When approached from the perspective of sousveillance*, the rearview mirror, like the ancient mirror, becomes a metaphorical tool for reversing gazes and subverting systems. Whereas in mythology the mirror evoked introspection or a partial unveiling of the self, tinged with mystery, the contemporary rearview mirror is a prosthetic object, grafted onto vehicles as an extension of the gaze.

This gaze, oriented backward, is paradoxically turned toward the future: seeing what comes from behind allows one to secure the present. It articulates a content that is always fragmentary, its limits being those of the reflective surface and the angle from which the body engages with it.
By reversing classical surveillance, it allows those below to look upward—though without gaining a complete view or full power.

Citizen-filmmakers, like the eye in the rearview mirror, hold only a portion of reality. The reflection, often unstable and indirect, is both memory and anticipation. By refusing a direct reading of reflections and shifting the focus to the materiality of the object itself—its mimetic, semi-rounded form that conceals as much as it reveals, it becomes a kind of inverted narrative clue. The rearview mirror questions not only what we see, but how we look, and above all, what we choose to show or to hide within systems of power and perception.

Camille Dumond and Jean-Marie Fahy

* Sousveillance refers to the practice of recording or observing authority figures or structures "from below," in contrast to surveillance, which typically implies observation "from above."