Being Screens, Making Screens: Functions and Technical Objects. Issue 2 (1st December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Carbone, Mauro; Lingua, Graziano; De Sanctis, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Screen bodies. Volume 6:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 22
• Publication Date: 2021-12-01
• Subjects: arche-screen -- body -- exposing/protecting -- prosthesis -- shadow -- showing/hiding -- skin -- veil; Human body in motion pictures -- Periodicals; Human body in mass media -- Periodicals; Human body -- Erotic aspects -- Periodicals; Human body -- Erotic aspects; Human body in mass media; Human body in motion pictures; Periodicals; 791.436
• DOI: 10.3167/screen.2021.060202
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2374-7552

Abstract

Abstract: The present relations between screens and the human body invoke a genealogy that should help us to understand their status. However, we suggest that this historical-genealogical work shall be matched with a more comprehensive anthropology of screen experiences . By mobilizing the notion of "arche-screen, " we identify the transhistorical principle underlying such experiences with the showing/concealing and the exposing/protecting function pairs—the latter exceeding the visual dimension and involving our bodily relations with the environment. These function pairs, which are rooted in our body and make it into our proto-screen, can be enhanced via their externalization as appropriate technical objects. By highlighting the prostheticization of skin in some prehistoric artistic techniques and the role of the veil from the Old Testament to Leon Battista Alberti's treatise On Painting, we stress that the interweaving of the above-mentioned screen functions is a constant feature of human experiences and that its thematic variations are traceable in more recent screen forms.