A Preliminary Inventory of the Transformations of Scientific Imaging
A Preliminary Inventory of the Transformations of Scientific Imaging

Summary/Abstract: Imaging technologies “transform” an object of study into something we can visually perceive in the form of an image. In science and medicine, imaging technologies enact a large variety of transformations, sometimes changing the spatiality of an object of study (e.g., making a small thing big enough to see, bringing close something far away, etc.), or changing its temporality (e.g., providing a picture of a single moment). I make use of the postphenomenological philosophical perspective, and in particular the work of its founder, Don Ihde, for guidance in exploring the different ways that imaging technologies transform our world in the process of rendering it available to visual perception. The main project of this paper is to develop a provisional categorization of a large variety of image transformations common to science and medicine.

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