MX: Response to section three of the language of new media

This section was devoted to the genealogy of the screen. The author defines a screen as "the existence of another virtual space, another three-dimensional world enclosed by a frame and situated inside our normal space. The frame separates two absolutely different spaces that somehow coexist." The author follows the screen through 4 major evolutionary steps: the classical screen, the dynamic screen, the screen in real time, and the interactive screen. It through these 4 paradigms, the author chronicled what the major characteristics were and how the next built off of the previous.

The classical screen is therefore considered to be something along the lines of a renaissance painting forward. This in my mind is justifiable by the definition of a screen provided earlier because we began to see representations of "true" perspective in this time frame.

From this form, the dynamic screen emerged much later, although retaining conventions from the former such as horizontal formats being called landscape mode and vertical formats being called portrait mode. A dynamic screen retains the abilities of a classical screen to contain/separate a second environment while also adding the ability of the subject to be temporal, so able to change over a set amount of time. This is exhibited in Cinematic media, such as film or television. This paradigm relies on suspension of belief by viewers to remain engaged.

I thought that it was an interesting point that this suspension of belief can be easily interrupted if the screen is not fully filled to the border. As the author noted, like in a movie theater we may be annoyed if the screen isn't totally filled by image, therefore making us conscious of the real world beyond the representation. I will catch myself saying "wait a minute, i'm watching a MOVIE," if my concentration on the screen is broken. He also expresses a different level of commitment between movies and television.

The computer screen draws it's origins from two paradigms that build off of one another to create it. The first being the screen in real time, such as radar. This was developed by the military during the 1940's for surveillance purpose. For the first time, the screen could show "current" events instead of only the past. This, however, was somewhat of a problematic screen that relied on more human power than was sensible. This was mitigated by creating a new device, a light pen, which allowed the user to interact with the screen to track specific movement. This is considered a precursor to the mouse, and introduced a new paradigm for the screen when Ivan Sutherland created sketchpad, a rudimentary drawing software in 1962. This allowed the operator to interact with the screen/computer to change something on the screen, therefore changing it in the computer's memory in real-time. Today, the real-time and interactive paradigms converge to allow for the GUI and computing as we know it.

I think that the real-time principle employed in radar is similar to web 2.0. Constant updates in content and applications function in the same manner-technically it's in "realtime," but is also a past event once posted, if only by seconds.