Screens

This essay, opening the 2017 CompaLit convention in Verona, intends to introduce screens as a subject and theme present throughout the history of mankind. The essay discusses Narcissus’ fount as the first (mythological) screen, the mirror as the first man-made object reflecting his image, and subsequently all the other artifacts capturing one’s image: the portrait, photography, and cinematic screens, up to computer and cell phone displays. Screens in general reflect men’s uneasiness once confronted with their own images. With the advent of a digital society screens have become the reflections of users who delegated their mental faculties to them. So Alzheimer is now the perfect metaphoric illness of the XXI century. Man emptied by Alzheimer is perfectly represent by the zombie, a popular figure in horror movies that has as its forerunner the aphasic Lazarus of John’s Gospel.