‘Schutz und Schirm’: Screening in German During Early Modern Times

Rüdiger Campe analyzes the term Schirm (screen) and its various fields of application in early modernity before it designates the optical device called screen in the new media. If Jagd-Schirme, or hunting blinds, were complex means of visual concealment that also configured deadly forms of projection, Schirm was also located in the legal sphere, where it designated an exceptional administrative and military protection that also allowed for the projection of a legal entity that would otherwise not exist within the ordinary structures of power. How can one comprehend the return of the term within the language of electronic display? Campe elucidates Friedrich Kittler’s notion of ‘implementation’ as a concept for how such early modern practices of the screen can be seen as discontinuous with the modern history of the optical screen in one respect and continuous in another. ‘Implementation’ means to identify certain functions—such as protection and projection—for possible technical development but also to construct autonomous technological systems capable of assuming such functions.