enter the screen

Going in to Fertile Grounds for the first time in a several weeks, I noticed something different right away. Sure, there were the usual tunes, the same warm hues, people shifting, talking, typing, and the cafe's long narrow space giving the place its cozy and familiar feel. But what was that movement?

As I approached the counter to order (double capp almost every time; they must see it coming!), a large rectangle of moving shapes, light, and figures drew my attention to the wall across from the counter, above the small shelves with the lids, twizzlers (is that what those narrow wooden stirring things are really called?) and other drink accouterments. A magnet for the eye in a place that had never been a place before.

Across from the moving image--the bowling alley scene from The Big Lebowski, with Jeff Bridges' character "The Dude" pontificating on some point or other was on at the time--a projector sat on the shelves behind the counter, nestled under the chalkboard menu and among the ubiquitous lineup of Torani syrups for making Italian sodas.

Suddenly, as my eyes followed the images, I realized that there was no sound. I mean, of course, the cafe's music, its human conversations, the occasional blasts of steam from the espresso machine for the latest order, these things continued. Yet, somehow, in the moment of looking at this wall-turned-screen, in the indeterminate space and time of ordering drinks (had I ordered? had I even acknowledged the existence of Ayman, the ever-pleasant and jesting owner of the cafe?), there was now a silence, as I felt I had naturally, inescapably, entered the screen.

After the brief spell had broken (yes, over-dramatized for the purposes of today's post, but bear with me :), Ayman let me know that he'd had this idea for a while, that it had been about a month since he started projecting videos from his computer through the projector and onto the wall, and that he's hoping to organize movie nights and other screenings on the wall. Pretty cool, we said. A lot you can do with a projector. A lot of possibilities for forming and transforming conversation and community (does everyone ask about it? can customers talk about favorite actors and films? can it be used to raise awareness or make statements to the clientele of a sort that would seem too overt, or just be hard to communicate, without the medium of the moving picture?). Anyway, pretty cool for sure that just by projecting an image, you can turn a wall into a screen!

This did make me stop, step back and scratch my head a little though. Look around this cafe--look around almost any cafe within 2 miles of the Berkeley campus--and what do you see? Screen after screen, and the flesh-and-blood screenic prostheses, in the form of latte-sipping computer users bent over their keyboards, maybe even with earbuds plugged in. Probably with iPhone sitting next to the computer, just in case. What does it mean that now the cafe sponsors a screen of its own? Here in cafes, where conversation is at a premium, and under greater and greater threat as computer culture proliferates, says this recent SF Gate article. And this is something Ayman and I talked about too--how hard it is to engage the computer users (like me), especially the minority intent on extracting as much electricity and wireless signal as they possibly can for stretches of hours (at the price of the cheapest drink on the menu, mind you).

How do you create community at a cafe in the wifi age? Is this conversion of the cafe itself into a screen of sorts an intentional approach to play the same game that the computer-users are playing, where screens entertain us, tell us stories, connect us to the world? One that might spark a reflexive thought or two in the screen-viewing cafe denizens, prompting them to (heaven forbid) shut their computers and watch and talk together?

I like The Dude as much as anyone, and I'm excited to see where this goes. But at the same time, I felt a little twinge of sadness, at seeing, watching, being drawn into and compelled to keep watching, yet another screen.

My sincere thanks to Ayman and all at Fertile Grounds for letting me take these pictures and share these views. In the words of our screenic Governator, "I'll be back". :)