"This talk reflects on the role of images under capitalist realism, understood not as mere representation but as an atmosphere that shapes what we can imagine and desire. Drawing on Mark Fisher, I discuss how capitalism colonizes time and desire, producing loops of repetition that foreclose alternatives. In resonance with Deleuze and Simondon, however, I suggest that the virtual persists as an inexhaustible potential that resists capture. The Japanese theorist Azuma Hiroki further enriches this perspective with his idea of “game-like realism,” where images circulate as recombinable codes within popular media such as anime and video games. By bringing these voices together, the talk proposes that even within systems of repetition and commodification, images can function as vectors of possibility—cracks where collective imagination and post-capitalist desire might still emerge."