Jussi Parikka – Operational Images. From the Visual to the Invisual

#1 min Michal Šimůnek

6. 11. 2025

Jussi Parikka. Operational Images: From the Visual to the Invisual. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023.
Jussi Parikka. Operational Images: From the Visual to the Invisual. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023.
#49 Talk TogetherReviewAI

Unlike photography, which captures light for the human eye, operational images serve as data for algorithms. Machines autonomously create and utilise them within data and platform infrastructures; they are not representations for human observers but rather operations: recording, control, management, and prediction. Parikka demonstrates how these images are used across various fields and epochs for measurement, identification, tracking, navigation or even destruction. Given that they are now a key part of everyday reality and a structuring element of our relationship with the world, it's crucial that we learn to understand their infrastructural nature and fully realise that most images today are not formed by records of the “visible” but rather by “invisible” layers of data and algorithms that establish a new political geography of data.

Text: Michal Šimůnek

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Michal Šimůnek

works at FAMU and the University of Economics in Prague. His research focuses on the history and theory of photography, visual culture and consumer culture. His teaching and research focuses on vernacular photography, operative images, technical apparatuses and consumer communities. He is currently involved in the project Operational Images and Visual Culture: Media Archaeological Investigations.

#49 Talk Together

This issue explores language – its forms, possibilities, and limits. We look at how we communicate in the digital space, how the language of artificial intelligence changes our notions of creativity, and how visual images can replace words. You will discover why language is never neutral and how it shapes identity, creates inequalities, and opens paths to liberation. The issue features a reflection by bell hooks, the artistic practice of Eszter Magyar, projects documenting the Roma community in Brno, and visual essays by Claudia Larcher and Tabor Robak. The magazine presents language as a tool of communication, power, and resistance and invites you to reflect on what it truly means to talk to one another today.

How to Look at the World: Václav Kopecký and Milan Mazúr Open New Exhibitions at Fotograf Zone Gallery

#4 min Fotograf Zone

How to Look at the World: Václav Kopecký and Milan Mazúr Open New Exhibitions at Fotograf Zone Gallery

Fotograf zone ExhibitionVisual Culture

Photography as a guide to understanding today’s world and video art as a form of storytelling with a social dimension — these two approaches will meet on 20 November at Fotograf Zone Gallery in Prague, which will open two new exhibitions at once. In collaboration with Fotograf Contemporary, the gallery will present Whole World Catalog, a solo exhibition by photographer Václav Kopecký. In the second part of the gallery, visitors will see Eva, a new video project by director Milan Mazúr, shown publicly for the very first time.

Prague Hosts Leading Voices in AI: Creativity, Technology, and Art in Dialogue

#3 min Fotograf Zone

Prague Hosts Leading Voices in AI: Creativity, Technology, and Art in Dialogue

Fotograf zone AI ForumFAMU Studio

Experts and leading voices of the international AI scene will once again gather in Prague for the Fotograf Zone AI Forum. On Tuesday, November 4, the hall of Studio FAMU will transform into a platform inviting interdisciplinary collaboration and open discussion on the possibilities of using AI in art, technology, and social development. Don’t miss an evening that will reveal where our relationship with artificial intelligence is heading in the near future.

Daguerreotype Excursions into the Present

#15 min Michal Šimůnek

Daguerreotype Excursions into the Present

#46 TourismHistoryNarrative

Photography and the tourist set out almost simultaneously on a journey through history on the threshold of modernity. They walk together and transform each other through mutual interactions. I follow these changes from the perspective of the tourist gaze, asking myself where the tourist’s gaze is directed from and what it is directed at. I search for answers in the story of a single daguerreotype of the Niagara Falls, captured in 1840 by Hugh Lee Pattinson.