With the digital revolution, the photographic paradigm of the image has become supplemented with an algorithmic paradigm. The result is a new kind of image capable to gather, compute, merge and display heterogeneous data in real time; no longer a solid representation of a solid world but a softimage—a program-mable database view. In today’s neurosciences and machine vision, the very concept of “image” as a stable visual entity becomes questionable. As a result, the authors propose that the need exists to radically expand the definition of image and abandon its humanist and subjective frame: The posthuman image—which the authors propose to call the postimage —is a collaborative image created through the process of distributed vision involving humans, animals and machines.

This article presents the theoretical framework, conceptual background, hypotheses and aims of ongoing research on the place of the image in digital culture. The author investigates how the new generic mode of display, the screen, affects the conception and the production of images, and how the myriad forms, uses and mobilities of urban screens contribute to the constitution of the shared space through which images and citizens circulate and communicate: the augmented city.