Edward James' Dressing Room: Mirror-Like Experiences with Surround Wall-Sized Screens and Cameras

Portrait of Edward James by Rene Magritte

You are looking at a screen, and you are seeing yourself... from behind.  You turn around, and you see yourself again.  Also, from behind.  Every direction you look, you are looking at yourself from behind, watching yourself watch yourself, off into the shadows of the mirror. Unless your want there to be no darkness, just a line of your own back-facing image, darkness optional.  That's because it's being created in software, no in physics.  With little additional filtering, you could cut that down to just three of you.  And the third one could be facing you... but no matter what you do, you still can't see their face because the second one is doing what you are doing. When you try to move your head to the side to get an unobstructed view, so does two.

And with the proper additional technology, multiple people could share such a room- each seeing something no one else can see-- other's faces, for instance, but not their own.

Now imagine watching yourself slow down or speed up like you're on TiVo- right up to the present. Imagine being able to pause the near layer in the scenario above, making it possible to look around your own head.  Or just change your perspective altogether.  Imagine being able to switch your point-of-view (to that of the person next to you, for instance), by simply changing the direction that you're looking in.

Wall-sized screens with built-in camera matrices will change the way we experience not just where we feel we are, but what we feel we are.  Our philosophy will make subtle shifts.  Most people won't consent to experiencing themselves in strange mirrors, but among those that will, some will be able to face themselves in new ways.  New views of self, and others, will emerge driven by this and other shifts in perspective.

It's going to be something to see.