ABSTRACT
In this chapter I explore interactions with a news and advertisements screen that faces passers-by in a footway in London’s Old Street Roundabout. As the epigraph suggests, interactions with the screen have become so habitual as to be claimed as nonexistent. However, triangulation of data derived from observations, diaries, and interviews suggests that while moving through the environment of diverse quickly changing stimuli (lights, traffi c, passing others, weather) passers-by endeavour to ‘remove’ the screen to the background of their attention. Although seen in countless brief passages as relatively uninterested, passers-by are sophisticated ‘walkers-viewers’, who draw on their knowledge of the screen in negotiating the footway as their everyday space and tactically repurpose the screen.
