Screenshots

Last updated: Monday, 23 September 2024

The artist keeps hoping, the bear says, and catches me by surprise. I screenshot it. I tell my partner about it. It feels significant for a moment, then we move on. Months later, I come across the screenshot and relive the pleasant sensation of being taken out of a mundane moment of passive learning and into a more activated state. The accidental poetics of the Duolingo bear gave an interesting texture to an otherwise flat encounter. — Agnieszka Wodzińska, “I’m Still Learning, Don’t Thank Me” (2022)

A screenshot is an abstract digital artifact or object. It does not have a physical, material existence

Elements of a screenshot:

  • Captured content: The actual text, images, videos, or interface elements displayed on the screen that are captured in the screenshot; a static visual reproduction of the original dynamic screen content
  • Metadata: Additional data about the screenshot such as time and date of capture, device used, image resolution, and file format; provides context about the screenshot’s creation1
  • Embedded context: Screenshots capture content within the surrounding visual context of the user interface, revealing spatial relationships between elements that provide meaning and guide interpretation

“Shot” from photography, meaning a single exposure.

Captures and represents a particular state or configuration of visual information as it appeared on a screen. A representation or model of a real-world phenomenon (the screen display) at that specific moment in time.

While a screenshot itself is static, it depicts the dynamic visual output of an interactive computing system. Freezes and reifies a transient state within an ongoing computational process?

An evidentiary genre?

  • [⎈] Explore how screenshots are used in fields such as digital forensics, digital folklore, and user interface design.
  • [?] How do screenshots compare to written descriptions of screen content?
  • [&] See also: trace ethnography (a tool in trace ethnography, as a record of particular interactions?)
  • [&] See also: Mark Hurrell on screenshot archives as part of a design practice2

  1. Worth noting that metadata can support complex querying, filtering, and comparison of screenshots based on their properties, relationships, and context. In what situations might this prove useful? ⤴︎

  2. ‘Every so often now I laugh about the idea of training a generative AI on my screenshots folder.’ (Hurrell 2024) ⤴︎