"The exponential growth of image production has created a condition in which images no longer depict, but organise. The Image by Proxy introduces mass-microimaging as a framework for understanding how images function as infrastructural agents: automated and recursive, embedded in the logics of the attention economy. In this regime, visibility is pre-configured rather than chosen. Images operate by proxy, through algorithmic substitution and systemic validation. Their proliferation erodes perception, replacing memory and history with a perpetual present, while authenticity fades in a circulation where images reference only each other. This book addresses the epistemic, ethical and political consequences of such automation. What forms of thought and responsibility remain possible when images dictate the conditions of recognition? How do infrastructures of imaging extend beyond representation to shape the terms of social, political and ecological existence? Drawing on philosophy, media theory and cultural critique, The Image by Proxy argues that imaging has become the fastest-growing system of production on the planet, yet its control does not reside in any network of ethical accountability. Proxy images do not merely reflect perception; they structure reality. The book challenges the belief that visual abundance ensures democratic access, showing instead how mass-microimaging narrows thought, compresses experience and consolidates power in favour of the machinic infrastructures that sustain platform capitalism."--