Visual Pictures and Digital Technologies in the Digital Anthropocene: Development, Analysis, and Critical Reflection

This paper explores the favorable effects of visual pictures and digital technology, while critically reflecting on visual pictures and digital technology to warn humans of potential threats we may confront in the Digital Anthropocene. We cite W.J.T. Mitchell’s theory of the “pictorial turn” and Don Ihde’s phenomenology of technology to explore the development of visual pictures and the relationship between humans and visual pictures and technology, respectively. Our study focused on the visual pictures and application of digital technologies through pertinent literature and case studies. Based on these explorations, we advanced a novel viewpoint termed “non-anthropocentric intelligent technology-oriented design,” aiming to reveal the subject-object relationship between humans and technologies and how humans can escape the hegemonic control of digital beings. The current research indicates that with the support of digital technologies, visual pictures are characterized by multidimensionality, diversity, and temporally-spatially adaptability. Immersive design, formed by the deep integration of visual pictures and technologies, brings humans a more abundant visual experience. In addition, AI-assisted design also unleashes humans’ creativity and improves effi-ciency. Nevertheless, as the transmission of the era of “the mimetic domain” from “the picture domain” intensifies the digital gap, excessive visual pictures impose high visual pressure and cognitive crisis on humans. AI-assisted design also replaces low-quality labor and restructures design teams. However, the subject-object rela-tion between humans and visual pictures and technologies is gradually blurring in the progress of digitization. Maintaining humanity amid the digital wave of visual pictures and technologies is to maintain humans’ free will and adhere to ethical principles in design. One crucial future direction is to explore the ethical dimensions of digital picture production and the intricate relationship between digital technologies and human embodiment.