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	Thesis Essay (April 11, 2003) 1.+++page 1 +++++page 2 +++++page 3 +++++page 4 +++++page 5 2.1++page 6 2.2++page 7 +++++page 8 2.3++page 9 3.+++page 10 +++++works cited	My exploration begins in the fall of 2001, when I was working on a book project transforming the computer game strategy book The Sims to a self-help book for real life. By the end of the book project, a more ambitious idea came to my mind. Can I draw the analogy between life on the screen and life in the "real" world? The idea eventually developed into a video project called Life Through the Screen, which examines the computer/internet as a means of separating people as much as connecting them. It can be seen as a response to Steven Johnson's idea that "the automobile created the isolated cloisters of suburbia; the telephone and the television kept us firmly implanted in our domestic spaces; even the public life at the cinema unfolds under a vow of silence" (Interface Culture 65). It's natural for me to start from the computer. Nowadays we graphic designers sit in front of the screen so much that we start to perceive the world in a different way. I know I am not the only one struck by the view. In a recent book on young Swiss graphic designers, I came across these words: "I must say more. The sides. I am on one side. Then there's a screen, like a window. I am a world on one side and on the other side there's another world. That's what it's like with the computer--you can apply it to almost everything. Mostly you can only change something slightly in that other world through the window" (Stoller 26). Although the computer screen is flat, it is evocative of spatial relationships. --It's 1:36 AM Thursday, January 30, 2003. My computer just crashed so I have to rewrite this paragraph. Outside the window the snow that started falling yesterday morning has stopped. It must have happened sometime during the night. You can see the depth of the snow on the ground even though it's dark. This has been a cold winter with the most snow since I came to America. My room is quiet except that the stereo is playing Marvin Gaye and the radiator is making a purring noise.			+
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