Chapter
Six
Window
Dressing: Staging the Theatrical Stage
|
 At
first, in ancient Greece,
the stage was known as the orchestra, and was used as a dancing
place for festivals honoring the god Dionysos. As the drama developed
the need arose for scenic backgrounds. By the time of the thirteenth
century, the stage had been moved to the level of the spectators’
eyes, with an elaborate scene built and painted in perspective,
creating the illusion of depth without enlarging the stage itself.The
‘window metaphor’ was beginning to conquer stage design and theater
experience. The Vincenzian architect Andrea Palladio, in constructing
his Teatro Olimpico, elaborated on the window theme, creating,
for instance, various stage openings with complex scenes of streets.
His central arch was a step toward the picture frame stage setting
we know today, in which the action takes place inside a box shaped
stage (‘Guckkastenbühne’) behind a large rectangular arch.
This arrangement was quickly favored over previous conventions
because it separated the actors from the audience in such a way
as to create a ‘moving picture’. This type of stage made for real
drama exactly because, within the real space occupied by the audience,
it opened a window into a virtual world.
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Chapter
Seven
Through
the Looking Glass:
Virtual Reality in Victorian England
|
 A
"screen’s frame separates two spaces, the physical and the
virtual, which have different scales. Although this condition
does not necessarily lead to the immobilization of the spectator,
it does discourage any movement on her or his part: Why move when
s/he can’t enter the represented virtual space anyway? This was
well dramatized in Alice in Wonderland when Alice struggles
to become just the right size in order to enter the other world."
(Lev Manovich)
"As
you read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass,
consider the complex relations of these pre-electronic multimedia
works and the questions they raise. For example, since the author
of the verbal text (Dodgson/Carroll) so influenced the images that
accompany it, can one interpret that verbal text without paying
attention to the visual?" (George P. Landow) Steven Johnson
insists, that "the most compelling cultural analogy for the
hypertext webs of today’s interfaces turns out to be not the splintered
universe of channel surfing, but rather the damp, fog-shrouded streets
of Victorian London, and the mysterious resemblances of Charles
Dickens."
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Chapter
Eight
Space
and Time: the Epistemology of Screening and Framing
|
 One
of the most reputed philosophical websites on the Internet is called
‘The Window’. ‘Cognitive Mapping’ in space and time, from the cave
drawing to the computer image, has always relied on selection, on
borders, on ‘screening’ and ‘framing’. "The Scientific Revolution
fed in part on a transformation in the comprehension of space that
had originated in the fifteenth century with the invention of the
linear perspective, the theory and methods of representing three
dimensions on a two-dimensional surface.
The
painter enthusiasts of perspective, some of them accomplished theorists
themselves, were often conversant with works of mathematics, geometry,
and proportion, and were acquainted with the engineers, architects,
artisans, and instrument makers who put these findings to practical
use." (Daniel J. Kevles)
Now
other screens than those of the 16th century Nuremberg
school of perspective are gradually coming to dominate visual culture
– video monitor, computer screen, instrument display. And instead
of freezing space in time, the scenes in the these windows can change
in real time. So even while contributing to the Euclidean
spatial thinking of modernity, the window metaphor has always pointed
beyond Aristotelian Logic and into non-Euclidean cyberspace. This
"latest mutation in space - postmodern hyperspace - has finally
succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human
body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually,
and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world.
It may now be suggested that this alarming disjunction between the
body and its built environment - which is to the initial bewilderment
of the older modernism as the velocities of spacecraft to those
of the automobile - can itself stand as the symbol and analogon
of that even sharper dilemma which is the incapacity of our minds,
at least at present, to map the great global multinational and space
centered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught
as individual subjects." (Fredric Jameson)
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Chapter
Nine
The
Eye: Mirror and Window of the Soul
|
 There
should be a place, within our project, to explore the metaphorical
realm linking the ‘eye’ to the ‘window’. Art and even pop music
abound with such analogies. The ancient notion of the ‘Third Eye’
points to the idea that there might be windows behind the window
etc. Early medieval thinking revolved around the notion that true
insight was possible only in a succession of steps, opening window
after window in unfolding the meaning of phenomena. The observations
and experiments of René Descartes on how refraction of light
rays by the eye’s lens produces an inverted image on the retina
provided a physical basis for the understanding of visual perception.
Scientific knowledge together with the sophistication of religious
and mystical thinking around this very special window, the eye,
constitute, as Steven Johnson points out, an important source for
interface culture and design
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Chapter
Ten
The
Window Metaphor in Islamic Culture
|
 The
use of geometry in Islamic architecture and ornament – especially
in latticework and other ‘infinite’ patterns – has been interpreted
as visual demonstrations of the singleness of God and his presence
everywhere. These patterns represent ‘unity in multiplicity’ and
‘multiplicity in unity’. "The continuity of the interlacement
invites the eye to follow it, and vision is then transformed into
rhythmic experience accompanied by intellectual satisfaction given
by the intellectual regularity of the whole." (Jacob Burckhardt)
- Long
before tainted glass was able to filter and enhance light, the geometrical
latticework of Islamic architecture had created a very special kind
of screen – flat and multidimensional at the same time – that could
fill window openings with cultural, religious and even intellectual
meaning. "Nervously
pulsating around multiple foci of rotational symmetry, labyrinthine
girih patterns acted as seductive magnets that afforded no rest
to the attentive gaze. Seeing became, in effect, reinventing new
patterns each time the gaze attempted in vain to fix itself on these
interpenetrating geometric shapes or to dissect their concealed
underlying schemes." (Necipoglu)
This
not only made for the screens of the Serail, which caught the imagination
of the 19th century – it also is proving to be a design
principle for the modern interface.
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Chapter
Eleven
The
Window Metaphor in Buddhism and Confucianism
|
 Buddhist
architecture can be traced back to B.C.255 when the Mauryan emperor
Asoka established Buddhism as the state religion of his large empire.
Buddhism spread rapidly throughout India and other parts of Asia.
Buddhism was, as it were, a graphic creed, and correspondingly its
expansion was accompanied by a distinctive style of architecture
that expressed the teachings of Buddha. While Asoka was elaborating
stupas by adding gateways etc., in western India complex
temples were carved out of living rock, creating, one might say,
‘Platonic caves’ – for metaphorical management of (spiritual) light
obviously plays a pivotal role in Buddhism.  Further
architectural advance provided splendid examples of ‘window art’
– which left its traces in painting, oral and written literature
and certainly in modern interface design within India’s prolific
programming industry. - The screen, the screen window and its metaphorical
context have also been developed within Confucian culture and –
a very important aspect – in Japan.
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Chapter
Twelve
Walls
of Glass: the Essence of Architecture
|
 Shaping
light through an ‘Architecture of Glass’ (Francisco Asensio Cerver)
has become almost a mainstream venture where representative, large
scale buildings are to go up. Skyscrapers all over the world follow
the trend. Playing with, reflecting on and exploiting the possibilities
of modern glass technology has led to engineering marvels, public
sculptures on a monumental scale. Many of these urban towers are
clad in reflective glass, joining the properties of the window
and the mirror. Color, light and glass are integral to the architecture
of our time.
The
Victorian Crystal Palace might have set the stage, but true
reflection on the meaning of the glass window began with Bruno Taut’s
1914 glass house, with the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier.
Since then, in addition, the development of the ‘real-time screen’
of monitors and of interactive computer screens left its impact
on the ‘postmodern’ stages of the architecture of light: integrating
glass and various interfaces – as in Bill Gates’ Seattle mansion.
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Chapter
Thirteen
Modern
Painting: in Defense of the Classical Screen
|
 "Visual
culture of the modern period, from painting to cinema, is characterized
by an intriguing phenomenon: 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. This phenomenon is what defines the
screen in the most general sense, or, as I will call it, the ‘classical
screen’." (Lev Manovich)
 It
seems almost a miracle that modern painting – or at least the art
of High Modernism – has clung to that frame or screen, reflecting
on its ‘windowness’, not shedding its confines, but rather ‘defending’
the classical screen the Renaissance had established as the space
within which our images of the world were to develop. "It
is a flat, rectangular surface. It is intended for frontal viewing
(as opposed to, for instance, a panorama). It exists in our normal
space, the space of our body, and acts as a window into another
space." (Lev Manovich)
 To
look at modern painting (not at postmodern art) will show that,
"like centuries ago, we are still looking at a flat rectangular
surface, existing in the space of our body and acting as a window
into another space." (Lev Manovich) It will be interesting
to discuss – and maybe put into question - this perseverance of
painters like Picasso, Matisse, Munch, Chagall, Dali etc.
See
article
'Windows in Painting'
|
Chapter
Fourteen
‘Peep
Show’ and ‘Fensterln’: Folklore of the Windows Experience
|
 The
subject of ‘peep shows’ obviously opens up a Pandora’s box we would
merely touch, although this subject, too, brims with history and
cultural traditions all over the world.
  The
ancient Bavarian practice of ‘Fensterln’ not only echoes the tradition
of the serenade below balconies and open windows, it is, itself,
echoed by computer lingo referring to various interface programming
tricks. A
very interesting, vast collection of ‘media magica’ (optical viewing
toys, magic lanterns, cameras, phantasmagoria, zoopraxiscopes, dioramas
etc.) has been assembled by Werner Nekes.
As
early as in the fifteenth century exploring the world of perspectives
led to the wish to see and devise moving images. All these devices,
obviously, had to construct windows (frames, screens) to present
paper animations and the like. The nineteenth century saw an explosive
growth and huge commercial success of the media magica, just before
the first cinematic images were shown. In these sometimes primitive,
sometimes elaborate contraptions the possibilities of the window
were explored in all directions, in many ways preparing the aesthetics
of early cinema.
|
Chapter
Fifteen
Window
Shopping: the Commodification of Desire
|
 Window
shopping as a fact and as a metaphor conjures up many aspects
of daily life. There was that delightful Belgian movie ‘Window
Shopping’ by Chantal Akerman. And since everything is being commodified,
there is no window today that is not subjected to a little ‘dressing’
for the markets. Home owners are building elegant valances to
show off to their friends, whole industries cater to the need
to attract customers with attractive shop-window displays.
Virtual window shopping is the name of the game in the commercial
sections of the Internet. And many programmers and software companies
offer tips for ‘window dressing’ Windows 95 and Windows 98. The
design of attractive shop windows has, by now, an intriguing history,
going back at least to the eighteenth century and including, not
to forget, those certain windows in the red light districts of Amsterdam
or Hamburg.
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Windows
- History of a Metaphor
Overview
1 2 3
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Intro Authors
Windows in Painting German
Sample Chapter Overview
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