Disclaimer: This is a part of the final project towards my Master’s degree at Goldsmiths, University of London, which was submitted in August 2024. I am fully aware this article is not good in many ways, and this is still an ongoing research project.
It is easily observable that screens exist everywhere and at anytime. This thesis argues that screens, especially screens connected with computational devices, are relational, operational, material, and technological objects, which are neither neutral displaying machines nor standalone inputting plates. This is a kind of intra-cipient object where contradictions and counterparts are dissolved – from input to output, from public to personal, from physical to digital, from real to virtual, and from eternal to ephemeral – making screens into a sort of techniques that so versatile and thus so pervasive and persuasive.
To testify to the above argument, this thesis wants to highlight the screen is not something brand new but a kind of ruptured continuation. For one thing, the continuation refers to earlier practices developed hundreds of years ago, including linear single perspective, and camera obscura, as they are preconditions of contemporary screens. For another, by stating the screen as “ruptured”, this thesis tries to underline how the screen has changed compared to its preconditions – it acts like a cybernetic interface as an extension of the digital objects.
The structure of this thesis will go as above. It will begin with a review of a series of literature that talks about how screens and their possible relatives or peripherals are being studied from the aspects of ontologies, existences, and materialities in the fields of philosophy, media studies, art theories, and curatorial studies. In the main body of this thesis, I will propose the screen is at the intersection of its predecessors and current conditions. This will be initially done by examining linear single perspective, and camera obscura, describing their processes of making, their relations with perceptions, and making comparisons with contemporary screens. Following this, the rest of the texts will focus on the practices of contemporary screens and give an interpretation of screens as cybernetic interfaces, with the beginning of recalling the screen as a verb. In the end, this thesis wants to conclude screens as cultural techniques that are fundamental to daily life and envisage the possibilities of screens in media and computational arts.
Literature Review
Before making any statements in the main body of this thesis, it would be necessary to have a clear definition of the screen this thesis always refers to. To be concise, the thesis wants to highlight a kind of screen that is neither a piece of furniture covers something behind them, nor the visual screens in the old days, such as televisions and films, but screens that connected with computational devices where information are digitalised, becoming data and thus able to reference recursively, manipulated instantly, shared remotely – making screens a kind of convergence spot for them.
There are numerous research publications about screens themselves, interrogating screens from perspectives such as philosophy and media theory/studies. For example, Lucas Introna and Fernando Ilharco[1] take a phenomenological aspect to assess screens. They see the content of screens presupposes and draws upon our prior shared background, which they call “framing” (derived from Heidegger’s concept of Ge-stell), and thus “already agreed” to be relevant and meaningful within a particular shared context or “way of being”. In a journal article written by Robrecht Vanderbeeken[2], they draw on scholars like Baudrillard to argue that screens are not just representational but instead overshadow unmediated experience, delegate agency to the screen and produce their own reality. Besides, the renowned scholar W.J.T. Mitchell argued a kind of “paleontology of the screen” in an article[3] that considers natural and primordial forms of screening and suggests a more complex history of screen practice.
Media theory/studies may have a more influential impact on this topic. For instance, Lev Manovich’s article written in 1995[4] divided screens into three categories, including classical screens (painting), dynamic screens (cinema and television) and real-time screens (computer screens) and suggested that virtual reality represents both a continuation and a break with the tradition of screen-based media. Moreover, in another text written in 2003[5], he highlighted software tools and interfaces are not only shaped by avant-garde art movements in painting, photography and cinema, but also generate true novelty of information processing capacities. Anne Friedberg’s book[6] helps enormously for this thesis, which traced how screens have functioned as metaphorical windows onto other worlds in Renaissance painting, cinema and computer displays, arguing that screens after “post-cinematic media” are “multiplied” or “fractured”. Last but not least, Johnathon Crary’s renowned book[7] examined how new optical devices and sciences have transformed visual structure from objective camera obscura into a more subjective, physiological mode.
Moreover, I would like to stress that the so-called German media theory is particularly inspiring to this thesis, which established the focus on the material and archaeological aspects of this research. To cite examples, Bernhard Siegert’s idea of cultural techniques[8] provides a methodology to investigate a kind of “operative chain” that illustrates how these media mediate symbolics, generate distinctions, and reassign positions. Erkki Huhtamo’s journal article[9] uses media archaeology methodology to trace back early practices and applications of looking at screens and calls for a new research area called “screenology”. In the journal article written by Malte Ziewitz[10], they suggest screens should be studied as ‘objects of interest’ to avoid both technological determinism and the reification of screens as stable, pre-given entities.
Besides these more “direct” approaches to screens, there are also some research publications that discuss the conditions of screens in the field of art making, documenting and presenting. To illustrate, Charu Maithani’s journal article[11] makes an argument that screens in “contemporary post-media art assemblages” emphasise, interconnect and rearticulate relationships between various parts in various modalities of image-making and display. Nick Kaye’s journal article[12] thinks that early video art focused on articulating action and events characterised by division, difference and simultaneity and thus introduced multiple, paradoxical temporalities. In an article written by Corina MacDonald[13], they suggest media artworks and digital documents are complex, distributed, and rely on interdependent networks of components, and thus, new strategies need to be taken to document the specific artistic, aesthetic, and experiential dimensions of variable media art.
There are also other scholars who admitted the difficulties when it comes to exhibiting and curating such artworks. Sabine Himmelsbach’s magazine article[14] highlights how media artworks are often process-oriented, immaterial, or networked systems, requiring different strategies than traditional object-based art. In the same issue of the magazine, Dorothee Richter’s review[15] provides an overview of key exhibitions, projects and publications that have dealt with and reflected on digital media and its impacts from the 1950s onwards.
All in all, despite the plentiful studies about screens in the fields of philosophy, media theory, performance art, media art, curating, and even human-computer interactions, it seems like no one has done an analysis of screens’ conditions combining their archaeology as preconditions and positions screens as a mediation between human and digital objects.