Screenology, a Modern Vision of the World Essay

Screenology and its engagement with screen culture

Modern arts experiences ongoing changes due to the technological advances. People’s natural craving the beautiful has managed to convert even scientific inventions into modern artistic movements. This is why modern culture is characterized by a cultural fusion where nature interacts with artificial details. An enormous accent has been made of media screen-based culture where modern artists and designers are striving to contribute to the development of screen art and screenology, a science studying different environments where films and video programs are made.

Screenology refers to evaluation of different types of screens within cultural, social, and ideological frames. This modern science also studies some marginal relations with other cultural and artistic forms. In the context of media and visual culture, screens displaying different pictures serve as the indicator of zeitgeist and as a “hermeneutic vehicle” for alternative descriptions of the surrounding reality (Balkema and Slager 10). Sceenology is also involved in the study of the essence of screens and the reasons of their fast-growing proliferation.

Before defining the mains functions and essence of the disciplines, it is first necessary to address to the definition of “screen”. Various dictionaries provide diverse explanations of the notion where the part of each one seems to partially cover its definition. Hence the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia provide compare screens with “covered framework…upon which images may be cast by a magic lantern; in general, and shelter of means of concealment” (Whitney and Smith1292). Relying on this explanation of the notion in the beginning of the past century, it is possible to track the similarities with the modern definition of the meaning and functions of screens.

One cannot but admit that current society has been encountering a growing number of screens both big and small, radiating and projecting the light. There are a sort of screens that can be observed at a distance and the ones that can be interacted with. The development and appearance of screens in historical context is also studied by screenology. However, they are not analyzed as isolated objects but in their interaction with each other. For instance, Siegfried Zielinski who examined the interaction between television conducted an outstanding research and cinema thus revealing one aspect of screens studies. Based on historical development of cinema and parallel appearance of televisions, the researcher managed to track the history of the art of projecting in cinemas and the appearance of electronic devices contributing to the emergence of television screens. Of course, in the beginning of the twentieth century, there was an outright confrontation between cinema and television not as technological industries but artistic movements as well (Zielinski 219).

Certainly, historical vision of the problem can be referred as an inherent element of screenology. Still, a mere description of historical development of screen art does not make sense, as screen devices should not be also regarded in the context of technological development; screen studies also involve the analysis of relations between the viewer and the screener as well as the viewing elements of the situation. In particular, such relations should be considered both in physical and imaginary meaning. Further, the science also touches upon sound and movement work combined with space and time characteristics.

As it can be viewed from the above, the meaning and essence of screen-based art change in the course of time. In the middle of 19^th century, a first technological reminder of screen project was a stereopticon with two lenses, one above the other. The apparatus served to cast the same area of light on a screen enabling to see disintegrating the views and images from slides (Musser). This invention has given rise to modern project art, which has acquired another cultural and artistic meaning. A special consideration deserves “The Shadow Dace” by Samuel van Hoogstraten, who was the master of technique of perceptual deceit. The artist put en emphasis on the performance role of the observer thus augmenting the body movements.

The art of projecting the people on the screen has penetrated into the urban culture and were reflected in modern dialogue between the city and the citizens. Projecting enable the artists control the sizes and the forms of people’s movements. In the modern context, the Lozano-Hemmer’s simple idea of shadow play is much simpler than Hoogtraten’s one who wanted to reveal the angelic and diabolic characteristic by means of size (Hirschhorn n. p.).

The above shows that observers can directly interact with the screen creating movements. The lasting desire to move further triggered the emergence of screens where people cannot act as the participants but as the viewers where there is no need to act in order to see the picture. In the 1960’s, now projected were converted into the cinematic art and, later into the era of television. The Wolf Vostell and Nam Paik’s works has brought the new image of the screen era and managed to engage the art into the electronic age. Both artists of modern movements were largely influenced by the vagarious displays of commercial television (Loveloy 94). By using the television sets, they

were eager to overthrow the appearance of television as mass-culture dominating over the art. Televisions were revealed as unique apparatuses with recording and ‘live’ feedback capabilities that have also replaced cinema culture as well.

The last word in screen culture belongs to computer screens, which serves as the main means of cyberception. With the advent of the 12^th century, American people have started to spend more time in front of computer screen rather than a television sets. The cyberspace attack has swallowed the people both adults and teenagers who prefer to stays in virtual reality than in a physical space. In this area “the screen is the point of coincidence where the physical space of the hardware, the mental space of the use’s mind and cyberspace coincide” (Kerckhove 36). Though the computer screens involve latest technological and intellectual installations, it is also connected with the art of projections of information of digital character.

When we look the web pages through the page, the screen serves as a window to cognitive and epistemological content of the reality, as it allows people to build images reflecting visual evidence and serving as means of data interpretation. Therefore, computer and commercial television have become the tools of mass manipulations. Apart of popular entertainment proposed by mass media, they have converted into technical instrument of power and force regulating the passive subjects of society and influencing the public opinion.

Drawing a conclusion, the science of screenology is not only as historical evaluation of screen development and interaction but also interactions of the screen and the viewer. It is also the study of a combination between the sound and the visual image in the context of the time and situation.

Screen-based artistic practices since 1960 and their influence on the rise of “society of the spectacle”

According to Debord, “In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles” (7). People always perceive things through their particular form of representation where only unconventional form or combination of forms can be perceived. The fact is that we see the images that are extracted from certain aspects that can no longer form the unity. In this context, there emergence of spectacle society is largely predetermined by appearance of screen culture and screen-based artistic movements.

Debord’s comments on society of the spectacle correlate with the concept of screen-based art that also serve as a means of reality distortion. Like images, “the spectacle that falsifies reality is nevertheless a real product of that reality” (Debord 8). Therefore, the image is nothing but a material invasion of spectacle and vice versa, the reality itself is nothing but a combination of multidimensional images. As a whole, the conceptual basis of “the spectacle” is based on the principle of affirmation of screens whose nature should be acknowledged and confirmed. However, the concepts grasping the character of the spectacle is conveyed through a visible negation of life. In other words, the negation has acquired a visible form, as society contemplates what is imagined but not what is real.

The aesthetics of negation is brightly revealed through the modern screen-based culture. The outright example of this Paik’s Magnet by means of which the artist creates an illusionary reality by means of electronic devices. By using television set as tool for creating art, Paik expresses his protest against commercial television and its primary role in the life of society manipulated by screens. As society has converted television into the icon, they automatically convert it into the main source of information thus rejecting to perceive life without screens.

This particular work proves that reality cannot be compared with what we contemplate but what we actually perceive. He withdraws the idea that the real world is closely related to the world of television and the Internet screens. Screens have greatly influenced the reevaluation and rethinking of the philosophical perception of reality. Viewing this Paik picture where the television represents abstract forms that can be understood differently by society explains the way people contemplate the real world. The rethinking of reality through screens also frustrates such aesthetical categories as time and space, subject and object, perception of the real and its mere imitation (Balkema and Slager 21).

The above explanation contributes to our understanding of screen-based art. Nonetheless, for an in-depth perpetuation to the scope of this artistic movement, society should blur all previously established philosophical concepts and install the new ones. Indeed, screen art practice are commonly referred the screen flux represented in the form of electronic, media, and digital images.

Referring back to the society of the spectacle, Best and Keller believe that we live in consumer society, which is organized around the consumption images and spectacles (n. p.). In this respect, with the advent of television and the World Wide Web, the spectacle has become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Commercial television web sites provide society with a great opportunity to purchase any kind of goods with the help of TV shops. Powerful corporations cramp the Internet network with all forms of spectacles in order to lure customers to buy a particular product.

It is also worth saying that the spectacle society interest in the screen culture is basically predetermined by the entertainment and information. Therefore, everything that is contemplated on the television and computer screens is narrowed to the logic of the goods spectacle. When viewing different video and TV adds, people are looking for some rational information about material things but not about spiritual values.

The interaction of technological age with the media culture has been also taken as a competitive advantage thus converting the electronic equipment and installation as the part of artistic design. High-tech spectacles comprise an electronic hermeneutics of the action; at the same time, they also serve as giant advertisement campaigns.

Nowadays the internet sites creators are also guided by the principles of the good as the spectacle, a bright image that is sophisticatedly designed to grab more viewers. Hence, when browse from one site to another we are always attracted by the two-dimensional representations of real things, which can sometimes can be presented in a better ways than it really is. In addition, the internet and computer technologies have also enabled people to be immersed into the virtual reality. All video games help people to get rid of possibility to recognize their complexes, which do not exist in the reality created by screen culture. In this way, screen can be compared with a magic mirror that projects our desires and images from our mind.

One of the brightest representations of images disclosing the new stages of the spectacle can be referred to Atkein’s work Sleepwalkers reveal the urban society and cities as the place of modern installations where the houses and streets are decorated by technological devices. In this picture, one can notice that people are staring at the city screens. They are reluctant to contemplate the real world and other surrounding people but to be controlled with media images dictating the norms and standards of living. The artist’s work is also revealed as a protest to the invasion of false images that show only things people want to see. While watching the videos and sparkling things on the things, the society of the spectacle and consumers want to have buy those things. However, poor people cannot afford to live the screen’s life and, therefore, images contemplation is the only pleasure they have. This is why “where the image and realm of appearance determine and overtake reality, life is no longer liver directly and actively” (Best and Kellner n.p.)

Based on the above-mentioned explanation of the spectacle society and it correlation to screen-based art practices, the former have chosen the live in hyper-reality of the screens and images where the time and space aspect can be manipulated. Therefore, modern people can be regarded as victims of television and computer era where the screen culture has captured society’s consciousness. Screen seems to promise the whole world of fabulous image and the problem is that people want to be immersed by this digital world. The world electronic pixels and images have managed to create a different way of perception.

“Haptic Visuality” as a Powerful Feminist Visual Strategy

There are a number of different theories and strategies which fulfill the world of cinema with all its strong and weak sides. Film studies are considered to be one of the most important theories which help to define the essence of cinema and its influence on society and other industries and provide the necessary frameworks which define the relations between cinema and other arts. Within some period of time, new ideas and theories are offered by different professionals in order to improve the existed state of affairs and make the chosen industry more profitable and significant for people. One of the theories that considerably influence the movie industry is offered by Laura Marks; it is called “haptic visuality”. This new thought is able to value such senses like smelling, feeling, and even touching by means of the other senses like seeing and hearing. With the help of this “haptic visuality”, the already developed sensorial field can be improved and ready for new visual traditions and challenges. Due to Laura Marks’ contribution to the screenology industry, such term like “haptic visuality” turns out to be very important and influential in order to show up different cinematic genres like feminism video, experimental movies, and other experimental sexual representation on screen, to explore the relations which is possible between the things which are present or absent, and to explain how different senses are possible to transmit through the screen.

In order to comprehend how the term “haptic visuality” may become a powerful and significant feminist visual strategy and the means that may elaborate on different issues like gender, sexuality, or class, it is very important to clear up what essence of this term is and how it is represented by its developers. “The haptic is a form of visuality that muddies intersubjective boundaries… in phenomenological terms”, this is why “haptic images encourage a bodily relation to the screen itself before the point at which the viewer is pulled into the figures of the image and the exhortation of the narrative” (Marks 17). In other words, it is possible to introduce “haptic visuality” as a clear expression that is usually associated with different types of experience with sensual memorizing and visual representation of the events. This notion may be used as a helpful item that may interchange the lack of visual depth of the work and may use the eye not only as the organ of seeing something but also as the organ of touching something. In Video Haptic and Erotics, it is admitted that “haptic perception is usually defined as the combination of tactile, kinaesthetic, and proprioceptive functions” (Marks 332), this is why it is not surprising that “haptic visuality” has to be considered as the powerful means to draw upon different senses in order to involve the viewer’s body into the proves of seeing, feeling, and smelling the work.

The use of haptic images may be observed and understood in many works, and Measures of Distance by Mona Hatoum is one of the most noticeable. The peculiar feature of this work is noticeable at the very beginning when the lines of Arabic handwriting appear. Within some time, the tape starts moving and images are changed constantly. The result of these movements is observed with the image of a naked woman who has unbelievably beautiful buxom body hidden under the letters. The idea of “haptic visuality” makes the viewer realize that all these images are closely connected to the mother and her daughter, and the jealous father who does not want to share her wife’s body. “The pulling-back movement powerfully evokes a child’s gradual realization of separateness from its mother, and the ability to recognize objects: to recognize the mother’s body as a separate body that is also desired by someone else” (Marks 16). Another powerful example of how the “haptic visuality” theory may be used is observed in Mootoo’s Her Sweetness Lingers. The ideas of eroticism, frequent use of optical images, and proper choice of colors help to create and reproduce one of the most powerful “desire of a lover to know the beloved through every sense all at once, to admire the beloved from a distance and at the same time bring her or him closer” (Marks 15). This desire, this passion, and this crucial stability turn out to be a powerful connection of the author with the viewer that can easily propel the theory of “haptic visuality” into practice.

In fact, “haptic visuality” may be interpreted in many different ways, however, as Laura Marks is regarded as its developer and promoter, it is better to rely on her ideas and suggestions on how to accept this notion and find it out through numerous art works. She identifies “haptic visuality” as “distinguished from passive, apparently pregiven vision in that the viewer has to work to constitute the image, to bring it forth from latency” (Marks 339). As it was mentioned, “haptic visuality” may be used to improve different genres, and one of them is feministic video. This type of work is focused on the representation of gender, senses, and sexuality. The two already discussed works are feministic and may serve as good examples of how the power of senses and desire influences human perception and demands. Experimental works represent the other types of strategies which are focused on sense exploration. People who want to perceive the work with all possible sense have such a chance to feel everything that the author wants to introduce, to smell everything that fulfill the image, and to see everything from another more powerful perspective that is available now due to strong and constant development of the “haptic visuality” theory in screenology.

In general, the idea of “haptic visuality” becomes more and more clear and comprehensible after the analysis of the works based on this theory is done. This notion aims at redefining visual fields and promoting more attempts to unite senses while observing the image. “Haptic visuality” has to be considered as an alternative method that is used in order to master the already existed optical visuality and to comprehend it deeper and more seriously. May it happen that this “haptic visuality” becomes one of the most powerful feminist visual strategies? Of course, it may because many feminist authors try to make their works unique and significant for the cinema, and the use of such innovative and non-standard approaches like the “haptic visuality” theory seems to be a winning and necessary detail in the chosen industry due to its abilities to focus on such issues like representation of sexuality, gender differences, or class when it is necessary and during the necessary period.

References

Balkema, Annette, W., and Slager, Henk. Screen-based Art. The Netherlands: Rodopi, 2000.

Debord, Guy, and Knabb, Ken. Society of the spectacle. US: Rebel Press, 1983.

Hirshhorn, Thomas. “The social realist as entrepreneur”. Deconstructing installation art. Web. 2010.

Kerckhove, Derrick. The architecture of intelligence. Italy: Birkhauser, 2001.

Loveloy, Margot. Digital currents: art in the electronic age. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Marks, Laura, U. “Video Haptics and Erotics.” Screen, 39.4 (1998): 331-348

Marks, Laura, U. Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, “Debord and the Postmodern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle,” Illuminations: The Critical Theory Project.

Whitney, William Dwight, and Smith, Benjamin Eli. The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia. US: The Century, 1911.

Zielinski, Siegfried. Audiodivisions: cinema and television as entr’actes in history. The Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press, 1999.