Doppelgängers are not the countenances of your typical coffee table book. Nick Cave’s bursting Soundsuit (2009) somehow reminds me of a visit to the Bodies exhibit, where internal organs are displayed for the sake of scientific inquiry. While other tenuous forms seem poised to dissipate in a holographic universe. Indeed, the tools of the Internet age have given us limitless angles on defining the future, from the manufacture of super-slick Avatar models (e.g., Aron Demetz’s Metamorphose II, 2006) to curious pastiches (Maurizio Anzeri’s Marianna, 2010, and Zelda, 2009, for example, superimposing embroidery on photography). But with our myriad alleyways to digital retouching come also come delicate self-marketing issues. In our relatively new context of simulated realities and virtual networks, Doppelgänger touches on the issue of confronting our contrived online counterparts.

Doppelgänger: Images of the Human Being is available February 28, 2011 and for purchase at Gestalten