SCREENS THE PLACE OF THE

IMAGE IN DIGITAL CULTURE

Dr. Ingrid Hoelzl, Postdoctoral Research
Fellow, Department of Media and
Communication, University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1093, Blindern, 0317 OSLO,
Norway: ingrid.hoelzl@media.uio.no
Submitted: <leave for Editor to date>
Abstract
This article presents the theoretical framework, conceptual background, hypotheses and aims of my ongoing research on the place of the image in digital
culture. I am investigating how the new generic
mode of display, the screen, affects the conception
and the production of images, and how the myriad
forms, uses and mobilities of urban screens contributes to the constitution of the shared space through
which images and citizens circulate and communicate: the augmented city.
Keywords: digital media, contemporary art, screen
technology, urban space, augmented city.

Theoretical Framework
My research is situated in the field of
visual studies that deal with both artistic
and non-artistic images in relation to theories of human perception [1].
I draw on the research in the field of
image studies with its philosophical, anthropological and scientific proponents
[2], recent studies of marginal media that
challenge the habitual distinction
between still and moving images [3], and
the empirical research on 3D vision and
imaging technologies [4].
I am building upon the discussions,
within the field of photography, film and
new media studies, on the impact of digitalization, in terms of loss of authenticity and materiality [5], the debate on the
new temporality of digital images: the
blurring of boundaries between still and
moving images [6], the medium-reflexive
narratives of post-filmic or digital cinema
[7] and its new, digital display forms [8],
as well as the oxymoronic temporality of
the digital moving still [9] and its relation to the past [10].
I am influenced by Bolter and Grusins
concept of remediation [11], Lev Manovichs thesis of digital convergence
where images merge into an overall
graphical mix [12], and Nol Carrolls
concept of the moving image [13] which
encompasses not only celuloid film but
also DVDs and CGI. Taking these three
concepts a step further, I posit the digital
moving image as a generic term that embraces all modes of the digital image: still
and moving, graphic and photographic,
recorded and calculated.
I am reflecting Youngbloods concept
of expanded cinema [14] that stimulated
the emergence of new media art in the

1960s and that was at the core of the

world's first major experiment in screenbased exhibition formats, seen at Expo 67
in Montreal [15].

I refer to current research in the field

of media and urban studies on the new
integration of digital media technologies with built architecture. In particular, I take into account recent studies 1)
that consider screenings on urban surfaces as the hijacking of given architectural landing sites [16], 2) studies that
explore the new screen-surfaces of architectural buildings as part of a recent
trend for constructing responsive environments [17], and 3) studies that investigate how the new, mobile places of
images and screens in contemporary digital art and culture alter our conception
and experience of urban space [18].

Conceptual Background
In my recent publications, I examined
the question whether, in the light of digital postproduction, animation and
projection, the photographic image is
still tied to its recording technology or
has to be reconceived entirely as a specific mode of the digital image.
Relating to new mobilized modes of
photography and its new and generalized display platform, the screen, I
forged the concepts of the moving
still, of expanded photography and
of the photographic-now [19].
The concept of the moving still
challenges two notions that traditionally
go hand in hand when one thinks of
photographs: the still image and the
printed image. I posit that the fixing of
the transmedial categories of stillness
and movement onto the photograph and
film is in fact the result of technological
and conceptual standardization. I then
proceed to deconstruct the distinction
between printed images and projected
images and argue that projection is the
underlying process of both film and
photography. This move allows for decoupling the photographic image from
the recording medium and consider it in
terms of playback.
The concept of expanded photography questions the desire for endlessness at stake in contemporary photography that seeks to transcend the
temporal and spatial confinement of the
photographic cut via montage, collage,
animation. Put into continuous loops,
expanded photography allows for an
all-encompassing and never-ending
gaze. But the all-inclusive image, in
usurping the photographic off, leaves
our desire to see more unfulfilled. In so

doing, expanded photography fails recognize the new fluctuating temporality

of digital image processing and display
and confines photography within its supposed deficiency.
The concept of the photographic-now addresses the present state of
photography, in particular photographys
new relation to time. With digital screening the still image is only an exception, a
looping of a digital video signal. The signal does not change with each reactualization, but repeats itself. The still no
longer reactualizes the past, resulting in
the temporal paradox of present display
and recorded past but reactualizes the
present, which is also that of the digital
video signal and its appearance on
screen.
All three concepts seek to challenge
the established paradigms of photography
and digital image theory and to develop a
new image theory that reflects the
changes in image display and experience.
They are relevant not only to photography studies, but speak to media and
digital image studies at large. They form
the conceptual and methodological base
for my current research on Screens The
Place of the Image in Digital Culture.
Considering that the screen indifferently processes and displays visual information such as photographic and
graphic, still and moving, recorded and
computed images, and seeking to solve
the difficulties posed by these categorical
oppositions, I have abandoned media ontological questions and shifted my focus
from recording and postproduction to display and perception, asking no longer
what images are but where they are.
The case studies that I undertook this
year addressing video installations by Canadian artist Nancy Davenport and Belgian artist David Claerbout led me to formulate the following four hypotheses that
form the conceptual and methodological
basis for my current investigation.

Hypotheses
a- The new, tentative place of apparition
of the image is the screen. With digital
screening, there is no longer a fixed conjunction between image and image carrier (as in the photographic print) but a
temporary alliance of the image with the
place of its apparition, the screen. The
image is no longer tied to a specific medium of production but is open for a variety of display formats. The image is multi-platform and comes to be defined
through that platform or display rather
than through an inherent characteristic or
ontology.

b- The new screen-based experience of

images shapes the use and conception as
well as the artistic and cultural production of images, calling for a radical shift
in the theoretical approach from the exposure (the technology used to capture
images) to the appearance (the display
technology) of images. This shift allows
us to significantly advance the state of
debate on the digital convergence of media and to solve the difficulties posed by
the categorical oppositions between photographic and graphic, still and moving,
recorded and calculated images.
c- Digital screens are part of the shared
reality space (spatium communis) of the
augmented city composed of built and
virtual architecture, electronic and wireless infrastructure through which images
and citizen-users circulate and communicate. We perceive and navigate this
space, using both material architecture
and locative media devices as "signposts"
to use Latours words [20].
d- The definition of the augmented
city as a shared reality space through
which images and citizen-users circulate
and communicate allows to move beyond
existing concepts on the relation between
media and urban space, such as Lev
Manovichs augmented space, William
J. Mitchells networked city and Scott
McQuires media city, by privileging a
navigational approach [21].

Expanded image theory?

What is at stake here might thus be
termed expanded image theory which
is not simply the use of interpretive tools
from different disciplines for a multifacetted approach of the digital image but
rather a three-fold shift in the way we
conceptualize the screen-state of
images today:
First, the change of perspective from
recording and postproduction to display
and perception, second, the development
of a topology of images that switches the
attention from what images are to where
they are, and third, the investigation on
the place of the image in the augmented
city. This three-fold shift calls for the in-

tegration of interpretive tools from image and visual studies, aesthetics and
vision research, media and communication studies, art history and urban studies.
Through case studies of screen-based
urban artworks by Harun Farocki, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Michael Snow
and Krzysztof Wodiczko I will recast
the aesthetics of the digital image (the
experience of the screened image and its
relation with reality perception), its
politics (its places and uses within the
polis), and its economy (its integration
into circuits of exchange).
References
1. Anne Friedberg, The virtual window, from Alberti to Microsoft (Cambridge/MA: MIT Press,
2006); James Elkins, Visual Literacy (New York:
Routledge 2007); W.J.T Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
2. Gottfried Boehm, Wie Bilder Sinn erzeugen. Die
Macht des Zeigens (Berlin: Berlin University
Press, 2008); Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison,
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Belting, Bild-Anthropologie. Entwurf fr eine
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9. Ingrid Hlzl, Moving stills Images that are no

longer immobile, Photographies 3, No. 1 (April
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10. David Green, The Visibility of Time, in
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Practices and Poetics of Mobile Media (Toronto:
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longer immobile, Photographies 3, No. 1 (April
2010) pp. 99-108; Blast-off Photography Nancy
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32-43; The Photographic-now David Claerbouts
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