Reconfigurations of Screen Borders: The New or Not-So-New Aspect Ratios

Abstract

The ubiquity of mobile phone cameras has resulted in many videos foregoing the traditional horizontal (landscape) frame in favour of a vertical (portrait) mode. While vertical framing is often derided as amateur practice, these new framing techniques are part of a wider contemporary screen culture in which filmmakers and artists are using unconventional aspect ratios and/or expanding and contracting aspect ratios over the course of their audio-visual work. This chapter briefly outlines historical contexts in which the border of the screen has been more flexible and open to changing configurations than is widely acknowledged. It then uses recent case studies to consider how our understanding of on-screen and off-screen space is determined by these framing configurations.