Christophe Muylaert

A veiled figure stands enclosed within semi-transparent mirrors. From the outside, she can be seen; from within, she encounters only her own reflection. The space becomes a paradox of perception — a theatre in which the subject is both actor and spectator, exposed and enclosed.

The veil, here, is not mere fabric but metaphor: it evokes the invisible web of language, concepts, and cultural codes through which the modern self perceives the world — and through which the self itself is shaped. This veil does not conceal the body, but thought itself — a subtle opacity of words and beliefs that filters everything we see. In its folds, we become reflections among reflections, trapped within our own epistemic fabric.

Thus, the secular subject too wears a veil — not of cloth, but of discourse. It is the veil of reason, of language, of the episteme that defines what may be known and seen. Within it, we mistake the shimmer of representation for the presence of truth, and our mirrored image for the self it reflects.
The spectacle is silent because speech itself is part of the veil.