‘Mirror-reflection implies the vanquishing of separateness. Its inherent movement is towards fusion. The self and its reflected image are of course literally separate. But the agency of reflection is a mode of appropriation, of illusionistically erasing the difference between subject and object.’
My mum died when I was young. Sometimes I read her horoscope, she was a water sign, Pisces, and it’s my rising sign too. March is the month of Pisces and I just moved house. My tarot told me that physically pulling up my roots would draw me closer to familial relationships. Tarot talks of uniting the internal and external selves but in this digital age I think there is a third self – the digital self. It’s not just how we present ourselves to ourselves or in the real world but also online too.
What if I died and all my friends could go through my computer? I have a disorganised desktop and haven’t curated any of the folders – they could read/see anything, in any order, no beginning, middle, or end. The Database as memory and legacy.
I’m a video artist and I’m the centre of my own work – the video camera is a mirror, reflecting me in motion on the monitor. Manovich mentions Rosalind Krauss’ essay Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism when discussing how film privileges narrative but video art doesn’t. (Manovich 2001, p.234) Krauss discusses the artist ‘as a body entered between the parenthesis of camera and monitor.’ (Krauss 1976, p.61) I can relate to that feeling of ‘self-encapsulation’ (Kraus 1976, p53) through the process of my computer artworks. (Instagram/ video art/ digital collage)
Beyond that, when I look at myself (reflected in mirror or video), it’s not just me who I see. If I had a dollar for every time someone said I looked like my mum, I would be a very rich woman.
Krauss, R 1976, ‘Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism,’ in John Hanhardt, ed. Video Culture. Rochester: Visual Studies Workshop
Manovich, L 2001, ‘The database.’ In The language of new media. Cambridge, USA: The MIT Press, pp. 218-243.
Mirror Mirror uses the readings from Manovich and Krauss by connecting the whole idea of storing everything in a database and how we are also part of technology.
The unique element that I find was the ending itself where you can summon the dead “digitally”.
To further develop the story I feel that there should be a more distinct relationship between Liz and her dead mom like what is the reason for wanting her back badly even if the people around her keeps telling her she looks like her mom.
The strength of this story was the unexpected ending because it wouldn’t come across my mind that you can “digitally summon a dead relative”. I thought that it will be more “magical” but instead in technology terms.