introduction [ How do frames influence our way of perceiving? The relationship between the frame and the human experience of looking. When we talk about the frame, we do not only talk about the frame itself, but what it frames; the exterior and the interior.]
perceiving [ The window shows the function of providing a view that separates two worlds. A frame where you could look through. It is being seen as the eyes of the building. Both Le Corbusier and Picasso saw the window as a method of visualization, but also as a method of creation. So did Alberti, as he used the window as a grid for perspective and realistic representations of reality. The painting showed an artistic world one could look in. The camera-frame confirmed, like the painting, that a frame could also be a frame for reproductions, where one could create. It went from the window, as something to look through, to the painting and photograph, as something to look at. It translated the 3-dimensional word onto a 2-dimensional surface. It is with film that movement and time influenced the way we looked and look at frames. The beginning of film, the camera was used in a static way, but still shocked many with for example ‘The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station’. Cinema then went from the theatrical static camera to the moving camera frame and this created multiple perspectives in time and space. This leads to the spectators experience of the difference in material space and virtual space. The screen introduces the interaction between these two by giving it an interface. The frame of the screen not only becomes one to look through, but also becomes one to use and navigate.]
navigation [ Starting at the window, the window-frame was part of the architecture, part of a physical location and it was used as a system to create realistic proportions in paintings. Within painting, the frame went from being an important factor of dividing the environment of the frame, the exterior, and the ‘imaginary world’, the interior, to the complete dissapearing of the physical frame. The frame became the rectangular shape of the photo, film and screen. The space outside the frame became even more aware with film, and its movement and time. So did it with the screen, as it gave the function, order and navigation. At the same time, these digital frames drag us in, losing focus on our environment, as if the frame is not there. Such as the disappeared painting frame.]
influence [ All the perceptual frames frame an opening into a world. The frame is the connection of the point of view of the spectators world and the image. The frame shows the illusion in reality. It gives us navigation and creates order in the way we perceive those images. It has become a device for seeing and creating representational images. Both virtual and not virtual. The frame went from something to look through, to something to look at, to something to interact and navigate. As we can see from history, frames give purpose. I do believe we need them. Maybe even more now, as we need guidelines while being surrounded with distractions. I see the transition to virtual reality as a challenge of questioning ourselves what the frame means in a world where our eyes become the frame itself. We should ask what the function of the frame is within the digital world. What would it mean to reinvent the frame? I believe that we will need an interface that somehow helps us guide through it, while the design of the frames should be related to their content, so they can be distinguished from each other. But the design of the frames can be an important aspect to question the frame itself. Maybe the role of the frame should be about something else, should become something else, to break through the virtual world.]