Abstract
Reality behind one’s back (the “backworld”) falls outside the view field. Being inaccessible, it has been a subject of mystification since the beginning of the Western culture, also present in ancient myths, the one of Orpheus and Perseus. These two myths can be taken as paradigms of irrational and rational, timewise and spacewise relation to the backworld. The first one is characteristic for horror genre, as death appears behind protagonist’s back, while the second in development of various tools to master it, as rear-view mirror. With mobile phones these two have mixed; while enhancing Orpheus to record death behind his back in the phone’s mirror, also producing spatial distortions that confuse Perseus who gets killed while attempting to record a perfect image.
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Peraica, A. (2021). Selfies as Augmentation of (Disappearing) Reality. In: Della Ratta, D., Lovink, G., Numerico, T., Sarram, P. (eds) The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65497-9_12
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