image does not represents, operates.

We could say, that the 20th Century was, by far, the century of the image. From photography to cybernetics, the visual culture was, gradually, becoming more present and gaining more strength as the technologies of information became massive. The switch, for example, from painting to photography, could be understood as the first modern attempt to show reality instead of representing it. The two great wars also marked a new reconfiguration in the way that humans approached the image. During the war, images not only functioned as the representation of a thing, but operated on the object; think, for example, on the radar.

There is an image, however, that influenced a whole generation and affected the way human beings understood themselves. Apollo 8 should not be remembered only for being the first human placed in lunar orbit. Before this event, the images of the planet Earth as a whole had only been captured, more or less faithfully, by robotic probes. Apollo 8 must also be remembered for being the first to take a picture that would change the course of history. As they approached the ship to the lunar horizon, astronaut Billy Anders, photographed for the first time in the history of mankind, the Earth in its fully dimension. Kristen Erickson of the headquarters of NASA, described the image as ¨ (...) the first time in history that humankind looked at Earth and saw not a jigsaw puzzle of states and countries on a flat map, but a whole planet, without limits imposed by borders. A fragile sphere of dazzling beauty floating alone in a dangerous vacuum. There was a home worthy of careful stewardship".