What is an image? A copy, a representation of a pre-existing object—like a map to a territory. Yet today, in the light of quantum physics and information theory, the image is what seems to anticipate —if not to ‘project’ its own object. The lecture aims to question the notion of the image as a mere copy or representation—a Platonic eidolon—in light of a physics of communication, and to investigate this ‘projectual’ nature by thinking through an architectonics of the image. Rather than a mapping or a faithful copy of an original, the image then becomes a ground of negotiation between what would otherwise be mutually alien domains, a room for an exchange that is neither merely symbolic nor economic, but nevertheless mathematical. Through this lens, the lecture aims to think through how such a shift can be helpful in rethinking not only cartography but also heritage and conservation by making room within these practices for an idea of loss.