A very odd promotional image for the FlexScan EV2730Q
This is Rhizome Today for Friday, November 21, 2014.
Rhizome Today is an experiment in ephemeral blogging: a series of posts that are written hastily in response to current events, and taken offline within a day or so. The latest post can always be found at http://www.rhizome.org/today.
[Editor's Note: We offer Rhizome Today contributors a variety of formats to use in writing their ephemeral post. An IM chat is one.]
Dragan Espenscheid: EIZO announces square monitor: http://www.eizoglobal.com/press/releases/htmls/ev2730q.html
Zachary Kaplan: I don't get it.
DE: 1:1 ratio like a Blackberry screen
ZK: Ok, I get it, but, as we've been taught, the cinema screen is the screen above all.
ZK: 16:9
ZK: or whatever.
DE: Most users don't watch video all day though.
ZK: Ah, yes, as I see on the site:
ZK: "The extended vertical space is convenient for displaying large amounts of information in long windows, reducing the need for excess scrolling and providing a more efficient view of data."
ZK: IS THIS FOR HOME USE?
DE: I want one for sure.
ZK: But Dragan
ZK: You're an artist.
DE: The cinema format is so lame because it is optimized for not moving your eyes.
ZK: Can u expand?
DE: Cinema is supposed just to fill out your whole view and to take in the "complete picture."
ZK: Whereas a square, you're like, "why is this a square?", and then u pay attention?
DE: On the square, I can let my eyes wander.
ZK: ah. hrm.
ZK: Still think this sounds like an office piece....
ZK: Are there any artworks or other media things you think would look particularly good in this format?
DE: I believe it is more interactive, gives a viewer more power.
DE: VINE BIENNAL
ZK: Ha. Yes. Any mobile phone type thing, right? Which is based on the scroll paradigm?
DE: Casio WQV10 photo exhibition.
DE: No, vine and insta just chose square because it is the same no matter how you rotate the device
ZK: Well, I don't think either rotate, tbh.
ZK: Classic Blackberry owner comment.
ZK: Tho I'm starting to see the FEED use for this... but then I'm still like, "just scroll!"
DE: Well, touch screens *and* device rotation weren't worth all the trouble.
ZK: (Btw, I like the kind of opiate of the masses take on cinema you're plying here. Very Kracauer.)
ZK: (Very anti-authoritarian.)
ZK: Is the square computer anarchist?
DE: It is not consumerist for a start.
ZK: THAT IS FOR SURE
DE: The best exhibition for this format would be Olia's collection of transparent web pixels.
ZK: Nice.
ZK: Oh wait, one last q
ZK: is this happening only now?
ZK: Is it hard to make a square monitor?
ZK: Or is the market so fractured, individualized, it only made sense to make one now?
DE: If you read the comments on tech blogs announcing this monitor, lots of users speak up that they had enough of 16:9 or 21:9 because what they need to see expands below that format.
DE: The market for screens is actually shockingly homogeneous, with everything being 16:9 or wider.
DE: I don't think other formats are more difficult to make
ZK:
ZK: Well — I'm happy for people who need this. The market should meet every need! ![]()
Editor's Note: During the editing process, this last minute comment was added:
Scott Meisburger: LCD panels are manufactured in giant sheets and then sliced up. I've read that the recent move to 16:9 everything (which is further from the golden ratio than the original Apple Cinema 16:10) has to do with normalizing the assembly. because all the panels are really made by 1 or 2 companies in Asia.
SM: ^^ pro tip