The Mirrorology Reader is a representation of the reading experience, where separate texts enter into a field of play like laser tag in a warehouse full of mirrors.
Excerpt
The Arcades Project
The way mirrors bring the open expanse, the streets, into the café — this, too belongs to the interweaving of spaces, to the spectacle by which the flâneur is ineluctably drawn.
“During the day, often sober; in the evening, more buoyant, when the flames glow. The art of the dazzling illusion is here developed to perfection. The most commonplace tavern is dedicated to deceiving the eye. Through mirrors extending along walls, and reflecting rows of merchandise right and left, these establishments all obtain an artificial expansion, a fantastical magnitude, by lamplight.” (Karl Gutzkow, Briefe aus Paris, Leipzig, 1842, vol. 1, p. 225.)
Thus, precisely with the approach of night, distant horizons bright as day open up throughout the city. (Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, London: Belknap Press, 2002, p. 537)
Zigzag Redux: The Mirrorology Reader, p. 45
Details
Publication: Zigzag Redux: The Mirrorology Reader
Date: Spring 2005
Editing, art, and design: Elena Grossman
Project: MFA thesis research
