Second Life can be a rather self-absorbed world, as we tinker with our avatars: buying them new outfits, changing shape and skin, giving them new body parts, trying out new ways of standing and walking, and so on.
It’s like playing with dolls.
We seem to spend a lot of time looking at ourselves. A high proportion of fickr pictures are self-portraits.
And yet there are no working mirrors in Second Life. Those mirrors we have are dead, opaque, staring blankly back at us.
If we want bring our mirrors to life, we have to use trickery.
I started playing around with reflections in the Furillen rooms by accident, when making this picture …
It began as an experiment: taking a picture and then uploading it, inserting it into the same frame, and taking another picture. Then I was reminded of the way we can play with mirrors, creating an infinite loop of reflections by holding one mirror behind us and one mirror in front.
Lots of people do it these days using their phones.
Then, more out curiosity than anything, I started to play around with reflections for whole room scenes.
Some worked better than others, but it was an interesting way to play around with line and perspective.
Then I noticed that visitors were beginning to take an interest in these pictures …
… and even to insert their own reflections into them.
So I began to place myself into these pictures more and more, as if I were a trace or shadow.
The absent janitor.
Some photographers have superimposed themselves into these images to brilliant effect ….
… while others – rather touchingly – placed themselves right next to me.
And so it continues – this ongoing conversation between me and visitors to Furillen.
A dialogue in pictures.
No longer just playing with dolls, but with mirrors.
Furillen 
Great post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We, humans, we are relating everything to ourselves. We are, everyone of us, the center of the universe. The entire world … even the sun, is/are turning around us. No wonder we put ourselves in our pictures, paintings, books, songs… The world has to reflect our image as much as we reflect theirs, in the rare moments when we accept that we are – nolens volens – part of a whole.
Putting objective, ironic distance between us and all the rest is not very easy. Almost unnatural, I might say. But the effort worth it, because it generates altruism – this precious capability to accept and value the others.
The mirrors of Furillen are not blind. They reflect generosity, beauty, harmony …
Thank you Serene.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantastic response Mareea — thank you too :))
LikeLike
We, humans, we are relating everything to ourselves. We are, everyone of us, the center of the universe. The entire world … even the sun, is/are turning around us. No wonder we put ourselves in our pictures, paintings, books, songs… The world has to reflect our image as much as we reflect theirs, in the rare moments when we accept that we are – nolens volens – part of a whole.
Putting objective, ironic distance between us and all the rest is not very easy. Almost unnatural, I might say. But the effort worth it, because it generates altruism – this precious capability to accept and value the others.
The mirrors of Furillen are not blind. They reflect generosity, beauty, harmony …
Thank you Serene,
Mareea Farrasco
LikeLike