Concentrations 59: Mirror Stage—Visualizing the Self After the Internet

Through a series of recent single-channel videos, Concentrations 59: Mirror Stage—Visualizing the Self After the Internet examines the changing understanding and representation of the self via digital technology and the Internet. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's term "mirror stage" refers to the stage of human development in which the infant first encounters an image of itself (often via a mirror) and begins to perceive the notion of selfhood. With this concept as its starting point, the exhibition explores how we as human beings now reencounter and reimagine the self via the myriad of screens we engage with in our digital lives (computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.). 

This exhibition proposes that our confrontation with the screen establishes the relationship between ourselves and reality anew, allowing for infinitely mediated and malleable notions of the self that were unimaginable prior to the advent of the Internet. At times schizophrenic and narcissistic, the work included in Mirror Stage employs a variety of technologies such as motion capture, 3-D animation, and webcam footage to explore various facets of how we come to know and define ourselves as individuals in today's "post-Internet" world. 

Over the course of eight months, the exhibition will display works by an international roster of artists—including Ed Atkins, Trisha Baga, Antoine Catala, Aleksandra Domanović, Jon Rafman, Jacolby Satterwhite, Hito Steyerl, and Ryan Trecartin—with a different artist's work on view each month.