I’m a motion graphic designer, video editor, animator, and aspiring filmmaker. I was born in Iran, where I worked on many feature films, TV shows, and short films before moving to the U.S. For me, storytelling has always been more than just entertainment, it’s a way to challenge ideas and make people think. Growing up under a theocratic regime, I saw how media could be used to control people’s beliefs. My mother once told me, “Choose your beliefs based on your own reasoning.” That advice changed my life. Today, I am interested in using visual art to question harmful ideologies, fight censorship, and promote freedom of thought.
Reading Susan Sontag’s In Plato’s Cave made me think more deeply about photography. Her idea that photography is never neutral really hit me with the truth. I’ve always enjoyed artistic photography, especially nude, abstract, and figurative styles, but I now realize that even my personal taste reflects my own biases. Sontag’s point that photography is a form of appropriation made me reflect on how I view and create images. Whether I’m editing someone else’s footage or thinking about my own projects, I’m not just showing reality, I’m shaping it.
Most of my work has been in post-production, helping bring other people’s ideas to life. But I’ve always had my own thoughts, especially about politics, religion, and taboo topics. Sontag’s view of the camera as a tool of power and control makes sense to me, especially because I’ve lived in a system that uses media to spread propaganda. I always see photography and any other visual arts not just as a way to capture beauty, but as a way to challenge meaning. In today’s world, where people mostly consume media that matches their own beliefs, I want to use visual art to criticize their beliefs even if they see it as offensive or even if it doesn’t break through those bubbles.
This semester, I want to try and treat each of the projects as part of a bigger picture. I’ll explore themes like fragmentation and propaganda. I’m drawn to simple, direct, and natural photography, but I’ll also try adding graphics or text to express my ideas more clearly. By manipulating photography or adding graphics and words can help me question dominant narratives and invite viewers to think more critically.
To represent today’s world visually, I’d focus on political division, especially the extremes on both the left and right, and the harmful ideas spread by religious, ideologies and political systems. I imagine using raw, documentary-style photos combined with surreal or manipulated elements. These images would reflect the confusion and distortion we see in society today.
In the end, image-making is how I engage with the world, not passively, but with purpose. As Sontag says, photography isn’t just about seeing but it’s about choosing what to see and why. Through my work, I hope to challenge people, spark conversations, and encourage others to look deeper into the systems that shape our lives.
After reading the article “With ‘AI slop’ distorting our reality, the world is sleepwalking into disaster,” I felt a mix of confusion and concern. It made me realize how much fake, AI-generated content is flooding our lives, and how it’s changing the way we see the world. This isn’t just about silly pictures or fantasy images. It’s about how AI is being used to twist reality, push political ideas, and even shape how we think about race, gender, and society.
One thing that stood out to me is how AI slop is used for political purposes. People are creating fake videos and images that show made-up political victories or events. These aren’t real, but they look real enough to fool people, especially when shared on social media, or even WhatsApp, where there’s no way to fact-check or comment. For Instance, Chris Cuomo mistakenly believed a deepfake video of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was real, where she appeared to criticize American Eagle’s ad featuring Sydney Sweeney, calling it racist and filled with Nazi symbolism, even though the video was labeled as AI-generated. I’ve seen this happen with older people who believe what they see because it comes from someone they trust. It’s scary how easy it is to spread false information that fits someone’s beliefs.
Another part is when AI is being used by conservatives to promote a certain kind of future that features white, blond families as the ideal. These images are based on biased data that AI was trained on. It doesn’t reflect the diversity of the real world. Instead, it creates a fake version of reality that leaves other people and their identities. Although I believe that there are many ways to create content that are more based on reality. It is not hard to include people of color or different gender roles, but it needs more time to do so.
Making money using AI seems acceptable to me. A lot of content creators are producing junk content anyway. They do that to grab attention and get followers. However, by using AI, we end up with a flood of exaggerated, emotional, or weird content that’s meant to keep us scrolling and keep the users overwhelmed. Even serious news gets mixed in with silly or soothing images, making it hard to tell what’s important. Social media companies also don’t care if it’s true or meaningful. They care if it gets engagement.
This constant stream of AI content creates a strange feeling. Everything starts to feel both too real and not real at all. We see real tragedies, like war or injustice, next to AI-generated content. It’s hard to know what to believe. The more we see, the more numb we become. It’s like our brains can’t handle the overload, so we stop reacting, or everything gets normalized.
What’s worse is that algorithms keep feeding us more of what we like or click on. That means we get stuck in our own little bubble, seeing only what we want. Even if we try to stay informed, it’s hard to escape this loop cycle. We end up living in a “subjective world” where truth is shaped by algorithms, not facts.
In the end, the article made me realize that we’re not heading toward disaster because we don’t know what’s happening. We’re heading there because we’re overwhelmed by too much distorted information. As the author believes, we’re sleepwalking into a mess, distracted by AI slop that looks real but isn’t. If we don’t start paying attention and questioning what we see, we might lose touch with reality altogether.
In the Al Jazeera interactive story “Chapter 2: Heela - My Stolen Future” illustration is used in a powerful and meaningful way to tell a difficult and emotional story. The piece focuses on the life of Heela, a young girl from Sierra Leone who faces early pregnancy and the loss of her dreams. Instead of using only text or photographs, the creators chose to tell her story through illustrations, and this choice makes a big difference in how the audience experiences the story.
One of the main reasons illustration was used is because it helps tell a very sensitive story respectfully and subtly. The topic of child marriage and sexual violence is very serious and personal. Using real photos of the people involved might have been too invasive or even dangerous for them. Illustrations allow the storyteller to protect the identity of the girl while still showing her emotions, struggles, and dreams. The drawings are full of feelings. They use expressive faces to help the audience understand what Heela is going through. This makes the story more emotional and easier to connect with.
When we compare the illustrations to the photographs used on other pages, we can see clear differences. The photographs show real people and real places, which helps the audience understand that the story is based on true events. They give a sense of realism and show the actual conditions in which these women live. On the other hand, the illustrations are more artistic and emotional. They don’t just show what things look like. They show how things feel. For example, the illustrators used a close-up illustration of her face and a POV of her, looking at her belly to help the audience feel more connected to the story on a deeper level.
Illustrations also have some big advantages over just using text or photos. First, they grab attention. In today’s world, especially for younger audiences who are used to social media and visual content, a story with strong visuals is more likely to catch someone’s eye. If the story had no illustrations, many people might not even stop to read it. The stylized visuals make the story more attractive and compelling, especially for younger viewers who are used to seeing stories told through images and short videos online. The presentation of this piece almost feel like a social media story or a graphic novel, which makes it more familiar and engaging for a modern audience.
Another important point is how the story ends. After using illustrations to tell most of the story, the creators include real photographs and photomontages at the end. This is a powerful choice because it reminds the audience that even though the story was told through drawings, it is based on real events and real people. The photos act as proof that this is not just a fictional story, but something that actually happened. This mix of illustration and photography helps balance emotion and reality, making the story both moving and believable.
In conclusion, the use of illustration in “Motherhood in Crisis – My Stolen Future” is not just a creative choice. It’s an important storytelling tool. It helps protect the people in the story, makes the emotions more powerful, and grabs the attention of a younger, visually-driven audience. By combining illustrations with real photos, the story becomes both emotionally engaging and grounded in reality. This mix of art and media shows how powerful visual storytelling can be, especially when dealing with sensitive and important topics like motherhood, gender inequality, and human rights.
The New York Times’ interactive article about nuclear war is a great example of clean and thoughtful design. As a designer who worked on different visual mediums using Adobe tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects, I really appreciate how this minimal piece was created. It looks like the designers built individual elements first, using either Illustrator, Photoshop, or even ProCreate, and then arranged them during the user interface design stage. The result feels professional and visually pleasing. The layout uses plenty of white and black backgrounds, which makes the content easy to read. The typography is simple, and the use of different fonts gives each section its own mood. The main body of the article follows the familiar New York Times branding, which makes it easy for readers to follow. Even the embedded video of the Russian President or the four countries’ nuclear parade is placed perfectly, it adds real footage to the article without feeling out of place.
The visuals are powerful and add meaning to the story. Photos of past U.S. and Russian presidents give the article historical depth. The muted red color in the background throughout the design creates a sense of urgency, which fits the topic well. I also like how the interactive graphics are positioned. They don’t distract from the story; instead, they let readers explore the information at their own pace. This is something I always try to do in my own work to help the audience engage without being overwhelmed by the elements.
When I look at this piece, I see strong design principles at work. Everything feels connected. The unity of warm colors like red and orange, and layout work together to create one clear mood: importance and alertness. Nothing feels out of place. The design is unified. The mix of text, photography, and interactive graphics keeps readers interested. There’s a good balance between static and dynamic elements, which makes scrolling through the content enjoyable to me.
The designers also used hierarchy very well to guide the reader’s eye. As you scroll, the timeline of nuclear events unfolds naturally. You see how bombs were dropped, and the devastating results that followed. The graphs are simple but effective. By using a graph, it shows how nuclear arsenals evolved over time, giving readers a clear historical context, and how the number of nuclear bombs were reduced and how they are slightly increasing in recent years. Later sections visualize the aftermath of explosions. The mushroom explosion, death, destruction, and radiation effects. They are depicted in a stylized, almost comic-like way. This approach makes readers think about the consequences by putting the visuals and text together. These visuals make the article effective without showing disturbing real photos from World War II.
Overall, the design makes complex information easy to understand and even emotionally impactful. It shows how strong design principles and thoughtful choices can turn a heavy topic into something approachable and engaging. This interactive piece is a great example of how design can shape how we get informed about important issues.