In White Mirror, viewers encounter a staged nude image set against a four-dimensional virtual environment already familiar to them through video platforms and other digital media. A silicone-clad nude figure displaying smooth flesh and a rooster repeating indeterminate movements appear together within a live-streamed closed-circuit system, inviting a familiar voyeuristic gaze. Just as they routinely consume and observe images on screens, viewers objectify the figures on the monitor and perceive the being beyond the screen as an avatar subordinated to their gaze and commands. Yet the gaze does not travel in only one direction. Positioned behind a thin wall, the avatar is also secretly observing the viewers and moving in response to their commands.

This relationship is reversed when viewers detect the sound of movement coming from beyond the screen and realise that the avatar they believed existed only within the image is physically present in the same space, separated from them by nothing more than a thin wall. They can no longer observe the subject safely through the screen and begin to question the boundary between the onscreen image and physical space. Eventually, they wander around the installation in search of the figure’s physical presence, only to confront the fact that the subject they believed they were watching is also watching them in return.