Display. Luoghi, dispositivi, gesti

Display is a book about showing, and showing is the content displayed on its pages. The first meaning of this English term is linked to the verb “to display” and refers to the act of showing something: it includes a nuance that comes from its etymology – from the Late Latin displicare, meaning “to explain”, “to unfold”, which gives this act a narrative quality. Talking about exhibition displays therefore means alluding to the staging of an exhibition or a series of objects, to the techniques, theories and forms of storytelling that are an integral part of it. A second and widespread meaning is linked to digital technology and the display of data and images on screens, but once again also to the process of presenting such content. Although seemingly distant, these two meanings are now interwoven in experiences that hybridise them, generating a new vocabulary that allows us to place the 16th-century Wunderkammer and a digital archive, the frame of a painting and that of a wearable device in the same perspective. The concept of display encompasses “places” where content is organised, “devices” understood as tools and theoretical objects, and “gestures” performed to produce meaning. By dividing the book into these three sections, the volume outlines the complexity of a key contemporary theme, while also tracing its historical roots.