Archive | 2021
Screen Spaces: Zones of Interaction and Recognition
Abstract
This chapter considers how moving images generate new social spaces and encounters in front of the screen—horizontal zones of interaction and recognition. Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain (2004) in Chicago’s Millennium Park establishes a “magic circle” between two monumental screens. Artworks that explicitly engage interactive technologies fold viewing space into screen space. I develop the political potential of this mode of address through deep analysis of works by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and conclude with a brief discussion of architectural interventions that act as paracinematic projectors onto the ground. The horizontal planes produced by moving images in this chapter evoke a longer history of places of public mixing and contestation from public fountains and pools to disco dance floors.