Image information

Image information is an interdisciplinary direction of research, created towards the end of the seventies by dr Marek Ostrowski, which preceded the age of computers and the information science revolution. It is based on the natural foundations of the functioning of an image as a source of information on the environment and at the same time as a mean of transmission. An image is the most universal language of cognition and expression. Transformations of image information begin at the quantum level and then through transformations at the chemical, molecular and biological levels create in the nervous system a cerebral sensation that is an immanent image of reality that can be analysed by methods from the field of psychology. A significant factor in the understanding of the role of an image in the development of the civilisation is the treating of an image as such as a natural phenomenon, the cognition of the natural basis of the evolution of the senses of sight and corresponding evolution of the information processing system - our brain.

In 1997, this concept was honoured with an individual award from the Minister of Education.

The assumptions of the concept served as basis for the creation of a unique Scientific Photography Study at the Faculty of Biology, the Warsaw University, which later became the Image Information Study. Postgraduate Studies in Scientific Photography, organised and conducted by him, were completed over a period of 10 years by almost 350 students, who defended a similar number of post-graduate dissertations. The Study was enlisted in the European network of schools with similar education profile. Its research and didactic activities were honoured with many awards. After 20 years of activity the Study was closed. At present the founder of the Study is expanding his research activities yet more independently and at the same time lectures at the University.

The treatises that present the based on merits assumptions of the natural concepts of image information, its phylogenetic and ontogenic evolution as well as transformations accompanying the transmission of information in well developed biological systems include: Image information - an academic textbook (collective work: A. Kopsztyński, J. Petykiewicz, M. Mikołajczyk, K. Rosiński, A. Zaleski, S. Jabłonka, M. Ostrowski, J. Młodkowski, M. Młodkowski, edited by M. Ostrowski) WNT 1992, cover 1 and Image Information - the Strategy of Evolution? - M. Ostrowski (ed. SCI-ART, currently SAMPER, 1996).