The power of frames

One curious aspect of these images I've been working on is that most of them have frames.  The frames are usually integrated with the image in some way, but they are also clearly separate, at least in origin -- which means that presenting them in any sort of larger format could be, well -- odd.  Why would you frame something that was already framed?  Wouldn't it begin to feel a little... boxed in?

Which is how the figure in the center of this one feels to me  -- a bit, anyway.  Sort of a combination of boxed in and set free?

All of which is intriguing, because one of my assignments for class this week ended up being about frames: how we frame things metaphorically (for example, a government is like a family, charged with responsibility for nurture and discipline), and about the power of personal frames of reference.

In the latter case, we tend to see (and be boxed in by) our personal frames of reference: preferred and avoided environments, habitual and avoided behaviors, personal capabilities and weaknesses, enabling and constraining beliefs, our sense of identity (what is me, what is "not me"), and our spiritual connection to meaning and purpose.  "This notion of a personal frame of reference acknowledges that our view of the world is unique; and, at the same time, that it is not the world as anybody else sees it.  We respond -- and can only respond -- to "our world" as viewed through our personal frame of reference, not directly to the world.  Our perceptions and interpretations of the current state and emerging events are all viewed through this frame." (from Rodgers, Informal Coalitions)

Our frames provide protection and boundaries, a way to sort out what we can perceive and a filter for experience.  But -- like Facebook and Google (as the TED talk below explains) -- they do have a way of excluding information that could actually be relevant.  

So I wonder if, by making these frames more porous, I am giving my images a chance to move outward, or if that is just an illusion, and I am only removing some of the appearance of the frame, but not actually opening to the world beyond the frame...

Enjoy this talk; I found it fascinating...