MIRROR/FRACTURE

Mirrors are the first and most primal example of a technology that fractures the human mind. According to psycholinguist Jaques Lacan, language acquisition begins when an infant sees itself reflected in a mirror. Suddenly it is forced into a crisis: what had previously been a clearly ordered world of "I" verses "THEM" shatters into a complexity where one's own self is somehow ALSO one of "THEM" -- and other, out there in the world. It is this crisis that is at the core of language. The shattered self struggles to reintegrate into the human group and searches for a system to do this: words, communication, and language. But we are doomed from the start. The mirror-self will follow us all our days, creating a constant nagging neurosis -- are we ourselves, or are we that revearsed and perfect figure on just the other side of the glass?
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