Making and breaking the screen : a relational ontology of screen forms

When introducing the screen as a subject of analysis, what is most often noted first is its ubiquity in our environment. The screen is a very successful thing, it enters our lives in many ways and performs a variety of different functions. Although screens have a long history in interactions between humans and their environments, a comparatively recent shift in the screen’s materiality toward the technological has made it a more prominent part of our daily lives. The screen has become an interesting point of discussion – it can be used theoretically as a device that links discourse about human-technology interactions with discussions of human spatiality; as a connection between representational and experiential frameworks; as a device to question the nature of the ‘real’. Screens often draw debates about the role of technology and representation as environmental conditions. But when it comes to defining what a screen is, the material screen itself – the object that takes up space – is not often found to be important. Screens have been analysed across a variety of phenomenological and semiotic frameworks. Each of these analyses finds different, often contradictory qualities and impacts for the screen. The impetus of this thesis is to position these qualities and impacts within the structures that give rise to them. In short, this thesis describes a relational ontology of the screen that places particular emphasis on material interaction and the structures of perception. I will begin this introduction with a brief survey of key studies of the screen, looking at the approaches taken and roles defined within them. I will then introduce the main problems and aims of this thesis and outline the methodology and methods applied in this research. The introduction will close with a summary of the content of the three chapters and a brief discussion of implications