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September 28, 2005
Mimesis and Social Construction Ideas
We, as society, definitely represent the world around us through language and images; writing and speech. We are continuously using imitation or mimesis to portray something concrete and real. For example, I was assigned to write a short story in sophomore year. It could be written in any time period, in any place. I chose to write about my grandfather's life; some of the hardships he went through and his baseball career. I sat with him several times, or over the phone, writing everything down: where he had been, what he had seen, how he had felt. It was a truly powerful story. I completed the assignment and handed it in, only realizing the next week that I did very poorly. I had imitated his life, his past, but my writing never reflected the entire experience. I tried to reconstruct or imitate a story that couldn't be fully imitated. Documentaries are related to this representation. Directors try to "reflect the world as it is through mimesis", taking other people's actual stories and bringing them to the screen. In a sense, every movie is a copy of the orginial, which is a copy of an actor's words, which may be a copy a fight between two people years ago. Nothing seems real until one witnesses it first hand. So how can something be represented to another person who was not a witness, without the scence being imitated or replicated in some way, through the use of a movie camera, pictures, or speech? We see this representation on the news every single day, especially with the effects of Katrina on New Orleans (tapes, videos, personal accounts--everything is imitation and representation). As seen today in class, paintings are mere forms of mimesis. I cannot say that the sweater on OldNavy.com is actually there because it is not. I cannot reach out a grab it. I am only seeing little colored dots that seem to come together on the computer screen to make up a sweatshirt. All in all, our world is definitely a product of mimesis. Just pick any place, and there will be imitation.
Posted by lcisgancarz at September 28, 2005 02:27 PM