MacGuffin #16, The Mirror

210 x 275 mm, 194 pages

Amsterdam, Netherlands (English language)

Biannual

Editors: Kirsten Algera & Ernst van der Hoeven

Design: Sandra Kassenaar

‘The Life of Things’ 

A long standing magCulture favourite and one of our most reliable bestsellers, MacGuffin is back with issue 16. As ever, taking on a single subject and approaching it from myriad angles, this one addresses The Mirror, a subject rich in both literal and metaphorical meaning.

The cover immediately hints at the theme, the familiar handwritten ’M’ logo reversed as if caught in a mirror. It is at once both familiar and disturbingly different.

Arranged in three sections, the issue opens with a translation of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphosis,’ the story of Narcissus’s obsession with his reflection. This is the Self section, also covering the rise of the Fit Check and the enshittification of digital platforms, the often pivotal role of mirrors in movies, and a piece about experiments with mirrors to establish the self-awareness of primates, from regular contributor Eliot Haworth.

The Shadow section opens with Sharam Saadat’s colour photographs of gym users shooting selfies, reflected in the mirror tiles of the gym wall; Maddy Weavers reports from the Norwegian town of Rjukan and its bold plans to use mirrors to reflect sunlight into its dark, winter environment; and Ernst van der Hoeven and Mathijs Labadie share a beautiful series of photographs of mirrors after their surfaces fail.

Space completes the three sections, with a look at the many roles of the mirror in architecture, art and design, including Ettore Sottsass’s extraordinary Ultrafragola mirror, and a look at the radical use of mirrors by 1960’s artists, who sought to transform reflection from a passive to an active experience. 

On the Journal
Our Magazine of the Month review (of issue 13): ‘MacGuffin remains an essential magazine, an ideal riposte to anyone doubting the power of print. As well as being editorially brilliant, it is also, itself, a beautiful Thing. Its size, format and combination of papers making it a lovely object to hold and to flick through’.
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