceptual assumptions” to describe a structural transformation in how visual media are received. During the twentieth century, photography and film were generally treated as optical traces of physical events. Images were presumptively received as evidence. In the age of synthetic media—technologies capable of generating or transforming images without requiring physical referents—visual media are no longer received as evidence by default, but under an assumption of potential fictionality. This shift represents not merely a problem of misinformation, but a transformation in the perceptual and epistemic foundations of image reception. The paper characterizes this turning point as the end of an era in which images autonomously functioned as evidence, with implications for trust, consensus formation, and the public sphere.