Unframing Aesthetics

All framing devices have the effect of sharply demarcating the boundaries of the representational space by ensuring both the island-like structure of pictures and the beholder’s awareness of being in front of ‘nothing but images.’ It is precisely this separateness, and, with it, the equation of representation with depiction, that is being more and more challenged by hyperrealistic, immersive, and interactive virtual environments that blur the threshold between image and reality, thus eliciting in the experiencer a strong feeling of being incorporated into quasi-real worlds. Drawing on phenomenology, media philosophy, visual culture studies and techno-aesthetics, this book introduces (and critically examines) the notion of 'unframing' as a key to understanding this radically new iconoscape.