freddie yauner on what his mirror mask reveals about looking

Freddie Yauner on turning the mirror away from the self

‘The tool of every self-portrait is the mirror. You see yourself in it. Turn it the other way, and you see the world,’ Agnes Varda once said. Freddie Yauner takes that gesture literally, and through his Mirror Mask he replaces the reflection of the wearer with whatever is in front of them. In an exclusive interview with designboom, the London-based artist looks back at how his project has evolved from an experiment at the Royal College of Art to an object that unexpectedly found a life within the very image culture it was questioning.

Yauner describes Mirror Mask as an ‘anti-selfie’, but the term only begins to explain what has happened around the project. What started as an exploration of mirrors, phones and perception has opened up questions about constructed identity, spectatorship and the complex relationship between looking and being looked at. ‘When you wear it, everyone’s actually looking at you,’ the artist tells us. ‘So you become the spectacle more than you can be a secret spectator.’ Yauner speaks with designboom about the origins of Mirror Mask, the construction of the self, its unexpected life online, the possibility of a digital version, and the ways other people might make the object their own.

how a piece of mirror became a new point of view

Yauner was experimenting with phones and mirrors at the Royal College of Art, looking at ways facial features could be exchanged between people. Then, while dismantling an installation, he found a piece of mirror with holes cut into it for the eyes. He put it on and walked around.‘Wow, this is the thing,’ the artist recalls. That moment gave shape to an idea that had been developing through his wider filmmaking practice. Freddie Yauner often documents experiences, spaces and journeys, with a particular interest in natural happenings, color and environments. The Mirror Mask offered him another way of recording a point of view, with the surroundings taking the place of the face.

from self-portrait to anti-selfie

The idea of turning the mirror away from the face connects to Freddie Yauner’s interest in the self as something constructed. The artist refers to Rimbaud’s ‘Je est un autre’, or ‘I is another’, and considers how identity is continually shaped through the ways we see ourselves and are seen by others. The selfie is an obvious contemporary expression of that process. It places the individual at the center of the image and turns the surrounding world into a backdrop. Mirror Mask reverses that relationship, and that is why Yauner calls the work an ‘anti-selfie’.

Instead of using the mirror to confirm an image of yourself, it removes the face and makes the surrounding environment part of the portrait. But the reversal does not make the wearer disappear. In fact, one of the more interesting experiences Yauner describes happens when another person is standing in front of the mask. The reflective surface can show that person their own face, creating an encounter that can feel strange or uncomfortable. This has led Yauner to think about what would happen when several people wore the masks together. He ordered 100 masks for experiments in his studio, imagining situations where everyone might wear one, with or without their phones. The dynamic changes when there is no single wearer and no single observer, as everyone becomes part of the same shifting field of reflections and viewpoints.

the afterlife of a viral image

A project conceived as a way of moving attention away from the self became a recognizable social media image in its own right. Yauner’s viral video was not originally made as a new piece of content for that moment. His film had existed for around five years before he re-edited it with a new soundtrack. Then, unexpectedly, as he tells us, ‘it just went crazy.’

The experience made visible something that was already embedded in the work. Mirror Mask might question the logic of the selfie, but it also produces an image that people want to photograph, share and look at. The mask initially appears to offer a way of becoming a spectator. The wearer looks outward while their own face is hidden, and yet the object makes the wearer conspicuous, turning them into the subject of attention. ‘When you wear it, everyone’s actually looking at you,’ the artist shares with designboom. ‘So you become the spectacle more than you can be a secret spectator.’ 

Freddie Yauner describes the project as an ‘analog filter’ that feels like it should be AI, but isn’t. He sees this as part of a longer history of artists working with the technologies of their time, from the Bauhaus and tubular steel to the scrolling feeds and AI tools that shape visual culture today. Mirror Mask happens to sit within that shift as a physical, laser-cut object, but one that has largely been experienced through the images and videos made with it. Freddie Yauner reveals he’s now exploring that relationship further with a digital version of the mask, using a phone’s front and back cameras to recreate the effect.

‘more people means more stories’

Yauner is particularly interested in what happens when the work leaves his own hands. ‘More people means more stories,’ he tells us. That openness has become part of the way he thinks about the future of the project. He imagines the mask being used by people protecting rainforests, fighting for rights or working at the ‘borders or edges’ of larger issues, allowing the object to become a tool through which different perspectives can be expressed.

At the same time, the artist sees the mask as ‘a beautiful, creative toy’ that can simply bring people joy. Putting on the mask is an unusual physical experience, but it can also change what you notice around you. For Yauner, that change in perspective is part of what makes the project worth continuing. He says wearing the mask has altered the way he looks at his surroundings and given him the courage to see things differently. The success of Mirror Mask has also given him the freedom to keep making work that can, in his words, ‘turn the world upside down’.

project info:

name: Mirror Mask – What I’m Looking At

artist: Freddie Yauner | @freddieyauner