The Big Mirror Ball forms part of the series of animated sculptures which the Danish artist Jeppe Hein has been developing since 2000. They include a fiery white cube which moves towards us, a bench which envelopes the sitter in fog, or in this case a polished metal ball which moves around randomly as soon as it detects any intruder in the space around it. The neo-kinetic art of Hein originates from a game of over-elaboration, of vitalizing minimalist sculpture in an interactive way. This intermittent display -which seems to take literally the supposed "theatricality" of minimalism postulated by the celebrated art critic Michael Fried- engenders above all a poetry of wonder an excitement in the heart of austere and objective materials, transforming the exhibition space into a playground of sensory experiences. Yet this reflective ball, the elegant formal purity of which hides a complex technological device, breaks the rules of the liberal interactive artist. It proposes no exchange or transition, nor allows the viewer to give anything -no collaboration between the work and the spectator whatsoever -but rather reacts capriciously, schizophrenically -becoming almost suicidal- in the presence of a human intruder. A paranoid and agoraphobic object which rejects all friendly contact, it points to a kind of 'non-relational' aesthetic. Additionally, the mirror, which we know to be important in the psychic construction of the individual (see "The Arena of the Mirror" by Jacques Lacan*) is employed here in a triple deviation of its representative function: distortion of reality, distancing and escape.