Dark Doubles

Spectral doubles, changelings and sinister alter egos can be found in folktales around the world, associated with omens of death or with shadowy realms whose inhabitants harbour ill intentions towards the living. The popularity of novels and films about dark doubles, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 Gothic classic Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber’s 2018 AI doppelgänger horror film Cam, speaks to enduring collective fears and desires about shadow selves and stolen identity, and long-standing cultural anxieties about the nature of individual identity and mortality.