Surface, Display, Life: Re-thinking the Screen from Projection to Video Mapping

Abstract

This article traces an evolution of display spaces from a cultural construct as a framed and demarcated space to one that is more porous and fluid, where images and physical realities engage with each other in increasingly profound levels. Using case studies of displays taken from cinema, digital video and video mapping, this article argues that the cultural conception of the screen as a display surface evolves with advancing digital technologies, in turn soliciting action by and interaction with the user in ways which are visual, architectural, material, representational, and computational. What happens when new technologies disrupt our cultural constructs of screens and display spaces? How may we re-define the spaces of image and those of the world? How then do we relocate ourselves within those spaces? In the process, these questions prompt us as well to re-think our engagement with the spaces of image worlds and our understanding of the physicality of our realities in terms of surface, mass and dimensionality.