Mobile Screens. The Visual Regime of Navigation

This study offers an overview of different forms of screen media: from the 19th-century panorama and early cinema, through highway panorama’s and screens in the public space, to present-day artistic touchscreen installations, portable gaming consoles and smartphones. How can we study these new technologies in the light of their predecessors?

Mobile Screens offers a methodological approach. From a comparative, theoretical perspective the intersections between mobility and visuality are examined in a series of case studies. The book tells us how we handle screens and how they act as interfaces enabling spatial, temporal and tactile experiences: principles of navigation form a visual ‘format’ that guides our thinking. How do principles of navigation guide our experiences with present-day screen media?

Nanna Verhoeff is associate professor of comparative media studies at Utrecht University.

"Mobile Screens charts a “navigational turn” in contemporary media culture and recasts screened images as “performative cartographies.” Fusing intermediale discussions of hand-held devices, gaming consoles, urban screens, and cinema, Verhoeff eloquently demonstrates the multi-sensorial nature of screened life while revealing how screens are reading life back to us in new ways. Lucidly written and cleverly theorized, Mobile Screens is vital for anyone interested in contemporary media culture."
- Lisa Parks, Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California-Santa Barbara.

Titel: Mobile Screens. The Visual Regime of Navigation
Auteur(s): Nanna Verhoeff
isbn: 978 90 8964 379 7
Uitgeverij: Amsterdam University Press (Open Access: free download)