The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays

It’s likely that you’ve glanced at a seven-segment display thousands of times in your life without knowing what it was called, or even giving the design much thought at all. First invented in 1903 to help increase the speed of telegraph transmissions, in the 1970s the display began to appear on household devices, and persists on a great many household items today – even in the age of high resolution. In this video essay, the Dutch filmmaker, photographer and artist Michiel de Boer offers a surprisingly fascinating dive into the history and design of segmented displays, which, designed to overcome technical limitations, exist at the intersection of form and function. In doing so, De Boer also dives into his lifelong quest to build a better segmented display than the ‘double square’ design that has become ubiquitous.