The New Lives of Images: Digital Ecologies and Anthropocene Imaginaries in More-Than-Human Worlds

In this ambitious new work, eco-philosopher and cultural theorist Adrian Ivakhiv presents an incisive new way of thinking about images and imagination. Drawing upon an immense range of materials, Ivakhiv reassesses the place of imagination in cultural life, analyzing how people have interacted with images in the past and the ways that digital media are profoundly altering these relationships today. The book contributes powerfully to the study of visual culture and digital media, and provides provocative interpretations of a range of important artists and media movements: from the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky, the ambitious multi-screen installations of John Akomfrah, the abstract art of Swedish spiritualist Hilma af Klint, and the Afrofuturism of jazz musicians like Sun Ra and poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs, to the ever-expanding universe of animal videos on YouTube. Along the way, the book delves into animacy and religious imagery, iconophilia and iconoclasm, divination and prophecy, ＂truthiness＂ and ＂enchantment networks,＂ online communities and artificial intelligence, the political and affective economies of digital media, and the role of utopian futurism in the present ＂climate-colonial Anthropocene＂ predicament. The result is a vital contribution toward a more empowering conception of the creative imagination and its possibilities in today’s emerging digital ecology.

Adrian Ivakhiv is J. S. Woodsworth Chair in the Humanities, Simon Fraser University and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Thought and Culture, University of Vermont. His most recent book is Shadowing the Anthropocene: Eco-Realism for Turbulent Times (2018)