I believe that between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a sort of mixed, joint experience, which would be the mirror. The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror.
—Michel Foucault ¹

At a recent conference, Yam Lau’s work was subtly challenged as merely an exercise of digital technology and computing aesthetics. However, the artist’s latest exhibition, entitled A World is a Model of the World at the Darling Foundry in Montreal, demonstrates how a contemporary art practice in digital media can engender new possibilities for cultural and social expressions through hybridizing virtual and real spaces.

Walking into the main exhibition space of the Darling Foundry, the white architectural structures (a schematic, maquette-like construction) conflate the virtual space explored in the video with the physical space of the gallery. Lau explains his idea for the display, stating “the wooden structure that supports the video, I see it as a boat or a floating island, very  much like a pavilion floating on water. I also think that this huge space, the Darling Foundry, is like the rock gardens

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