https://doi.org/10.31261/FLPI.2026.11.10
As we often hear, what is at stake in the transition from a paper book to a digital tool is a transformation from the material world to the virtual world and from the Symbolic to
the Imaginary. The tacit assumption behind these both claims is that the material
and the virtual constitute two opposing dimensions, and that the virtual is synonymous with the immaterial. In this text, drawing on the writings of Byung-Chul Han, Jacques Lacan, and Giorgio Agamben, I argue that both these assumptions are false. First, I attempt to determine what the screen’s mirror is. What is the screen-mirror that no one sees even though everyone constantly looks at it? Is the function of the mirror to double or to annihilate the seer? Second, I ask a question about who is seen on the screen. Is the spectacle of the projected world seen, or are we instead drawn, sucked into the screen’s interior? Third, and finally, I consider the problem of the screen’s materiality and its obliteration. Is the magic of digital devices not about staging the disappearance of their own materiality? And is the description of this invisible materiality limited to describing the conditions of representation, presentation, or disclosure of the image? The answers to these three questions are intended to lead me to formulate theses about what I call the “screen unconscious.”
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2026
Published: 2022-03-23
10.31261/FLPI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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