The Image-Interface

Introduction

This book is situated within the period of time that has been influenced by the information age. The time span has developed from the invention of digital computers to the contemporary scene of massive generation and storage of data. From the standpoint of information and communication studies, this period of time is deeply related to electronic media. In this book, we understand data as digital information and electronic media as the means to access and make sense of it.

In our present study, we are interested in a particular modality of electronic media: the graphical mode. Although most of the physical world perceptible to human senses has been simulated and described with electronic media (sounds, smells and tastes can all be quantified and stored as bits and bytes for a latter representation), the vast majority of developments in electronic media have taken place in visual form. We look at the computer screen as the main material support where digital information is represented in order to convey meaning. Nowadays, screens have become pervasive. We see and interact with them in laptop and smartphone displays, in desktop monitors, as beamer projections, in LED displays in elevators, city signage, museum exhibitions, park attractions, airports and public transportation. Screens can be public or private and shared or intimate (such as head-mounted displays).

The kinds of images depicted in computer screens are closely related to the display technologies that ...