SHIFT : An alternate future for experiencing reality in digital imagery.

Abstract: A picture is worth 1000 words. Great visuals can enhance, dramatize and even bend the narrative. From historical photos to modern-day digital images made of millions of pixels, images have always been instrumental in shaping our visual understanding of the world around us. As much as they have been instrumental in shaping reality, easy access to image manipulation has also resulted in wide spread misinformation. When anything can befaked, honest representation of reality in images has become a hard problem to crack. After multiple design explorations, I realized a need for a fundamental change in our interaction with images. The thesis resulted in building an alternate landscape for digital imagery called SHIFT, where images are connected entities that become an access point to multiple perspectives and alternate realities. It is not an attempt to challenge image manipulation technology but to use images as a means to develop a more informed understanding of the reality they represent.