Magazine
July-August 2019
July-August 2019
Volume: 107 Number: 4
In her widely touring installations of infinity mirror rooms, the artist Yayoi Kusama uses colored lights and multiple reflective surfaces to create both intricate repetitive patterns and optical illusions that immerse the visitor. A central tool in her artwork, the mirror, is a simple optical device that just reflects the light that hits it. However, what humans see in the mirror—of themselves, their fellow humans, or the world around them—is more complicated, and the final outcome is a product of neuroscience, body morphology, habitual expectations, and circumstances. As Michael C. Corballis explains in “What Mirrors Do,” the perennial question we ask is why mirrors reverse left and right, but the answer is that they really don’t, we just see it that way because of our viewpoint. (Photograph of Yayoi Kusama installation “Gleaming Lights of the Soul” by Colin McPherson.)
In This Issue
- Art
- Astronomy
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Communications
- Computer
- Engineering
- Environment
- Mathematics
- Medicine
- Policy
- Psychology
- Technology
A Hawaiian Renaissance That Could Save the World
Sam 'Ohu Gon, Kawika Winter
Environment Policy
This archipelago’s society before Western contact developed a large, self-sufficient population, yet imposed a remarkably small ecological footprint.
Giving Context to Cave Art
Bruno David
Anthropology Art
Archaeologists bring high-tech tools into the field to analyze prehistoric paintings and find cultural significance that reaches into the present.
