1. The screen and the userMANOVICH, L. 2001. The screen and the user. The Language of New Media. London: MIT Press. Week 7 Elle Gan310089670[email_address]

2. The Window Metaphor

A computer monitor (p.94)

• When connected to a network becomes awindow

• Can betransformedand becomes capable of engaging us in dialogue.

3. The Screen

Screen Definition (p. 94 -95)

• ... a flat rectangular surface thatthe user experiences the illusion of navigating through virtual spaces , of being physically present somewhere else

• Theexistence of another virtual space , another three-dimensional world enclosed by a frame and situated inside our normal space .

• Theframe separates two absolutely different spacesthat somehow coexist .

Virtual Space 4. The Screen

A screens image (p.96)

• Strives forcomplete illusionand visual plenitude

• Viewers are askedto suspend disbelief , and to identify with the image.

• Creates an illusion when the screen is filled, if the illusion is disrupted then it makes usconscious of what exists outsideof the representation (For example,Breaking the Fourth wall ).

Are there any other attributes that woulddescribe a screen?

5. Screen Types

Classic (p.95)

• Flat rectangular

• Intended for frontal viewing,exists in normal spaceandacts as a window into another space .

• Other space space of representation has a different scale from the scale of our normal space.

6. Screen Types

Dynamic (p.95)

• Similarpropertiesof classical screen, but can display an imagechanging over time .

• For example, Television, cinema, and so on brings about a relationship between the image and the spectatorviewing regime.

7. Screen Types

Real Time -Computer Screen (p. 96-97)

• Landscape mode, and portrait mode

• A number ofco-existing windowsno single window dominates the viewers attention .

• The viewer no longer concentrates on one image.

• Originally created for military/surveillance, and much later in the public.

8. History of Modern Surveillance

WWII (p. 98-100)

• Radar emerging screens would change in real time

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment ( SAGE) (p.100-102)

• contained all the main elements of the modern human-computer interface. For example, Sketchpad interactive touch screen.

• New paradigm emerged the simulation of an interactive three-dimensional environment without a screen.

• Sound familiar?

9. History of Modern Surveillance

IBM Sage Computer Ad, 1960http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCCL4INQcFo

History of Radarhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTBdtZ5C16E

1957 SAGE Early Warning Defence Radar Computer System by IBMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf1h6aGE5Zo

10. The Screen and the Body

Examining the relationship (p.103 -104)

• Roland Barthes, the screen becomes anall-encompassing conceptthat covers the functioning of even non-visual representation (literature).

• Barthes concept encompasses all the types of representational apparatuses : painting, film, television, radar, and computer display.

Reality is cut by the screen

• This allowssimultaneously double viewing of the subject , who exists in two spaces the familiar physical space of the body, and the virtual space of an image within the screen.

11. The Screen and the Body

Western Tradition (p.104-105)

• The body isfixedin space order to see the image.

• Described as imprisonment of the body- as it occurs both on the conceptual and literal levels.

Gaze vs. Glance

• Norman Bryson perspective followed by logic ofthe Gaze rather than the Glance , thus producing a visual take that was eternalized, reduced to one point of view and disembodied.

• Originallythe window was open to possibilities and other worlds, and yet, we are toldin order to enter those worlds, our bodies become imprisoned held captive by the immobile gaze.Movable prisons.

12. The Screen and the Body

Mobility (p.107 - 108)

• Anne Friedberg - mobilized virtual gaze.

• The body of the spectator remains in their seat while their eye is coupled with a mobile camera. In actuality the camera does not, move, it remains stationary, coinciding with thespectators eyes .

Immobility

• Cost ofvirtual mobilityrendered thespectator immobile .

• The virtual space as a whole that changes its positions with each shot. Virtual space is rotated, scaled, and zoomed always to give the spectator the best viewpoint.

13. Representation vs. Simulation

Virtual Reality (VR) (p. 110-113)

• Two spaces (Physcial, and Virtual) havedifferent scales .

• VRparadox - movement is now tethered by a machine, the viewer must move in order to proceed.

• Virtual world is synchronisedwith the physical one.

Simulation

• Blendingof spaces vs. separation of them.

• Depicted a fake space continuous with and extended from the normal space.

14. Representation vs. Simulation

VR continues the tradition of simulation (p. 113).

• However, there isno connection between the two spaces ... or conversely, the two completely coincide.

• • In either case, the actual physical reality is disregarded, dismissed, abandoned.

• The central viewing area is conceived as a continuation of fake space, rather than vice versa, as before and this why it is usually empty (For example,Walking inVirtual Reality ).

15. The Screen of Today

The Screen Era (p. 114- 115)

• We clearly live in the society of the screen.

• TheScreen threatens to take over our offices and homes.

• Dynamic, real-time, and interactive,a screen is still a screen .

• We still have not left the era of the screen.

• • What could benext on the horizon?

16. Further notions on the screen

Video game spaces

• Players have gone beyond an interface and feel their presence in a world beyond the screenNitsche (2008: p.203) .

What do I think ?

• Anything rectangular always represented ametaphor for a doorway as a way of escaping to another dimension in human culture through narrative.

• • For example, Alice in Wonderland (Looking Glass),Coraline (Small doorway), Chronicles of Narnia (The Wardrobe)

• The screen represents possibilities and paradox, as much as we try to escape screens connect our lives together

• • For example, Smartphone applications, Windows (Operating System)

17. References

MANOVICH, L. 2001. The screen and the user. The Language of New Media. London: MIT Press.

NITSCHE, M. 2008.Video Game Spaces,Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press.