Research
Screens of Navigation [work in progress]
In this book project on screen media, space, and mobility I compare synchronically, as well as diachronically, diverse and variegated screen media – their technologies and practices – as sites for virtual mobility.
Mobility as a central trope can be found on the multiple levels that are investigated. First, the representation of mobility in audiovisual media is concerned with the virtual mobility of media technology in general, and of the change in their possibilities. “Lost in Space” I will analyze the way in which both enabling mobility and configuring its itineraries are inherent in both the technological and the cultural-political sides of visual culture. My cases are the highway panorama and the (non-)places of airports and other hubs of public transport.
Secondly, the screen itself becomes mobile – from the hand-held stereograph to mobile phones or hand-held game consoles. The physical engagement of the user in the case of (mobile) touch screens complicates some observations made by earlier scholars about the static screen – both in terms of space and singular in its deployment. I will investigate the periphery of the classical paradigm, and trace the lineage of mobile screens. I will bring the most recent mobile screens such as mobile phones or hand-held game consoles and their specific interfaces in relation to the classical fixed screen. In “States of Mobility,” the mobile screen will be analyzed. First, the status of the screen as material object will be considered. Then, the mobile vision that goes hand in hand with the mobile screening device is analyzed.
In “In Touch”, the mobility of the screen itself calls for a reconsideration of the (im)mobility of the user of the screen. Mobilizing the spectator/user as agent within the process of viewing, is the third step in the investigation of mobility, which consists of an analysis of spatial practices of viewing as performative acts.