Images as a Compression Mechanism of Behavior
In Unit 2, I focused on how images operate as a compression mechanism. A seemingly insignificant picture may conceal complex behavioral pathways and social structures. For example, a selfie may consist of a fleeting moment of clicking a button. Yet, it compresses dozens of behavioral steps: makeup application, imitating standard poses, repeated photo-shooting and selection, the use of filters and photo editing apps, posting, and selective presentation. This “compression of behavior” has given me a new understanding of images.
I seek to uncover the social structures and operational logic behind images. Through simplified visual forms, images compress and translate entire sets of social behaviors, values, and identity paradigms. They are no longer simply “objects to be viewed” but rather “mechanisms to be performed.” In this context, I chose Harun Farocki’s documentary film, Ein Bild (1983), as a key reference.
The industrial mechanism and illusion construction behind the image
Harun Farocki’s documentary, “An Image” (Ein Bild, 1983), focuses on the photoshoot for a Playboy magazine cover. Shot over four days at Playboy’s photography studio in Munich, the film starts with the construction of the set and continues. Without music or narration, the film maintains an extremely calm observational stance, using long, minimally edited shots to capture the entire process of image construction: the model’s constantly adjusted pose, the photographer’s meticulous lighting planning, the editor’s specific visual requirements, and everyone’s intensive collaboration around a single image. Farocki’s lens didn’t focus on the final photograph, but rather on the image’s production process, allowing the audience to recognize that vision is not a free act of observation, but rather a set of viewing mechanisms shaped by the media industry and power relations. This perspective provided me with insights into how images are organized, manufactured, and regulated.
The photographer in the film keeps moving slowly around the model and props, as if performing a ritualistic act. This reminds me of what Marx (Marx,1867) called “commodity fetishism”: commodities are no longer simply objects, but an illusory reflection of human labor relations. The same is true for images – what we see is a highly artificial production process, but it aims to create a visual effect that “seems natural and instantly captured.” This imbalance even evokes a certain absurdity, as the image maker’s goal is no longer to convey reality but to create a “commodity representation” that evokes consumer desire.
Harun Farocki, An Image (Ein Bild), 1983. Film still.
But I think Farocki(1983) is not just revealing the technology and labor behind the scenes. More importantly, through this narrative documentary approach, he makes us rethink the relationship between images and consumption. We see the entire image construction process with our own eyes. No matter how many behind-the-scenes pictures we see, no matter how advanced the image processing technology is, we still believe in the emotions and stories conveyed by the final image. Even if the illusion is exposed, it still works.
From image construction to image execution
“An Image” is a highly controlled and negotiated structure, and it is also a microcosm of an entire visual economy. This work prompted me to ponder: if images are constructed, can they also be “performed”? On social media, numerous images aren’t simply viewed; they are constantly reproduced, imitated, and replayed in the process of consumption. In other words, each of our seemingly unconscious actions may be responding to a pre-existing visual template—an image script that has been designed and is waiting to be executed.
This behavior is often executed through highly formatted visual language. For example, emotional selfies of “side face + natural light + retro filter”; shopping display photos of “checking in front of the mirror + no expression + lots of bags”; or life photos of “by the window + coffee + casually opened pages of a book”. These image combinations are highly recognizable and easily copied and applied, gradually solidifying into the “formula template” of visual culture. The platform’s algorithmic mechanism continuously promotes these images and maximizes their exposure, unknowingly strengthening users’ dependence on these visual paradigms.
I seek to reveal how images influence the viewer’s movements, reactions, and social behavior. I realize that people are not just attracted by images, but are constantly imitating them, shaping them, and becoming them. Ultimately, the images they create become a script for social behavior.
Contemporary imagery constitutes an executable visual script
In the past, an image might have been produced by a professional team in a studio, destined for a one-way output in fixed media like magazines and advertisements. Today, however, images circulate through decentralized, platform-based, and individualized mechanisms. They no longer rely on professional producers or incur excessive costs, but are instead generated, published, consumed, and responded to by everyday users.
This shift has transformed images from mere expressions or documents into triggers and templates for social behaviour. Selfies, outfit photos and check-in photos convey more than just the content of the image on the surface; they conceal ‘executable visual paradigms’ — behavioural scripts that can be imitated and replicated by others. In their radically simplified and recognisable form, these images convey instructions on how to adopt a certain identity, thereby shaping people’s actions, choices and modes of identification beyond the visual realm. “Images that are merely meant to be contemplated or watched disinterestedly, or that function as either a ‘window on the world’ or a ‘mirror to the self’, have to define themselves” (Elsaesser & Alberro, 2014).
As the information society develops rapidly, more and more behaviours, including emotional experiences, are centred around the social logic of ‘shooting—publishing—feedback’. In this process, images are no longer merely passive representations, but instead begin to possess a certain ‘image performativity’: by constructing imitable images, they encourage viewers to take on an active role. This image performativity transforms visual culture from observation into action, continuously shaping behaviour into visual templates.
I won’t be satisfied with merely analysing the visual style or dissemination strategies of images. Instead, I wonder: how do these images gradually become paradigms of behaviour? And how do we maintain a certain socially expected ‘self’ by enacting these paradigms? Social media is a platform where visual culture is highly concentrated, and it is precisely here that images transform from ‘objects to be viewed’ to ‘scripts to be imitated’. I aim to understand the mechanisms of this transformation, and through practice simulate and reveal its structure.
Reference:
Farocki, H. (1983) Ein Bild (An Image). [Online]. Harun Farocki Filmproduktion. Available at: https://www.harunfarocki.de/films/1980s/1983/an-image.html (Accessed: 22 October 2025).
Marx, K. (1867) Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1. Penguin Classics.
Elsaesser, T. and Alberro, A. (2014) ‘Farocki: A Frame for the No Longer Visible — Thomas Elsaesser in Conversation with Alexander Alberro’, eflux Journal, 59, [Online]. Available at: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/59/61111/farocki-a-frame-for-the-no-longer-visible-thomas-elsaesser-in-conversation-with-alexander-alberro?utm_source=chatgpt.com (Accessed: 22 Oct. 2025).
List of Figures
Figure 1. Still from Harun Farocki’s An Image (1983), showing behind-the-scenes construction of a Playboy cover shoot.
Source: Harun Farocki Filmproduktion (1983) [Online]. Available at: https://www.harunfarocki.de/films/1980s/1983/an-image.html (Accessed: 22 October 2025).
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