Decommissioning the Decisive Moment: Duration and Violence in Computational Image Culture

Decommissioning the Decisive Moment: Duration and Violence in Computational Image Culture examines how contemporary computational imaging challenges the classical photographic concept of the decisive moment. Traditionally understood as the capture of a singular instant of meaning, the decisive moment depends on assumptions about punctual time, human perception, and authorial control. This paper argues that these assumptions no longer correspond to the conditions of contemporary image production.

Drawing on examples from smartphone imaging, predictive buffering, and algorithmic circulation, the essay proposes that images now operate within continuous computational systems rather than isolated moments of capture. Structured as a diptych, the paper combines media theory with a speculative literary reading of Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream to explore how infrastructural systems reshape time, visibility, and agency. The paper introduces the concept of Circuit Capture, describing the collapse of image production and circulation into a single infrastructural process within the open-world environment of the internet.