In this article, you can read the editorial from our last newsletter of this year written by Eidolon-editor Endre Cserna, which was sent out on April 4, 2025. We publish our monthly editor's letters, in which we reflect on recent events, approximately two weeks after the newsletter is out.

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This February, we held our second international talk event at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. The videos of the lectures are published weekly on our YouTube channel and are also available below in this newsletter. The first talk we published is by writer, curator, and academic Ben Burbridge, author of Photography After Capitalism—a book we warmly recommend! In his lecture, he introduces the idea that contemporary visual culture is a two-faced Janus: everyday images function as both representational aesthetic phenomena and networked computational entities. Image and data go hand in hand—the mundane, banal photos we take of ourselves and each other, and share with family, friends, and followers, are part of a vast cybernetic infrastructure that largely remains invisible. The inner workings of platforms, along with the corporations that own them, operate beyond the public eye and often beyond the reach of legislation.

Ada Lovelace (Augusta Ada Byron) in 1843 or 1850, a rare daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet.
Picture taken in Claudet’s studio near Regent’s Park in London
Source: Wikipedia

The complex, diverse, and rich history of computation and cybernetics remains largely unknown and is not part of standard historical education, despite its profound impact on our lives today. While everyone learns about Lord Byron, Don Juan, and the Romantic Movement, the revolutionary work of his daughter, mathematician Ada Lovelace, and her contributions to the concept of the mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, remain far less recognized. A similar case is that of Alan Turing. The depth of his pioneering work on machine intelligence and the foundational progress he made in the field remain far less frequently explored in their full complexity, even though the tragic story of his prosecution for homosexuality—leading to his forced hormone treatment and his untimely death—has become more widely known in recent years. The cruelty of the anti-LGBTQ laws of the time and his legacy, symbolized by the half-eaten apple found beside his deathbed,is said to be commemorated on every Apple product, with the company’s logo even featuring a rainbow color scheme until 1999, as a queer symbol. Although the corporation denies any intentional connection, the quasi-appropriated symbol (and the legend) endure.

While the tech oligarchs of our woeful times are either widely worshipped by the techbros or profoundly despised by everyone else, the true historic figures of the digital and technological revolution remain unsung. Jobs, Musk, and Zuckerberg belong to a kind of unholy pantheon, but the names of Wiener, McCulloch, and Hebb, for example, ring only faint bells—no matter how we judge their work, impact, and contribution to contemporary life. This list goes on and on: while a deeper understanding of our shapeshifting world and the intricacies of cybernetic capitalism remains largely confined to academics, chronically online nerds, and some niche, critical subcultures, the impact of this economic and political reality only grows more gargantuan and impactful. In fact, reality (as an abstract term for all things and facts existing and interacting in our world) has become deeply and inextricably intertwined with the networks of cyberspace.

The Ratio Club was a small, informal dining club of psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who met to discuss issues in cybernetics. Alan Turing is the first person sitting on the left.
Source: Wikipedia

In the case of contemporary everyday photography – please excuse my cybercritical rant – one of the most important things we can do is make sense of what is happening and how it is unfolding. This involves not only the aesthetic and visual aspects and their consequences but also the broader economic and political, almost hidden, repercussions of everyday imaging technologies: how data collection, surveillance, techno-feudalist platforms, and their personalised propaganda are eroding and obliterating our democracies—or at least what is left of them.

People (and even the Easter Bunny) protesting Facebook outside the U.S. Capitol, April 10, 2018
Credit: Victoria Sanchez/ABC7

Our publications from the previous month, published in Eidolon Journal, aim to contribute to this work. Beyond the aforementioned topics, they often discuss and present optimistic alternatives, potentially functional practices, and forward-thinking interpretations that are useful for our communities. To wrap up on a more hopeful note, remember the words of American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently.”

Warm regards,
Endre Cserna

You can find all previous editor's letters at this link.