The Centrality of the Image

As capital colonizes cyberspace, we are reminded of Negroponte's prognostication of the shift between systems of exchange based on atoms (material) to one of bits (information)[5]. This follows Baudrillard's assertion relating that the media, and especially the digital society is one that is based on the simulacrum of the object translating into the double for the thing itself [6], and exhibits full equivalence for any exchange of use value. In fact, the image itself has now become a symbol of exchange, as many societies shifted from hard coin to promissory note. Western society is changing from an economy of symbols of exchange to a system of symbols for exchange. The material becomes less of an issue as the real is increasingly placed in the realm of the informational object.