This sense of closure is then collapsed by the top boundary of the dark field, on which a ship sits. The top edge changes from boundary to horizon, and the whole dark field takes on a different characteristic of water. In Voyager the encapsulated female figure participates in both earthy space (the landscape to the left of her capsule) and outer space (the surrounding cosmic blue frame through which a vessel passes, and star-like forms emanate).

By using the frame in this way, Friedberg contradicts our expectations of its function as a structure that delimits context and meaning. The boundary within which significant signs are placed, and which allows us to organize and order those signs within a limited range of meaning, is intruded upon, fractured and transformed to become part of the meaning itself. When Seurat painted his frames with his "points" of color that represented his way of structuring and ordering perception, he did so in order to contain meaning within his own world view of the canvas, to stop it, to place a clear break between what lay within and without the painting. By contrast, Friedberg's intervention in the frame allows meaning from within to leak out, to participate literally in another realm. It ruptures the continuity of the narrative by offering another territory in which the sign might act itself out.