Work Before - Natasha's Portfolio

April 29th, 2020

Approximation

Today, screens are our point of contact with the world. They are the moving, portable, virtual picture-window. Screens are our frame of reference in which we look through. The abundance and capitalist “democratization” of screens allows others to look at us. Thus, we are ever more aware of how we construct images of ourselves to others.

Moiré is an interference pattern that arises when two or more similar patterns overlap at an angle. A very common encounter with moiré is when one tries to take a photograph of an image on a digital screen, as the image sensors in different cameras are not of the same pixel density of the LED screen’s. Not only does digital moiré occur in the following photographs, but physical moire is additionally created through screen printed clear varnish.

The cumulative levels of interference push us further away from the subject, making her all the more easier to objectify. We hope that screens can allow us to see more, feel more, touch more. But, the more screens we use to see the world with our human eyes, the more we are out of touch.

This disruption of the mirage of digital and physical screens exposes the limitation of our biological eyes’ optical capacity to take in information. What we see is not reality. What we see is our image of reality, not reality itself. Our biological visual systems cannot see other bodies as they are without first encountering the screen of human bias. Not even the light coincident on the visual receptors in our retinas are objective. We deceive ourselves.