Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear is an art video developed from Kexin’s fictive I-novel, reflecting on the simulation hypothesis and shifting notions of selfhood in the post-truth era. The novel follows a protagonist who suddenly loses the ability to perceive her own reflection and begins to project her identity onto an online character. This virtual other gradually becomes the fictional reality through which her identity is affirmed, until she disappears without a trace, leaving only uncertainty as to whether she existed at all. The convergence of text, moving image, and digital interface produces a symbiotic narrative, where fiction and reality bleed into each other.
Here, virtual reality is not simply a visual phenomenon but a psychosocial mechanism of self-projection, which exposes how digital identities can destabilize relationships in lived life.