Building a Culture of Ubiquity: The Screen
...much of our familiarity with the computer screen is that of cinematic engagement through games, graphics and animation, or via the textual world of the word processor	The most familiar embodiment of engagement with the digital/technological is the screen, and as such, exhaustive studies have been made of our interactions and representations of the aesthetic [7] that any more than a brief discussion falls outside of the scope of this article. Seminal works include titles by Sherry Turkle (Life on the Screen), and Brenda Laurel (Computers as Theatre) to name just a couple. However, the interesting point to most explorations of the ontology of the computer monitor is that they reflect the two-dimensionality of that visual plane as many critiques refer to textual and cinematic analyses of the virtual screen. This is to be expected, as much of our familiarity with the computer screen is that of a cinematic engagement through games, graphics and animation, or via the textual world of the word processor..
	Another aspect of the screen, and we will see modulations in this effect is some degree in our other manifestations of the human-computer interface, is that of its performative quality. This follows from Barthes' argument of the active role of the reader [8] in which the construction of meaning is now as much in the eye of the computer user than the programmer or media producer. Case [9] takes this further in positing that the electronically augmented writer and reader have to follow certain ritualistic procedures inscribed by the program and operating system, creating a 'performative' aspect to mediated electronic interaction. So, what I am positing here is that through the embodiment of any form of information, the mode of representation, interaction, and feedback creates a specific environment and context for the communication of any cultural content. In the case of the screen, we can see that it operates under certain rules of dimensionality, temporality, and interfacing protocols, such as the mouse/keyboard and size of screen that presents its unique ontology to the human organism.
	<-Introduction The Hand ->