/ User to Hardware
In the interfacial stack, the "user-to-hardware" layer of the interface refers to input and output devices such as USB memory sticks, keyboards, and mice or trackpads. An artistic example of this concept is the "Dead Drops" project, initiated in 2010 by German artist Aram Bartholl. This project engages with the fundamental physical layer of interface interaction, where the exchange occurs directly between human users and machines. "Dead Drops" is an anonymous, offline, peer-to-peer file-sharing network situated in public spaces. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings, and curbs, allowing anyone in the vicinity to access them. Participants can connect their laptops to these embedded drives to share or retrieve files. Each "Dead Drop" is initially installed with an empty USB stick, containing only a readme.txt file that explains the project. Participants can submit a form on the project's website to receive instructions on how to install their USB drive into a public wall. This project indicates how artists exploring new technologies can expand conventional ideas about technology’s usage, opening up discussions on the free distribution of knowledge through physical interfaces, rather than networked systems.
Another critical aspect relevant to digital spaces and the interaction between curators and viewers within these spaces is the shift from using a mouse to a trackpad. Although touchpad technology was first widely implemented with Apple's PowerBook 500 series in 1994, early versions were relatively small. Over time, touchpads have increased in size, allowing for programming different gestures and interactions. This evolution mirrors the development of touchscreens, where interaction with technology becomes even more immediate, bypassing physical devices such as mice and keyboards, and enabling direct interaction with the digital environment through the screen.
The concept of the screen, however, should also be considered as a significant element in this context. I propose that the screen can be seen as a window or frame that permits the user to enter the domain of the digital environment. It is important to emphasise that interfaces, particularly GUIs, have long been compared to windows or doors that facilitate interaction. Bolter and Grusin argue that "digital graphics extend the tradition of the Albertian window” (2000, p. 26), 5 where the algorithmic processes in computing create clearer and more polished perspectives, leading users to experience a sense of immediacy with the medium.
Virtual reality (VR) technology further extends this illusion, as Bolter and Grusin note, "VR technology is taking people beyond and through the display screen into virtual worlds” (2000, p. 29). 6 Lev Manovich, in his chapter "The Screen and The User" from The Language of New Media (2001), analyses screens as frames that separate two distinct spaces that coexist.
He provides a historical typology of screen development, describing the "classical screen that displays a static, permanent image; the dynamic screen that displays a moving image of the past [referring to cinema]; and finally, the real-time screen that shows the present" (Manovich, 2001, p. 103). 5 From this perspective, the concept of display is more appropriate than screen. Display refers to the entire system that produces and renders visual content, encompassing the screen, the hardware that drives the visual output (such as the GPU and associated electronics), and the software that processes and presents the data on the screen. In this sense, the display builds its environment, consisting of several layers of interconnected interfaces that are responsible for constructing the visual image.
While Alberti’s perspective window metaphor may be more appropriately applied to screens rather than interfaces or displays, interfaces and displays themselves form an environment, with the screen serving as an object through which the user observes this environment. Alexander Galloway, in his book Interface Effect (2012), similarly challenges the notion of the interface as a window, stating that "a window testifies that it imposes no mode of representation on that which passes through it. A doorway says something similar, only it complicates the formula slightly by admitting that it may be closed from time to time, impeding or even blocking the passengers within" (Galloway, 2012, p. 39). 3 From this perspective, viewing the screen as a metaphorical window that opens onto the digital environment is more fitting.
Screen dictates the environment in which information is presented. In curatorial contexts, exhibitions are often optimised for specific screens, such as computer monitors or phone screens. However, I would argue that it is not the screen that determines access to a particular digital environment, but rather the device itself, which in turn informs curatorial decisions regarding the optimisation and availability of the project for specific types of screens. All devices incorporate some form of screen, as humans require visual representation to interact with technology. Even in discussions of invisibility and transparency in interfaces that are mostly connected to VR technology, the screen is still needed for human processing. From this standpoint, it is not the screen that has vanished in VR, as Manovich suggested, but rather the digital environment started to fully occupy the user's visual spectrum. The screen is a physical mediator that facilitates the connection between technology and the human eye, but it does not influence the environment itself, much like how windows or doors do not shape the interior of a space—they simply frame the view.