The presentation I gave as part of my defense of my Master of Science

1. To the Screens Themselves!
A Phenomenological Approach to Understanding Interactive Screens

2. Table of Contents
 What Are Screens?
 Why Research the Interactive Screen?
 How Can we Research Interactive Screens?
 Phenomenology on Interactive Screens
 Case Studies
 Interactive Screens on Phenomenology
 Conclusions
 Questions?

3. What Are Screens?
“The existence of another virtual space, another three-dimensional world enclosed by a
frame and situated inside our normal space. The frame separates two absolutely different
spaces that somehow coexist.“
- Lev Manovich, An Archeology of the Computer Screen -
 A novel trichotomy based on the physical possibilities of screens:
 Static Screens
 Dynamic Screens
 Interactive Screens

4. The Static Screen

5. The Dynamic Screen

6. The Interactive Screen

7. Why Research Interactive Screens?
“The familiar is that to which we are accustomed; and that to which we are
accustomed is hardest to ‘know’, that is to see as a problem, that is to see as strange,
as distant, as ‘outside us’ ...”
Nietzsche 1974, no.355, p.301
 This is not a presentation.
 Screens are ubiquitous
 Interactive screens have taken flight in recent years

8. How Can we Research Interactive Screens?
 Screens are embedded
 Screens undergo rapid development
 Experience of screens: Phenomenology
“Phenomenology studies the structure of the conscious directed mind from a first
person perspective“
 Used methodologies:
 Lucas Introna and Fernando Ilharco
 Don Ihde
 Medical Anthropology (Mol, Radstake, van Dijck)

9. Phenomenology on Interactive Screens (1/3)
 The traditional approach (Introna & Ilharco) did not research interactive
screens
 Evade experience
 Attract attention
 Display relevance
 Interactive Screens: Imply immersion
 The essence of screens is ‘already agreement’
 Screens are shaping cultural surroundings
 Interactive screens can produces virtual worlds
 Problematic in existential phenomenology

10. Phenomenology on Interactive Screens (2/3)
 A framework of ‘I - technology - World’ relations (Don Ihde).
 Results of the application of the trichotomy of screen to
postphenomenology:

11. Phenomenology on Interactive Screens (3/3)
 Traditional phenomenology shows us
 how screens are experienced in a larger cultural perspective
 but fail to explain virtual worlds
 Postphenomenology shows us:
 that interactive screens change perception
 screens are developing towards complete immersion

12. Case Studies
 Screens in the Public Space
 Car Navigation Device GPS Leads Driver to
Cliff's Edge
 Screens in Medical Practice The phrase "You have
 Sonograph reached your final
destination" almost
took on a whole new
meaning for one
British driver on
Sunday when the
soothing robot voice of
his car's GPS became a
siren's call luring him
toward his doom.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-1164705/BMW-left-teetering-100ft-cliff-edge-
sat-nav-directs-driver-steep-footpath.html

13. Interactive Screens on Phenomenology
 The research of interactive screens encounters the boundaries of
existential phenomenology.
 A new understanding of essentialistic thinking within
postphenomenology is described.
 Phenomenology fails to account for larger cultural influences on
technology.

14. Conclusions
 A better applicable trichotomy of screens
 A unique understanding of interactive screens
 what they are
 how they act
 Contemporary Phenomenology
 can produce notions of essence of technologies
 has problems describing virtual worlds
 needs to rely on empirical philosophy

15. Questions?

16. To the Drinks themselves!
A Dutch Approach to Understanding Celebration of Graduation
Café Het Bolwerk