Narcissus in the Mirror
(2024)
Four-channel projection with sound, Moving image, AI technology
3 mins
Narcissus in the Mirror draws on scenes from well-known romantic films, including Titanic and Edward Scissorhands. Using AI face replacement, the work repeatedly inserts the artist's Asian likeness into both male and female protagonists, allowing the same face to inhabit different characters, relationships and cinematic situations.
Long before intimacy is encountered firsthand, much of our understanding of love has already been shaped through images. Returning to these familiar films, the work introduces a subtle displacement rather than a new narrative. As the same face repeatedly inhabits stories structured by Western romantic conventions, distinctions between characters begin to dissolve and separate narratives gradually overlap. Recognition gives way to repetition, and scenes once received as singular moments of intimacy begin to appear as variations of the same emotional script.
Presented as a continuous loop, familiar declarations of love—"I will always love you," "Stay with me," "Don't leave me"—are repeated until they gradually detach from the characters who first spoke them. Emotional expression shifts from a singular exchange to a recurring pattern of voice, rhythm and address. As one likeness continues to move across different films, attention is drawn away from individual stories towards the cinematic structures through which love, intimacy and desire are imagined, rehearsed and recognised.