Elissar Kanso: The Revenge of the Mirror People
(Homage to Jean Baudrillard) [1]
'Behind every reflection, every resemblance, every representation,
a defeated enemy lies concealed ...'
I.
Christmas or not, I'm still thinking about mirror life rather than mince pies and mulled wine; i.e., that hypothetical form of life assembled from molecular building materials found on the left-hand path [2].
Whilst this alternative life form has not yet been synthesised, efforts to create mirror-image organisms are doubtless underway in secret labs around the world, despite grave concerns expressed recently by a broad coalition of scientists [3].
Recent advances in microbiology, make it almost inevitable that, sooner or later, someone somewhere will announce that they have used enantiomers (i.e., chiral reflections of the molecules necessary for life) to fully synthesise a cell.
II.
And, who knows, eventually they may even create a little mirror-image creature. For hypothetically, it may be possible to create a whole ecosystem - even an entire world populated with mirror people (what fans of Superman and Jerry Seinfeld would no doubt gleefully term Bizarro World).
These mirror people would appear similar to us - but be opposite in every sense and every cell of their bodies. And so the question arises of how we'd regard our chiral twins: as beings upon whom to further experiment? As dangerous aliens or anti-kin to be confined on some distant planet?
And if we did treat them poorly - just as we treat embryos and animals and those deemed racially inferior - would the time come when, one day, we witnessed the revenge of the mirror people ...? [4]
Notes
[1] Elissar Kanso is a Lebanese-born artist and curator based in France. She is interested in ideas to do with distance and displacement.
The Revenge of the Mirror People is a series of works consisting of recontextualised media images that are manipulated with digital technology in a manner that deprives them of their perfection, thus giving them back a degree of authenticity. Each image is then transferred from the computer screeen on to Plexiglass. It was submitted to the 'Deserting Reality' exhibition in Milan (2015): click here.
[2] As any occultists reading this will know, the left-hand path is Mme. Blavatsky's translation of the Sanskrit term vāmacāra and refers to a spiritual direction leading to a more dangerous form of knowledge than the right-hand path that leads to true enlightenment and moral perfection.
Those who follow the left-hand path are often prepared to transgress the codes of conduct and ethical practice that the majority subscribe to and do not accept that scientific research, for example, should always coincide with the interests of humanity or safeguard life on earth in its present form.
[3] See the post on Torpedo the Ark entitled 'Homochirality: Reflections on Mirror Life' (21 Dec 2024): click here.
[4] According to Borges, writing in The Book of Imaginary Beings (1969), there was once a time when this world and the world reflected in mirrors were not, as now, cut off from each other and you could pass from one to the other quite freely.
But then the mirror people invaded this world, only to be defeated and imprisoned in their mirror world and obliged from that day on to only reflect the actions of those in this world, stripped of all freedom and autonomy. However, it is said that the day will come when the mirror people awaken once more, refuse their servitude, rise up, and burst through the looking-glass.
Baudrillard calls this 'the revenge of the mirror people' and by which he refers to the return of otherness; i.e., of all forms "which, subtly or violently deprived of their singularity, henceforth pose an insoluble problem for the social order, and also for the political and biological orders". See Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime, trans. Chris Turner (Verso, 1996), pp. 148-149.
This post is for Elissar Kanso.
