The work present itself as a large vertical monitor showing a black image, it's a foggy layer that hides a reflection of what is in front of the monitor. This layer shades the whole image except for what is moving, so the only way for the audience to see thru it is to perform a physical action, just what is moving can be seen. This reflection isn't mirrored by a flat and static object but by a virtual liquid, a narcissus water mirror, which waves, responding to the audience movements. Doppelgänger It's a loanword from german which literally means "double-goer". It is a paranormal entity which is the double of a living person and it's traditionally considered a sinister omen. The theme of Doppelgänger was investigated by psychologists and psychoanalysts in relation to the freudian concept of the Uncanny and/or to narcissistic personality disorders. The concept of Uncanny was introduced in psychology by Ernst Jentsch, defined as the doubt whether an animated object is really alive or not, Sigmund Freud used the Uncanny as conceptual term that refers to an aesthetic attitude of the fear that comes to life when something or someone is perceived as familiar and strange in the same time. Uncanny is something that was removed and that is coming to the surface because of a particular experience, the reoccurrence of what Freud called primary narcissism is an example of it. Primary narcissism is a childhood phase in which the ego creates a double himself as an assurance of immortality, this double becomes then unconscious because of the superego. Nowadays nearly everybody has one or more digital double, alter egos which are people copies or manifestations of how somebody would like to be. Contemporary common avatars are obviously not considered a death presage like in ancient mythologies but they can be connected to the freudian double of primary narcissism, their are a potentially immortal representations of ourselves. Social networks and virtual realities are digital worlds that contains virtual versions of the population, how a person behave, which is his belief, what he did, what he is doing, how he looks like etc... all these informations, which are characteristics that define a human being and his personality, are contained as digital codes in these virtual worlds, these digital codes are contemporary Doppelgängers.

• published: 11 Nov 2013
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