Urban screens
As a display analyst, this special issue on Urban Screens (at First Monday) caught my eye.
Some of these pieces wax poetic about the new culture of giant outdoor screens. Others are more staid, but all acknowledge that there could be fundamental shifts in our public life due to these screens.
I am not so sure the screens themselves are a key cause. After all, we somehow had to get to the point where we think megascreens in public are a good idea. People's ideas about how to create and use such screens evolved from earlier forces relating to advertising, entertainment, public life, and trends in design.
Sometimes I think our visual brain is overstimulated. It's like our love of fat and salt-- which was a valuable evolutionary adaptation, but has gone awry now that these items are in abundance. We are highly visual creatures, and that has served as an unstable force in technical development, resulting in greater and greater focus on the eyes at the expense of other senses.
I recommend developing all 6 senses in full measure. Which one seems neglected for you? Go work on that one.
Some of these pieces wax poetic about the new culture of giant outdoor screens. Others are more staid, but all acknowledge that there could be fundamental shifts in our public life due to these screens.
I am not so sure the screens themselves are a key cause. After all, we somehow had to get to the point where we think megascreens in public are a good idea. People's ideas about how to create and use such screens evolved from earlier forces relating to advertising, entertainment, public life, and trends in design.
Sometimes I think our visual brain is overstimulated. It's like our love of fat and salt-- which was a valuable evolutionary adaptation, but has gone awry now that these items are in abundance. We are highly visual creatures, and that has served as an unstable force in technical development, resulting in greater and greater focus on the eyes at the expense of other senses.
I recommend developing all 6 senses in full measure. Which one seems neglected for you? Go work on that one.
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