First volume of the new series “Concepts of the Digital Image”, edited by Matthias Bruhn, Kathrin Friedrich, Lydia Kähny and Moritz Queisner.

The digital image is becoming adaptive: portable media and interactive applications are increasingly incorporating processor and sensor technology that enables images to adapt to their environment, reacting to inputs and situations in real time. Image, body and space are interconnected and synchronised, with long-term consequences for human perception, actions and decisions. The expanded possibilities entail new dependencies on technologies and on the aesthetic and operational specifications of those who design and provide these technologies. This volume outlines a new kind of images with the help of concrete case studies and aims to make clear where and to what extent ‘adaptive images’ have already penetrated our technologised everyday life and our working world.