Abstract
As computer interfaces, electronic screens monopolize architects’ interaction with computational media. However, despite their instrumental role in architectural practice, hardly anyone would think of screens as instruments, although they originated from a scientific instrument: the oscilloscope. The oscilloscope was the first device for the graphic display of electrical signals. It soon surpassed its initial scientific visualization purposes to evolve into early computer graphics screens up until the 1970s. This paper looks at the oscilloscope's transition from an electrical instrument to an electronic display to explore how the instrumentality of displays was altered, and why it became less obvious. Two historical uses of oscilloscopes are examined. The first is the work of American artist Ben F. Laposky, who employed early oscilloscopes to perform “light drawings” in the 1950s. The second is a 1964 proposal by computer scientists Ivan and Bert Sutherland at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for an oscilloscope display that would “perform drawings.” The two cases are analyzed using the interpretive concept of body techniques, borrowed from sociology. Body techniques allow for an empirical analysis of screen’s instrumentality that does not distinguish between representations and operations, but rather includes representations to an irreducible series of embodied actions. This paper argues that examining the embodiment of graphic techniques can lead to an innovative understanding of design-computing techniques as co-shaped by both the affordances of novel technologies and the visual culture of existing design practices.
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Notes
- 1.
The word oscilloscope derives from the Latin oscillare, which means to swing, and the affix scope, which generally indicates instruments ‘for enabling the eye to view or examine or make observations’ (Oxford English Dictionary Online).
- 2.
Others were the American artist Mary Ellen Bute and the Canadian animator Norman McLaren.
- 3.
For more details about the difference between electrical and electronic instruments, see Tympas (1996) [10].
- 4.
Although the article was published in 1969, Laposky had created the included artwork in the 1950s. In particular, his debut in the one-man-show Electronic Abstractions in Stanford Museum in Cherokee, Iowa, was in 1952.
- 5.
‘Light pen: an obsolete pen-like input device that was used with cathode-ray tube display to point at items on the screen or to draw new items or modify existing ones.’ [24].
- 6.
Leroi-Gourhan’s quote being translating in the context of this research: ‘Both tool and gesture are now embodied in the machine, operational memory in automatic devices, and programing in electronic equipment’ [20: 238].
- 7.
Architecture historians have recently pointed out that histories of digital architecture “gravitate towards breaks, shifts and turn of various kinds,” whereas histories of continuities that explain how the common ground was shaped are missing from existing scholarship [25].
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Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank professors Jonathan Sterne and Emily I. Dolan, who motivated this research through their graduate seminar on “Instruments and Instrumentalities.” Special thanks to Skooby Laposky for generously sharing information and archival material related to the work of his great-uncle Ben F. Laposky. Thanks also to Professor Theodora Vardouli and to graduate students Max Leblanc, Ravi Krishnaswami and Alexander Hardan, who provided valuable and constructive feedback to earlier versions of this work.
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Pertigkiozoglou, E. (2022). Screen Techniques:. In: Gerber, D., Pantazis, E., Bogosian, B., Nahmad, A., Miltiadis, C. (eds) Computer-Aided Architectural Design. Design Imperatives: The Future is Now. CAAD Futures 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1465. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1280-1_4
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