M.H. Rahmani

“reFrame” is an interactive installation that shows you different ways of perceiving and understanding the same subject. It reveals and shifts your internal cognitive framework to give a visceral understanding of how subjective our world view is.

https://portfolio.mhrahmani.com/reframe

Description

We trust our worldview so dearly that we argue, fight, and go to war over it; but we are probably more wrong than we are right. We experience only a slice of the world around us, and we perceive it through not only our limited senses, but also through our limited semantics. Does being conscious of these fundamental limitations lead us to better conversations and less tension in society?

Metacognition – awareness of our subjective cognition – is already a well known concept these days, both in academia and pop culture; therefore we know that mere knowledge of it is not introspective enough to change our discourse. “reFrame” tries to communicate this concept through first-hand intuitive experience: it shifts your mindset to derive different meanings from the same subject, revealing to you the paradigms that are controlling what you see.

This installation is made of three large vertical frames at eye level that stand between the user and a visual subject. Within each frame is a custom-built transparent display that superimposes text and graphics over the subject – essentially turning the frame into a large AR Heads Up Display. It also tracks your eyes and adjusts the image based on where you look at it or how far you are from it.

Each frame represents a different point of view and reveal a unique way of understanding the subject. They also play with your distance by showing different ways of grouping and analyzing the subject based on how much of it is cropped by the frame.

Classes

Thesis