Dave’s Screen Assignment
In the future, I see a single screen acting as a window to many screens. In a sense, the screen functions as the apex of a pyramid with content being projected many subscreens behind it. The content will work to take up different areas of the screen while competing for the viewer’s attention. As the pyramid goes down, each level will consist of more subscreens, but each screen will be smaller than those on the previous level. The subscreens will all work together projecting images on the main screen, with each screen fighting for space. The result will essentially constitute a power hierarchy where institutions controlling the bigger screens (corporations, countries, ect…) take up the most space, while smaller screens controlled by gradually less powerful entities, with the smallest being individual minorities, can still project, but their image must filter through the larger screens. As the images from lower screens increasingly make their way towards the viewer, the larger screens also work to consume some of them to the point where their own projections will change. From this perspective, bigger screens essentially rely on filtration from the smaller screens to exist. However, those images that aren’t co-opted can still sneak through the cracks and get to the viewer, but without the aid of concentration they will always have difficulty competing with the bigger images as well as each other.
When staring at the screen the viewer will have the ability to focus on whatever image they want, but the larger ones will obviously be easier to see. The smaller images can still be watched, even at all times if the viewer chooses, but in order to do so he or she will still have to make the effort to pull their attention away from the bigger images. As time passes, pyramid will get bigger with more screens being added at the bottom and each level growing in size, but the hierarchy will still remain. As a result, the viewing experience will become increasingly more selective as more and more images begin to compete with each other.