he opening to the mirror box is a gilded frame through which viewers can watch a kaleidoscopic film. Titled (1999)—versions of which have been installed in exhibitions in Washington, D.C., Rome, and New York—the film is “a very simple idea but very effective,” as one viewer says to Theo Eshetu, its creator. You poke your head into the mirror box where the film is playing, and where, given the continuous loop of bisymmetrical clips, you get the illusion of being surrounded by seemingly endless reflections of yourself as you watch. Filmed with a Super 8 camera, the footage is looped together from a thrilling array of sources, including a ceremony of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a commercial for an Italian insurance company, and enchanting images of dancers in Bali. “The idea is that it sort of creates an image of the world, no?” Eshetu asks a mesmerized viewer as they both stand in front of the mirror box, observing its fantastical twists. He is proposing an image of the world tripled or quadrupled many times over, so that what is seen is not simply illusory but infinite and indeterminate, as though gathering the entirety of the world’s faces into a single
