Abstract: A liquid crystal display device comprises a plurality of lateral electrodes and a plurality of longitudinal electrodes carried on a pair of substrates. A scanning signal addressing one of the lateral electrodes is supplied to a scanning signal bus which is connected to each of the lateral electrode via an optically activated switch and a video signal to be supplied to one of the longitudinal electrodes is supplied to a display signal bus which is connected to each of the longitudinal signal bus. The optically activated switches are selectively activated by irradiation of an optical beam and the scanning signal and the video signal are supplied to the addressed electrodes.