I like to think of history as a series of polar fluctuations. Old vs. new. Totalitarianism vs. shared governance. Baroque vs baroque.

The history under consideration is how we consume visual content. The fluctuation is one of aspect ratio: landscape vs. portrait.

I don’t know when we began distinguishing content from not content. Content began as part of its surroundings. Face painting and cave art were content, but the intention was to enhance the real world. But at some point, we decided to put content in a window, to present it as a view into another world.

This window is the frame, and it can be any 2D shape, but most commonly it is a square or a rectangle. And this is where it gets really interesting.

Rectangles can have either a landscape (wide) or a portrait (tall) aspect ratio. Landscape more natural. Our eyes are set horizontally, and landscape fills our field of vision more optimally. Portrait is more striking. Content presented this way “stands out”, distinguishes itself from what is not content because our eyes are forced to focus on a more narrow space.

Which came first? There are lots of factors here. Probably textiles or tapestries were examples of the first real visual content, although it’s difficult to consider textiles such as patterned clothing as framed content. Tapestries were most likely hung horizontally, but banners, flags, etc. have no typical aspect ration; they may be hung vertically or horizontally, or simply be square in format.

Writing systems are probably the best place to start, and these are naturally portrait format. Regardless of whether words are presented left-right, right-left, or vertically as they are depending on system, running text naturally takes the portrait format when presented in scrolls and pages.

Subject matter dictated the aspect ratio for 2D visual art—paintings, prints, photography. Landscape works best for, uh, landscapes. Likewise with portraits. In landscape, we see the big picture. In portrait, we get up close and personal.

The advent of film, and subsequently video games, changed that. Arguably the most popular methods for consuming content, these media were consumed inside the landscape frame. For over a century, landscape has dominated. Notably, video games spent a while in the portrait land of the arcade, until gaming consoles and pcs took over.

But that changed abruptly with the smart phone. The method for capturing content became the frame, and the method for holding the device was inherently portrait; our hands hold this frame vertically, and thus capture content that way.

Furthermore, phones introduced a new kind of visual content–one tied inherently to the social network. We began to consume content made not by professionals, but by our peers. One might argue that more time is spent consuming this type of content than any other; just peek over the shoulder of someone buried in their phone.

I recently learned about a new type of device being imagined by Jonathan Ivy, the mastermind designer behind many Apple products including the iPhone. The thought is that how we consume content will be radically different via this device, and that AI will besomehow involved. While I’m eager to learn more, like this commenter, I’m skeptical. I’ve always seen a shift back to landscape in the future, with AR lenses returning our eyes to their natural way of seeing.

But even that will change. History repeats itself, and the aspect ratio ping-pong game will continue. Who knows; maybe we’ll evolve to develop vertically-positioned eyes.