Screens: The Connection Between the Real and Unreal

These past two weeks have been very intriguing and eye opening on the topic of screens. I did not know that the term ‘screen’ did not just mean a digital screen but a piece of visual art, photograph, and something you look into. In reading Elements of Screenology by Erkki Huhtamo for our reading assignment, I learned that a screen was constructed to be looked into and merges the world of real and unreal as well as the “material and immaterial”. I never knew that a screen could be anything else but a digital screen but that explanation of screens being able to merge the real world and our imaginations gave me a complete understanding of what is a ‘screen’. In the lectures we went through a history of the first ‘screens’ which were used for story telling then the newer forms of screen have a similar use to “tell stories” but instead in a digital manner such as the TV screen. In class we also had class discussions on how these screens impacted the world such as the invention of the pixel and innovations such as the cathode ray emerging from the production of new forms of ‘screens’ to modernize the way we view our world and how efficiently we work now with the pixel turning into digital photographs and demonstrations of digital work that are more accessible to us thanks to the use and effects of ‘screens’.

In conclusion I realized that there is so much more to learn about technology, culture, art, science, and concepts that I didn’t even know I needed to learn such as what a screen really is and was. A lot of people don’t know that a screen is not just a digital screen and I was one of those people. My social post also proved to me that many understand only one culturally defined form of a screen, when I posted “Describe a place you wouldn’t find a screen but can find one?”. My response was “ A library” and another response I got was “Anywhere cause we all got phones” which hit me with a curveball because all of the sudden I was so amazed about how I used to think like that other response I got for the post and now I understand screens as more then just “our phones”. Thanks to this Lecture class I now fully comprehend more on the topic of the screen and all topics that we learn in this class.