Black screen, white page: Ontology and genealogy of blank space

This essay interrogates the history of convergence between page and screen through the evocation of blank space in literature and cinema, in line with contemporary inquiries performed by media genealogy and archaeology. The cultural techniques of reading and viewing are hybridized in todays digital environment. The magic lantern has now become the magic iPad that resembles both a book in its vertical page layout and a cinema screen in its horizontal letterbox format. The technological apparatuses of the literary and filmic imaginary once sharply demarcated these arts, and yet there were longstanding affinities between them. The exposure of the material substrate of both mediums in the analogue mode-the white page, the black screen-allows for the transparency that makes the exchange of properties between them visible. These convergences continue into the post-media age, as analogue and digital media are made to coexist.