Is there a world behind the mirror?

For years I subconsciously ask this question whenever I pass a big mirror or a reflecting surface. The fear of a hidden world behind the shining surface which can break through in the blink of the moment, which will show itself when I turn around or look away, a fear which is fostered by novels, paintings, and films.

(Lumix G6, mirror-room of an abandoned peep-show)

I remember lying awake during the hot nights with my roommate while staying in the ancient city of Florence and talking for hours about the mirror as a reference to death (her doctorate thesis). From her I learned there is a medical condition – catoptrophobie – which describes the irrational fear of reflecting surfaces. The fear of something behind the surface who is watching you, the fear of an independent reflection which looks like oneself but moves completely different or is even a ‘bad twin’ the opposite of oneself. Or the mystical mirror which only reflects the truth, but one must be very honest and tough to endure the own truthful reflection. A variation of this topic you can find in the story of Snow White: Spieglein, Spieglein an der Wand, wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land? The queen could not bear the answer, that Snow White was more beautiful than her… and the tragic evolves. This fairy tale reveals another powerful topic which is associated with mirrors; the idea of vanity. Prototypical incarnated by Narcissus who up today lends his name for a psychological disease.

(Iphone 7, me at Museum Het Valkhof)

The mirror through time is an object of many superstitious ideas, often associated with death. In many countries, it was custom to cloak a mirror when someone in the household had died. New-born babies were forbidden to look in a mirror before they reach a certain age, otherwise they could die. Seeing a distorted image of oneself in moving water could show a deathly fate and so on… On the other hand, the mirror can reveal supernatural and dangerous beings like witches or vampires because they have different or no reflections.

(Iphone 6, Gasometer mirror installation)

The superstitions probably root in the inability to understand the functionality of a mirror: It is a flat object, but if you stand before it you can see a whole world inside. The object (mirror) and the observable are completely different.

And now the camera enters and adds another dimension. The photography with its assumed truthfulness pictures the imagined secrete world behind a reflecting surface.