The mirror is a powerful metaphor. In its original Greek form, art was an attempt to mimic or mirror reality. The metaphor of the mirror has also been used to describe the relationship between our perception and the world, as if they are one and the same. In computing a site that mirrors the original is deemed to be the same as the original. But we are not the same as our reflection in the mirror, we are many other things and our relationship to the reflection is more puzzling and unknown than it first appears. We look to art, literature, film to reflect reality. But Plato made the case at the outset that art could never mimic reality. And the philosopher Richard Rorty warns, the idea that our minds, art and language could mirror reality is a “construction” that “holds philosophy captive”.
Should we see mirrors, our minds, and our art as a copy of the world or as something entirely different? Is our reflection in the mirror our true self or a distortion? Should we seek to precisely mirror reality or should we see this not only as undesirable but as impossible?