Artist Statement

Mirror, Mirror is a description of Gail’s interactive digital installation, a storytelling device which uses the computer as sculpture. Gail exhibited this work for her masters degree at the Royal College of Art. She describes how she recreated a small corner of the bedroom and used a dressing table within that space as an icon of femininity to subvert the dominant associations of specific gender identity in order to explore aspects of violence and technology and to create possible alternatives. Mirror, Mirror used the computer to make an environment that held hidden surprises. The objects on the dressing table and the images that arose from the interaction were about violence and what provokes it. The violence was directed by a virtual man projected onto the screen/mirror towards the user. There were a number of choices the used could make in response, some reciprocally violent, some not.

• Gail Pearce, University of Westminster, UK