'the function of the mirror was...to make woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight' - John Berger, Ways of Seeing
I grew up online, maybe I’m part of the first generation to really be able to say that the whole of my adult life was shaped by the internet. I remember my first digital camera, the first time you could instantly be the subject of an image of your own creation. Self determination. A democratisation of image making and sharing that meant that for the first time we were able to see, capture and share ourselves and our images on an unprecedented scale.
A real time feedback loop of seeing and being seen. I ran head first into it, the power of self creation.
It was such a powerful engine for the exploration of sex, you could be the image, the subject, the object of desire, and you could watch other people. Home videos, amateur porn stars and cam girls superseeded studio porn. The girl next door on a massive scale. Anyone could find an audience, anyone could be a porn star.
Cam girls became twitch streamers and in many ways, watching other people's lives became the primary driver of the online space. We are now all exhibitionists and voyeurs. Everyone is watching and everyone desires to be watched, the most watched.
This self documentation came with self observation, we are increasingly surrounded by our own image, camera rolls of near identical selfies looking for the perfect shot, it’s seductive, for some reason we are hardwired to be fascinated by our own faces. If you try and tell me that when you’re in a zoom call you’re not spending the majority of the time staring at your own tiny face in the corner I would say you’re probably lying. Constantly correcting, repositioning, reframing, re contextualising. Existing in a cycle, a kind of echoed self.
Not just being turned on but being the turn on. The internet made this possible on a massive scale. The latin root of the word video is ‘too see’ and making and sharing videos of yourself fucking online is probably one of the most exposing things it’s possible to do.
We just love to watch ourselves and other people fucking, there’s a reason why by-the-hour motels have mirrors above the bed. Celebrity sex tape leaks did not stop celebrities making sex tapes. Everyone has a little bit of the Patrick Bateman in American Psycho meme in them.
I’ve enjoyed, exploited and harnessed this exposure for myself, I know full well the power it can hold. But this endless observation, seeing yourself and in turn to everyone else, over time this loop begins to feel like a spiral. There's a psychological toll. I'm not sure we are equipped to observe ourselves as much as we do.
All the ghost of the images of yourself you’ve created repeated, rippling outwards, following you around, existing forever in the online ether.
The mirror box is a space where you’re surrounded by yourself. Made to be deliberately over stimulating, it’s the ego equivalent of, oh you want to smoke, well smoke a whole carton of cigarettes. Over-dosing on yourself. Even when we were building it in our spare room, I found being inside a deeply unsettling experience. From inside I could not stop myself watching and correcting myself. I would catch myself doing it without realising, getting trapped into smoothing my hair, checking my skin, finding new flaws to pick at while I was meant to be working. It reminded me of trying to get a good picture of myself to post or staring at my face for hours when I was camming. There's always room for improvement.
"The ideal woman, in other words, is always optimizing. She takes advantage of technology, both in the way she broadcasts her image and in the meticulous improvement of that image itself." - Jia Tolentino 'Trick Mirror'
When we were shooting, I found being alone in the box to be challenging, you can’t tell where the camera is, where you’re being watched from. I didn’t realise after 10 years how much comfort I found in looking into the eye of the camera, knowing your angles, knowing where to be or not be. Without it there’s a sense of intense disorientation, my usual camera confidence evaporated away. In the box you’re seen from every angle all at once, you can’t hide. You're left alone with your relentless self.
Fucking in the box is intense in a totally different way, the claustrophobia of the size of the space mixed with the endless sea of your own image stretching out before you. It’s hot, both in the literal and the figurative sense, you can see yourself being fucked and filled from every angle. That live feed response of the mirror.
It’s made so that when you’re inside, all you can see is your own image, reflected to infinity but from the outside, you can see in through panes of 2 way mirror. Which means you can be observed when inside but you can't see out. This is a practical and conceptual consideration, we wanted to be able to film an infinity mirror effect but without the camera in shot. We wanted whoever was inside to be able to be silently and secretly watched, by an invisible camera or invisible audience.
It's a kind of vitrine, pinning it's occupants as specimens for observation like an object in a museum or collection. Putting you on display.
The painter Francis Bacon used a recurring motif in his paintings of spectral cubes around his subjects. Sometimes called space frames they trap and pin the subject of the painting in a symbolic, psychological chamber. I see parallels here between the mirror box and Bacon’s cages. Existing online, exposing yourself, creating these images of yourself and being surrounded by them, being watched from every angle by a silent audience.
The screen is a window and a mirror; a window into the outside world, a window to see, see other people, other worlds, other images, other experiences. And a mirror, to reflect yourself back, to observe yourself, to watch yourself. Through a glass, darkly.
But the screen is not a door, it’s not an exit, you’re still inside.
10 years later, I have a complicated relationship with making my own image online, it doesn’t attract me like it used to in the same way. I’ve stared down the barrel of my own lens, been surrounded by my mirrored image. Watched myself fuck and be fucked, over and over again. The image starts to feel sheared from reality and I want to step out of the box, away from the gaze.
Despite all of this I could not have asked for better box partners in Kali Sudhra, Bishop Black and Master Aaron, some of my favourite people to shoot with who were brave enough to get into the box and grapple with seeing themselves so completely, superstars.
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REFERENCES
Francis Bacon, Figure in Movement, 1976. John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972. Mirrored room dance scene, Susperia, Luca Guadagnino, 2018 Infinity Mirror Rooms, Yayoi Kasuma.
CONTENT NOTES spit, cum swapping, mild thigh slapping, hair pulling, energetic group sex, existential angst.
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