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Paper short abstract:

This performative talk explores art as research practice analyzing the materiality and enactment of computer screens/displays in their daily use. Its aim is to find an enriching way of addressing the prevalence of screens beyond the dichotomy of the human user – computer interface.

Paper long abstract:

Screens are everywhere. As I write this abstract, "facetime" on the phone, draw money from the ATM, I interact with, touch, look at a screen - and you probably read these words on one, too. At first glance, screens are technological objects that reside silently in the background until they "come to life", for example when we turn on the computer or start a presentation. Mobile displays abruptly demand attention through push-up notifications, they vibrate and light up. It is usually not the screen as such that we notice, but the content it provides and the "windows" to other people and places. Regarding computing technology, this window is a coded (a semiotic, formalized, algorithmic) one. As it is reflected in the hyphen between human-computer interaction, the relation between human and screen interface is often described in a dualistic manner; human and screen are seen as two separate entities that need mediating. In contrast, I follow threads from STS considerations on screens (e.g. by M. Ziewitz (2011) in Special Issue of Encounters "Attending to Screens and Screenness") that criticize these dualistic assumptions. My proposal is to approach the materiality and enactment of screens with art as research methods in order to shift epistemologies and practices alike. In particular, I discuss the contemporary art work M(o)use (2015 by Chrischa Venus Oswald), which deals with telepresence, overlays, skin and screen; as well as I invite the audience to reflect on touch, gaze and screen by means of my own performative research experimentations.