The Virtual Window

The article "The Virtual Window" by Anne Friedberg portays an interesting perspective of the modern world. In the beginning of the article, she seems to like the idea of television screens becoming windows. A regular glass window, while beautiful, only lets you see what is right outside the room you are occupying. A virtual window, like a tv set, lets you see different parts of the world that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise. She uses the example of Bill Gates having huge tv screens in his house where he can upload masterful works of art from the National Art Gallery in London. Instead of having the real art there, he is able to look at virtual pieces of art, which raises an interesting question of ethics. Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, who could probably buy any piece of art that he wanted, wants instead a digital screen to look at the classic pieces of art. From this perspective, it seems like our society has become extremely shallow, replacing true life with that of digital. However, Friedberg seems to think that this virtual screen is a good thing, giving people who don't have the means to see different parts of the world a "window" in. Film is the same way. A person behind a camera can film a different society or culture so that other people who can't see those different societies or cultures for themselves can see what it is like there. That of course causes problems as well. Instead of the people seeing the different societies for themselves and from their perspective, seeing anything and everything that they want, they are instead seeing it from the perspective of the person behind the camera.

This distortion of perspectives also connects with what Freidberg says later in the article about how home televisions portray the films being shown on them. When a director makes a film, he makes it exactly the way he wants to. If he is lucky, his film will portray the message that he set out to make. However, when a film is shown on a home television, certain things about the film are usually changed. For example, when a film is being shown in theaters, it's shown in widescreen format, which is where the audience is shown a substantial amount more on the sides of the shot. When the film is shown on television, whether through a VCR or DVD player or on an actual station, the format is different, showing much less of the sides of the shots, distorting the vision the director originally had.

This distortion of perspective goes hand in hand with Friedberg's later point about the computer screen being a window to the outside world. Instead of just watching what the director wants you to see, now, you are in control of what you are seeing out the window you have installed on your desk. Yet the things that you are looking at on your computer have been manipulated by the creators of websites, or the computer makers themselves. Because you are in control of what you are looking at, it gives you a false sense of security, you feel that you are in control of the images that you see. However, everything that you are looking at was created by someone else, someone with a perspective that they are trying to force upon you. And the scary part of the computer is, you can look at multiple perspectives at one time, going quickly from one window to another without thinking about it With a film, you are watching one person's perspective for usually a substantial amount of time, over an hour. With a computer, you could be surfing the internet for an hour, and look at hundreds of different perspectives, all of them influencing you in some way.

I feel that the most important thing that I got out of the article was that you cannot replace the world happening outside of your window. Because even though you are only seeing a little part of the world, you are seeing it from your own perspective. Anything or anyone that you see outside of that piece of glass you can freely interpret without anyone telling you how. The article asks whether or not the digital window will one day replace that of the architectual one, but I don't think that it ever could. People have to have their own perspectives on things, they cannot just go around listening to what other people say and keeping it as their own. Humans are connected to nature, and sometimes you just need to step outside, and smell the grass instead of the electric cords. I don't think that the age of windows will be ending any time soon.