ASKIT: The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow

For Scott Myles’ recent solo show ‘Askit’, at The Modern Institute in Glasgow, the windowpanes of the gallery were replaced with mirrored panels, removing the view and, it seemed, the air from the room. In creating Mirror Room (2007), Myles closed off the mediation afforded by the Victorian sash windows, which usually flood the space with daylight and sounds from the street outside, in which a pawnbroker’s, modern offices, a drop-in centre for prostitutes and a plush corporate hotel co-exist. The instant feedback of the mirrors ensured that the process of looking became self-conscious, as every viewer was split into the subject who looks and the reflected object that appears in the mirror. This play between awareness and image recurs elsewhere in Myles’ photographs, objects, paintings and performance-based projects, and stems from what he once described as ‘an aspiration to project oneself in some way’.