Image – Action – Space
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Image – Action – Space IMAGE – ACTION – SPACE SITUATING THE SCREEN IN VISUAL PRACTICE Luisa Feiersinger, Kathrin Friedrich, Moritz Queisner (Eds.) This publication was made possible by the Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory Cluster of Excellence at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (EXC 1027/1) with financial support from the German Research Foundation as part of the Excellence Initiative. The editors like to thank Sarah Scheidmantel, Paul Schulmeister, Lisa Weber as well as Jacob Watson, Roisin Cronin and Stefan Ernsting (Translabor GbR) for their help in editing and proofreading the texts. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 License. For details go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Copyrights for figures have been acknowledged according to best knowledge and ability. In case of legal claims please contact the editors. ISBN 978-3-11-046366-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-046497-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-046377-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956404 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche National bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Luisa Feiersinger, Kathrin Friedrich, Moritz Queisner, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com, https://www.doabooks.org and https://www.oapen.org. Cover illustration: Malte Euler Typesetting and design: Andreas Eberlein, aromaBerlin Printing and binding: Beltz Bad Langensalza GmbH, Bad Langensalza Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Inhalt 7 Editorial 115 Nina Franz and Moritz Queisner Image – Action – Space. Situating the Screen in The Actors Are Leaving the Control Station. Visual Practice The Crisis of Cooperation in Image-guided Drone Warfare 11 Aud Sissel Hoel Operative Images. Inroads to a New Paradigm 133 Shannon Benna of Media Theory Systems and Practices to Produce Stereoscopic Space on Screen 29 Erkki Huhtamo The Spell of the Catoptric Television. Media 147 Jens Schröter Archaeology, Topos Study, and the Traces of Viewing Zone. The Volumetric Image, Spatial Attention Knowledge and Collaborative Practice 41 Tristan Thielmann 159 Carolin Höfler Early Digital Images. A Praxeology of the Display Sense of Being Here. Feedback Spaces Between Vision and Haptics 55 Jan Distelmeyer Carrying Computerization. Interfaces, 177 Timo Kaerlein and Christian Köhler Operations, Depresentations Around a Table, around the World. Facebook Spaces, Hybrid Image Space and Virtual 69 Luisa Feiersinger Surrealism Spatial Narration. Film Scenography Using Stereoscopic Technology 191 Sarah Atkinson Synchronic Simulacinematics. The Live 79 Lasse Scherffig Performance of Film Production From Action Capture to Interaction Gestalt 203 Ina Neddermeyer 93 Kathrin Friedrich I Want to See How You See. Curatorial Practices Screening Bodies. Radiological Screens and of Exhibiting Virtual Reality Diagnostic Operations 103 Luci Eldridge Working on Mars. An Immersive Encounter through the Screen Editorial Image – Action – Space Situating the Screen in Visual Practice With the improved capability of imaging, sensor and dis- tices that require the linking between screen-based visu- play technology, screens have become mobile or touchable alization and physical space. A smartphone mapping app and, most recently, transparent. While a visualization that indicates one’s current location and orientation, for on-screen is not necessarily related to the spatial context instance, requires that users situate themselves in space beyond the screen, transparent displays allow users to see based on a two dimensional map. During a surgical inter- simultaneously the physical space behind the display and a vention, to give another example, surgeons must cope with visualization on-screen. The two observers on the cover of the limiting architecture of image display in the operating this volume look at a future construction site through the room, in which information on screen may not align with transparent display of a head-mounted device that super- their perspective on the patient’s body or with the scale imposes an architectural model on their view (fig. 1). Its and orientation of relevant anatomy. Accordingly, surgeons rendering coincides with the scale of the actual building, must ascribe an image of the patient, for instance a comput- and the visualization adapts to the observer’s point-of-view er tomography, to the patient’s body cognitively in order to in real time. While a juxtaposition of building and model act appropriately in a particular situation. Even a regular on a separate screen would require continuous comparison television screen on a living room shelf creates a specific between image and object, the head-mounted display com- viewing situation. But this situation is not adaptive to the bines them in a joint perceptual space. The missing offset images on-screen – it does not correlate image and space. between image and object puts forward a new practice of An example for the way in which screen-based visual interacting with spatially related information: users can practices dissolve the distinction between image and space, navigate through space by superimposing a transparent creating a hybrid and adaptive form of visuality, is the mobile interface onto their field of view. location-based augmented reality game Pokémon Go. The This example shows how screen-based media trans- application encourages users to explore physical space in form the way we see and act: transparent displays constitute order to catch virtual figures displayed within the camera a form of images that only work when they are situated. They stream of a mobile phone (fig. 2). By aligning camera image shift focus onto the situation rather than to the result of an and physical space, Pokémon Go players perform operations imaging process. Of course, screens are always embedded both within and beyond the boundaries of the screen. What in the context of a situation, particularly those visual prac- seems to be a simple moment in a game is actually an intri- Editorial cately structured visual practice: The in-game view layers convenient catch-all used to describe the research and study photographic and animated elements depending on the of what we access through screens, perpetuating the idea player’s location and within the camera’s field of view. The of the screen as passive conduit”, is only until recently that mechanism of merging image, action and space in Pokémon screen studies have started to investigate the impact and Go transforms viewing into using and emphasizes an active application of screens in particular situations and with role of the image in guiding a user’s action and perception. regard to its actionability and material affordances.3 Con- The visual practice of Pokémon Go points to the meth- cepts from media theory and visual studies, such as disposi- odological issue of how to analyze and theoretically frame tif, spatial images, operative images or mobile screens help the situation and situatedness of screens. By shifting the to scrutinize screenness.4 focus towards their “screenness”, we intend to examine The authors analyze how screens are situated in visu- visual practices by asking what a screen does rather than al practices by scrutinizing the dynamic, transformational asking what a screen is.1 From this perspective, the question and performative characteristics of screen-based media is less about what becomes visible, or what can be seen, but with regard to image, action and space. By focusing on their rather about how the interaction with and through screens dynamic yet deterministic relations the volume presents structures action and perception. The terms image, action an approach to screenness that focuses on the actionability and space serve as analytical reference points for investigat- of screen-based media in all their different hardware and ing how screens engender a situated and dynamic relation software configurations. Speaking of actionability empha- between them. sizes the way in which multiple forms and configurations This volume draws on the evolving debate about the screen as “a concept in progress”, which has started to IT University Copenhagen, 2010; Workshop “Screen Operations. Condi- 2 tions of Screen-based Interaction”, Humboldt University Berlin, 2016; inquire its defining status. While the screen “has become Conference “Situation Space. How Spatial Images Define the User’s Dis- position”, Humboldt University Berlin, 2017. 1 Lucy Suchman proposes looking at the socio-material practices surround- 3 Monteiro 2017 (as in fn. 2), p. 3. ing the application of screens by using the term “screenness”. Brit Ross 4 Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion. Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film, Winthereik, Peter A. Lutz, Lucy Suchman, Helen Verran, Attending to New York: Vers, 2002; Frank Kessler, Dominique Chateau, José Moure, The Screens and Screenness. Guest Editorial for special issue of Encounters, Screen and the Concept of Dispositif – A Dialogue, in: Dominique Chateau, in: STS Encounters 4.2 (2011), pp. 1–6. In a different vein, Lucas Introna and José Moure (eds.), Screens. From Materiality to Spectatorship – A Historical Fernando Ilharco develop the notion of screenness for their endeavour of and Theoretical Reassessment, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, introducing a “Heideggerian