If I wanted to connect the properties of screens to their impacts, I would need to make a comparative study, to consider different screens and how my
experience of them changes. I might begin to
categorise these changes, perhaps considering the form of the object, its behaviour in screening, my perception of it, the actions I can perform. I could
then assemble these changes into a matrix to line
them up, to draw connections between the changes. This would show a correlation, imply a causation, demonstrate an affordance.
In order to find what these are,links would need to be drawn between the form and behaviour of screens, and their uses, intended or otherwise. Were the project of affordance to be pursued in regards to the screen, it would be possible to compile a matrix of the physical properties of screens and their corresponding effects on ‘perceivability’ of impact. Such a list might consider properties
such as scale, form factor, longevity, context, temporality and fidelity; and correlate these to
uses such as enclosure, mobility, separation, manipulability, graspability. Any consideration of what the screen ‘is’, then, would be generalised from this understanding of its individual forms.
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I could draw a number of conclusions from such a matrix. I notice that the changes in physical form and my actions on screens happen in the same place. Perhaps these physical forms afford these actions – that large, planar screens do not afford graspability, that small, three-dimensional screens are manipulable and graspable. Likewise, I could say
that the ability of the television to represent space
affords its perception as a portal. Or else I could nest these into more complex affordances:
Fig 7. Matrix of Screenic Affordances.
LATTICE TELEVISION PHONE
Large Small
Planar Three-dimensional
Long lifespan Short lifespan
Single place Multiple places
Open-and-closed Open-then-closed Open Spatial Spatiotemporal
Fidelitous Re-presented Produced
Enclosure Enclosed
Fixed Mobile
Aperture Portal
Barrier Frame
Environment Other Mine
Unresponsive Manipulable Ungraspable Graspable m ate ria l fo rm scree n m et ho d m y percepti on m y acti on
The scale of a screen is inherently bound in a comparison to the body. A screen that is much larger than the body affords a sense of enclosure or barrier. It becomes part of the ‘environment’ in the sense that it isn’t easily acted upon. A screen that is similar in scale to the size of the hand, however, affords grasping and manipulation by means of being able to be picked up. Such a screen is more likely to become an extension of the body as it can be used in an tool-
like way toward the world.
The ability of the television to turn on and off affords an interruption of the continuity of space and time. As temporality is intrinsically bound in spatiality, the introduced space is perceived as an ‘elsewhere’ and
the screen as a portal to this space.
Could I then use these statements to design screens that did things, specific things, to the perceptions and actions of their user? Could such a list ever be exhaustive?
Properties and effects
The expression of the ‘for’ in these object properties relies on the screen as an ontological entity being somehow constitutive of its parts, of each individual example of a screen’s materiality. A problem is presented here: the stronger thegeneralisation, the more difficult it is to retain the
materiality of the object and the agency of the subject; and thus to retain the distinct sense of the object affected by the subject.
For example, screens are commonly discussed as boundaries to be transgressed. Jacqueline Jung
notes that the materiality of the choir screen is pivotal to its ritualistic impact. She cites the
screen’s opacity and depth as responsible for defining two separate spaces and a boundary that “is to be crossed.”50 To use the language of affordances, the screen appears because an opaque
and deep structure separates space and affords transgression. The ontological importance of screens as barriers and boundaries is more readily apparent in architectural screens such as the lattice, but other types of screens show similar affordances. Friedberg notes Romashyn’s
treatment of the window as “a boundary between the perceiver and the perceived.”51 Here it
is the window’s visual transparency and material rigidity, that create a boundary. She also notes Cavell’s treatment of the cinema screen as a barrier to the world – here the temporal misalignment of the two spaces renders the viewer invisible to the world beyond. The idea of
the barrier is entrenched in film theory; the act of transgressing the boundary of the screen by talking to the audience is codified by the term ‘breaking the fourth wall’.
In this case, the properties of the material object become important only in their construction of the boundary, and it is clear that this boundary can be created using a myriad of physical properties. For the choir screen, these are opacity and depth; for the window transparency and rigidity. The condition of ‘boundary’ provokes the affordance of transgressing. In considering the screen in this way, the screen-as-object disappears again; present only as a condition, the boundary of a space. The role of the screen is to mark this space, to be apparent as a barrier that dissipates in the act of crossing. It is only with a small focus on an object or group of objects with a strong sense of cohesiveness that relata properties can be linked to effects. That is, affordances rely on individual encounter. Even then, this is not an exclusive domain – other properties may be linked to the same effects, and other effects to those properties. Moreover, because this interaction occurs on an individual scale, any generalisation of the properties discovered begin to displace the effect from the screen.
50. Jacqueline Jung, “Beyond the Barrier: The Unifying Role of the Choir Screen in Gothic Churches,” The Art Bulletin 82, No. 4 (Dec., 2000): 631.
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In the analysis of hermeneutic mediation, it became
clear that the transformation of perception possesses
a specific structure, which consists of amplification and reduction… A similar structure can be discerned in the translation of action: artifacts invite particular actions while discouraging others or even rendering
them impossible.
Peter-Paul Verbeek52