Abstract

Infrared (IR) thermography is a method of temperatures «visibilization»: it combines optical and electronic technologies to create a «visuo-thermal scene», which is a photo-like output that translates a stream of transcribed information about radiant heat into operational and post-optical pictoriality. The thermal imager generates para-photographic images as an integral part of temperatures measurement procedure, clearly standing apart from other heat measuring instruments. Thermal visibilization enables specific onto-epistemic conceptions (Barad 2007) of the phenomenon of infrared irradiation and determines how to imagine and intra-act with it. To translate thermal radiation into visible objects compels us to conceptualize heat itself within the framework offered by the visual