Portals

The choice to reveal, conceal, or manipulate one’s background in a video call has created new ways to filter our experiences and perceive reality.

Physical windows are portals through which we experience the world around us: the changing sky, the delivery workers, and even checking in on our neighbors from afar. The pandemic shelter in place orders renewed an appreciation for windows we perhaps took for granted, allowing a rare glimpse into the world outside our immediate homes. Simultaneously, physical isolation has increased our digital content consumption by shifting our physical interactions to the limits of a digital screen. Video calls, previously reserved for long-distance friends and family, are now the expectation for most conversations, allowing coworkers, classmates, doctors, and others intimate views into our homes. Through the compilation of personal video footage of the outside world filtering through our windows, juxtaposed by generic Zoom video backgrounds, Portals explores the manipulation of reality and the limits of technology as we stare out of our windows and into our screens.

Portals a collaborative project between Sarah Brophy and Katherine Chin.