Delivered by Intellect to: Wolfgang Strauss (33347892) IP: 109.40.242.72 On: Fri, 19 Jul 2024 13:22:58 VCR 13 (2) pp. 131–144 Intellect Limited 2023 Virtual Creativity Volume 13 Number 2 www.intellectbooks.com 131 © 2023 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/vcr_00080_1 Received 31 January 2024; Accepted 4 March 2024; Published Online July 2024 MONIKA FLEISCHMANN ZKM Center for Art and Media WOLFGANG STRAUSS ZKM Center for Art and Media Beyond Narcissus: Seeing the self in the other ABSTRACT This article proposes a reframing of the contemporary media Narcissus through the lens of the interactive installation Liquid Views: Narcissus Virtual Mirror (henceforth Liquid Views), created by Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss in 1992. The installation explores the transformative encounter between the self and the other, employing the first high-resolution multi-touch interface, realized as a generative, performative, audiovisual experience. Conventional notions of the self are challenged to reflect on identity, connectivity and the interplay between the tangible and the virtual. In the early 1990s, Liquid Views demonstrated a new way of seeing as observer and observed by looking at ourselves while simultane- ously becoming publicly visible to others. A more recent example of seeing the self in the other is Mirror (2022), a street art commentary on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by Norwegian artist AFK. Like Liquid Views, it captures the essence of self-discovery in the other, recalling Carl Gustav Jung’s observation in Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933). It raises the question of whether the narcissis- tic self-image of the past can be transformed into an aesthetic of the empathetic gaze. This could be an extended act of mirroring, corresponding to a world that is tele-present. KEYWORDS generative art interactive mirror morphing participation performative interface tactile perception virtual identity