We live in a media and technology saturated world. Media
historian Friedberg (2006) states that we know the world by what we
see - through a window, in a frame and on a screen - and argues
that "as we spend more of our time staring into the frames of
movies, television, computers, hand-held displays […] how the world
is framed may be as important as what is contained within that
frame".
The research program Multiple Screens as Material
particularly focuses on screens and their function as 'material' in
the composition of media places. Importantly, screens are a
critical building block of most such media places. Examples of such
environments include: a coffee shop in a college city (many laptop
screens), an airport such as Umeå City Airport (multiple large
displays organized around you in the arrivals hall) or Times Square
in New York City (where enormous screens not only taper buildings,
but become a kind of rich texture). Nuclear control rooms, labs,
sport bars, art and exhibition spaces, industrial vehicles and
athletics stadiums unsurprisingly feature many screens, but we
increasingly also find multiple screens in offices, entertainment
centers, cultural heritage institutions, and anywhere where people
engage with the screens of various mobile devices.
The two principal research questions are:
1) How can we understand screens, and in particular multiple
screens, as material manifestations and representational enactments
in different types of media places?
2) What role do screens play in post-1980 notions of research
infrastructure and how can multiple screens facilitate different
types of knowledge production?
The research questions above correspond to two main
research strands in the program:
1) Screens as material. Specific research questions
include: How can screens be described in terms of material and
texturing? How can screens be seen as an architectural element?
What does it mean to have digitally connected screenscapes
(basically extending the notion of frame)? How can we understand
screens and multiple screen representation historically? What kinds
of representation (and enactment) do different types of
screenscapes afford? How can 'immersion' be applied both to
surround screenscapes and distributed sets of screens? How do we
co-orient and participate in relation to screen-rich environments
and content?
2) Knowledge production and screens. Specific research
questions include: How can the
central role of screens in early discourse on virtual reality and
present day discourse on
research infrastructure be analyzed? What is required to
conceptualize and produce narratives across multiple screens (as
opposed to narratives for single screen environments)? How can
arts-based and traditional modes of knowledge production influence
each other in screen rich environments? What other sensory and
interactional features are important to actualizing and enacting
screen-supported knowledge production?
Participating researchers and staff:
- Patrik
Svensson, HUMlab
- Johan von
Boer, HUMlab
- Anna Foka,
HUMlab
- Mattis
Lindmark, HUMlab
- Roger
Mähler, HUMlab
