Screening Devices and Metavisual Frontiers

“Frost”, by Šarūnas Bartas

Abstract

By considering one of the latest works by the contemporary Lithuanian filmmaker Šarūnas Bartas, this paper aims to show why Frost (2017) can be considered an ideal example for research on screenology. More specifically, the article focuses on the way screens, as comprehensive and pervasive visual apparatuses, affect not just Frost’s visuality but also its own narrative, proposing how screens (be they human faces, rear-view mirrors, YouTube windows, smartphone lenses, found footage or archive pictures) are both visual and metavisual elements in Frost’s storytelling. The here renamed “directional”, “anthropomorphic”, “convergent”, and “environmental” screens are pointed towards the Ukrainian outpost while turning themselves into border and frontier aesthetic devices that set an ongoing visual trespassing in space and time. Ultimately, the variety of theoretical contributions and the extensive and multi-perspective approaches help to reveal the inevitable denseness of the screen contemporary notion.