Faces, Interfaces, Screens: Relational Ontologies of Framing, Attention and Distraction... - 1 views
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Wildcat2030 wildcat on 29 Aug 10"This paper considers the prevalence of screens in day-to-day life - from the televisual and cinematic to the many computer and mobile screens encountered in both domestic and public spaces - and suggests that each of these encounters has its own corporeal and interfacial modality. More specifically, the discussion will explore the relational and frontal ontologies of the face and the screen interface, focusing on the specific body-technology relations to emerge from our corporeal or somatic incorporation of television, computers and mobile screens. In particular, I will suggest that our engagement with media screens at a perceptual and corporeal level can be theorised by way of a phenomenological method that is supplemented by a critical understanding of the various ontological tropes and "body-metaphors" that are deeply embedded in our experience of screen interfaces. This focus on the perceptual and metaphorical aspects of the body-screen - and more specifically, face-screen - relation, can provide some insights into the historical and ontological affinity between faces, windows, frames and screens, and the complex ways we "turn" to them with varying degrees of attention and distraction. Finally, I aim to show how this affinity is challenged at a fundamental ontic and perceptual level by our experience of contemporary new media and mobile screens. "