There is no shortage of spooky stories that linger on humankind’s fascination with mirrors. While most of us don’t dwell on our reflections for too long, the brief moments that we do, what would catch our eyes if we had to hold our own gaze for longer?
Our myths and folklore tell us that there’s more to mirrors than we may assume. Lining up two mirrors perfectly can conjure the devil, calling out for a long-dead queen in the dark will summon her reflection to read your fortune. Even in fiction, little girls can step into mirrors and discover a new realm of nonsense.
If you were then to add quantum physics and a devastating life-altering event in the mix, what do you think you might see in the mirror?
The Mirror Trap, an interactive art installation which has gone digital, hopes to do just that.
Conceived by Simon Watt, the performance brings together quantum physics and psychology to tell the story of physicist Paul Gato, who takes the audience on an aural journey while looking into the mirror.
Watt, who has been going through a tough time, has disappeared and when neighbours break down the doors of his home, they find a home-made gun, two mirrors, a vial of LSD and a diary full of ramblings and Feynman diagrams. Could Paul have lost his mind and found something else instead? The Mirror Trap invites its audience to take up the looking glass and peer in to see what Paul might have seen.
“I’m trying to use psychology as a special effect,” Watt told Times of Malta.
I’ve always found that, when you get into a lift for example and you find a mirror staring at you, it’s quite creepy
“I’ve always found that, when you get into a lift for example and you find a mirror staring at you, it’s quite creepy. I find it really weird, it makes you look over your shoulder. This feeling that you’re being stretched thin.”
The psychology in play here is peripheral fading or the Troxler effect, in which fixating on a static point for a long period of time will cause the peripherals to fade away and disappear.
In a 2010 study, psychologist Giovanni Caputo asked 50 participants to stare in the mirror for 10 minutes in a dimly lit room. His subjects subsequently described seeing all manner of horrors, ranging from deformities of their own faces and strange animals to deceased loved ones and strangers looming behind them.
While the reason behind the why might be murky, Watt says the effect is a reliable one, with various participants experiencing strange visions in the mirror during the performance.
With so many people trapped in their homes with no one but themselves to contend with, Watt felt the show was strangely perfect to try and transpose digitally to audiences during pandemic times.
“This is usually an art installation, so the mirrors would be set up and people would sit and listen. But since we can’t really access spaces like museums or libraries anymore, I thought about it and it occurred that over Zoom I could have 500 people listening to the performance simultaneously and they will never be aware of the rest of the audience,” Watt said.
“Yes, some elements depend on the audience following my instructions, I no longer control the setting of the performance, but so far the trick has been reliable.” Watt hopes that the dark themes of his performance will give rise to discussions around morality in theoretical realms.
“An awful lot of fascinating questions have been ruined by science because it gives us answers,” Watt says.
“But the themes of the show raise some real philosophical questions. If you could do everything everywhere could any of us claim to be moral in that reality? If somewhere else your departed loved ones were still alive, does asking why me hurt less than asking why my universe?”
“It’s not really an experiment, because I’m biasing people to see horrible things by telling a mild horror story,” Watt continues.
“But it’s a personal experience, so the effect is unique to everyone who tries it.”
The Mirror Trap is a digital event being performed on Tuesday, November 17 as part of Science in the City festivities. A discussion with Simon Watt, quantum physicist André Xuereb and cognitive scientist Marthese Borg will follow the performance.
Free tickets are available online.