Project-2

We have all forgotten the moment in which we first recognized ourselves in a mirror. We did not reflect on this unusual encounter, rather realized that the image in front of us acted in perfect synchronization with our body—at a time when we lacked full coordination. Although we did not have control over this body image, soon we developed a libidinal relationship with the image of ourselves. We learned to move fluently and please our picture; but a gap remained. To this day, we fail again and again in fully harmonizing our visual appearance in the mirror with the complexity of our emotional reality.
Kambiz Shafei’s “Time Mirror” is a research project on precisely this gap. It questions the modes of representation by manipulating mirror images and inviting the viewer to interact with their own picture in real time. “Time Mirror” is not only an inquiry of representation of the self but also—and perhaps more importantly—an inquiry of time and its representation. For us to understand Kambiz Shafei’s “Time Mirror” we have to analyze three questions: What is a mirror? What is self-representation? And what is time?
Foucault may help us find an accurate answer to our first question, by articulating a precise view on our situation when we see ourselves in a mirror. In «Des espaces actress»¹, written in 1967 and first published in 1984, Foucault claims that, as we see ourselves behind the surface of the glass, we see ourselves in a nonexistent space. The mirror then opens a virtual space in which we find our body image. That is why Foucault calls the mirror an Utopia or “a place without place”. But from the perspective of the virtual space we look at ourselves as physical bodies in front of the glass. Therefore, the mirror creates a place in the physical world as well. Foucault calls the quality of this physical part of the mirror «heterotopic». 
Heterotopias are physical spaces that function as counterforts for daily life’s reality. The mirror image captures our attention so strongly that we can speak of a mentally marked out space in the real world. Then, Foucault’s response to our question would be that: the mirror is a hybrid of utopia and heterotopia—a two-sided phenomenon.
In “Time Mirror” Kambiz Shafei replaces a normal mirror with a real time video screen. By manipulating this “video mirror image” the virtual space looses its reliability. Shafei then divides the virtual and the physical part of the “mirror situation” by irritating their interdependency. The evolving gap is then an invitation to experiment with the image of ourselves. As a consequence we are able to reflect on our roles as the subject as well as the object of our perception. 

This leads us to our second question: what is representation? Here we follow Jacques Lacan when we state that by looking in a mirror we are confronted with a persona—a mask of ourselves. The mirror image separates us from ourselves and therefore we are able to recognize the self. Since our emotional reality and our perceived visual appearance rarely cohere, we almost automatically start a process of identification. We try to cohere the body in front with the body behind the glass but we can only do so at the price of becoming the other. The mirror shows us that self-representation is a process of alienation. 
In “Time Mirror” Shafei accelerates this by fragmenting the mirror image. We are confronted with splits and pieces that still move in real time as we do. We continue to identify with the mirror image but the more abstract it becomes the less we are able to see the self. The body in the virtual space grows into a shadow that follows us but is no longer a part of our identity. Also, as Shafei manipulates the speed of the mirror image, this shadow becomes a trace of us through time.
That raises our third question: what is time? In the context of “Time Mirror” Henry Bergson’s concept of “inner time” and “spatialized time” can be made productive. What he refers to is an experience we all know: the discrepancy between our mental perception of time and the precise machine-measured time. While the latter moves forward as an abstracted pulse, subjective time awareness dramatically changes in states of sleep, fear, exhilaration or boredom. Bergson calls this nonlinear stream “inner time”. It is our “true” time which corresponds to our only subjective reality. Then the only way to understand an on-going reality—perceived in a realtime video for example—is not to analyze it in fixed time spans but to intuitively react to it. That is why Shafei attempts to bring the viewer in a state of mind that’s as close as possible to Bergson’s concept of intuition. The mirror image might be the medium that can best represent and fluently capture, duration. 
In front of it we are able to perceive time spans by repetition of simple movements in space. And as Bergson would state, time is fragmented; it is spatialized.
These thoughts demonstrate that Kambiz Shafei’s “Time Mirror” is a design research project that deals with fundamental questions. It shows how complex the situation in front of a simple mirror actually is, and from there it invites us to discover basic conditions of time and space by means of new forms of digital representation. “Time Mirror” gives us an example of a narrow alliance between art and philosophical thoughts.

1-Michel Foucault: Andere Räume, in: Karlheinz Barck, Peter Gente, Heidi Paris, Stefan Richter (Hrsg.), Aisthesis. Wahrnehmung heute
oder Perspektiven einer anderen Ästhetik, Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 19986.