The Alignment of Screens
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Alignment of Screens Felipe Raglianti , B.A.; M.A. Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, 2016 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that it has not been submitted in any form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Felipe Raglianti, June 2016 1 Abstract This thesis makes a distinction between screen and surface. It proposes that an inquiry into screens includes, but is not limited to, the study of surfaces. Screens and screening practices are about doing both divisions and vision. The habit of reducing screens to the display neglects their capacity to emplace separations (think of folding screens). In this thesis an investigation of screens becomes a matter of asking how surfaces and the gaps in between them articulate alignments of people and things with displays that, in practice, always leave something out of sight. Rather than losing touch with screens by reducing them to surfaces, in other words, I am interested in alternative screen configurations. For this task I sketch an approach that touches on screens through the figures of lines, surfaces, textures, folds, knots and cuts. Lines help me to make the case for thinking about screens as alignments. I then ask what kinds of observers emerge from reducing screens to single or digital surfaces. I trace that concern with Google Glass, a pair of “smartglasses” with a transparent display. To distinguish between screen and surface I suggest, through a study of biodetection and assistance dogs, how to qualify or texture screens within webs of relations. I further outline, with snapshots of my workplace and two screens named Vig and Ben, two modes of touching or un/en/folding their locations. Finally, with knots and cuts, I underline the unfolding of self checkouts in supermarkets, and the enfolding of automated tellers outside banks. All of these reconfigurations experiment with screens by moving sideways in order to approach their displays laterally, and make visible their (ab)use by those in power. This method is a way of grasping the embodiment and the materiality of screens, while responding to the practices, agencies, and affects aligned around, through, and away from their displays. 2 Table of Contents Declaration...........................................................................................................................................1 Abstract.................................................................................................................................................2 Table of Contents..................................................................................................................................3 List of Figures.......................................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgements..............................................................................................................................7 Chapter 1. Moving Sideways...............................................................................................................8 Screenness......................................................................................................................................10 Embodiments.................................................................................................................................13 Alignments.....................................................................................................................................15 Storytelling.....................................................................................................................................19 Chapters.........................................................................................................................................21 Chapter 2. Lines on the road...............................................................................................................26 Lines...............................................................................................................................................27 Surfaces..........................................................................................................................................30 Let there be more lines...................................................................................................................33 (Re)aligning Screens......................................................................................................................37 Chapter 3. The blind spot of Glass.....................................................................................................42 Glass' empty gaze..........................................................................................................................43 Google map....................................................................................................................................46 Breaking Glass...............................................................................................................................49 Shakes............................................................................................................................................52 Chapter 4. Screening with dogs..........................................................................................................55 Meeting dogs with important jobs.................................................................................................56 Biodetection dogs screening cancer...............................................................................................62 Bringing the animals back in again................................................................................................73 Morphisms and ethnographic approaches in Geography...............................................................77 Charlotte's canine alarm system.....................................................................................................83 Chapter 5. Folding my office..............................................................................................................91 Grasping displays...........................................................................................................................92 Unfolding Vig................................................................................................................................98 Enfolding Ben..............................................................................................................................105 Knotting and cutting.....................................................................................................................111 Chapter 6. Supermarket self checkouts............................................................................................116 Cashing in....................................................................................................................................119 Breaking chronotopes..................................................................................................................124 Market devices.............................................................................................................................128 Shopping floor.............................................................................................................................132 Queue line....................................................................................................................................136 Purchase point..............................................................................................................................140 Shopper's exit passage.................................................................................................................149 3 The supermarket as device...........................................................................................................153 Chapter 7. Spacing the ATM............................................................................................................158 Cashing in....................................................................................................................................161 Neoliberal optics..........................................................................................................................167 Filling up topologies....................................................................................................................170 Torus space..................................................................................................................................176 Sphere space................................................................................................................................184 Bottle space..................................................................................................................................193 Projective space...........................................................................................................................199 Coda.............................................................................................................................................206 Chapter 8. Exit Passage....................................................................................................................208 References........................................................................................................................................221