Mimesis and the Death of Difference in the Graphic Arts

Author(s): David Tomas

Source: SubStance , 1993, Vol. 22, No. 1, Issue 70 (1993), pp. 41-52
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3684729

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Mimesis and the Death of Difference
in the Graphic Arts

David Tomas

Why write, if not in the name of an impossible speech?

-Michel de Certeau

THE PENCIL IS A MARGINAL TECHNOLOGY in the pantheon of art tech-

nologies and in the history of modernism. To this day, it is associated with
the world of the artisan, and with antiquarian practices of the hand.' T
draw, as its semantic field suggests, includes such actions as to pull or haul,
to carry along and to change the shape of as well as to represent in line. Its
roots can be traced to the Old English word dragan (akin to) and to th
Greek word trekhein (to run).
The sensuality of a practice-a certain primitive "know-how" (de Cer-
teau, 72)--that unites eye, hand and pencil in a common activity is a
personal, private and tactile experience: the contact and pressure betwee
graphite and paper whereby friction and texture engender the quality and
status of a particular mark. In exceptional circumstances (one thinks of
Michelangelo's drawings of the crucifixion) these marks can becom
"grainy" with a certain "materiality of the body speaking its mother
tongue" (Barthes, 270).
Since the second quarter of the nineteenth century this practice has
existed in the shadows of a powerful new mode of pictorial reproduction
photography. Within fifty years of its first public appearance in 1839,
photography had democratized the production of mimetic images throug
the introduction of simple, easy-to-use cameras and efficient manufactur-
ing processes.2 However, this democratization was not achieved without
price, for a new relationship between the senses, a new way of making the
world emerged in its wake. In Walter Benjamin's incomparable phrase:

For the first time in the process of pictorial reproduction, photography

freed the hand of the most important artistic functions which henceforth
devolved only upon the eye looking into a lens. (219)3

While a drawing is commonly perceived to be a delicate creation, the

unique register of a "cultured" touch, the photograph is most often

SubStance #70, 1993 41

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42 David Tomas

described as a
puncture me (a
the pressure of
light) is theref
formed enco or
ference, a pho
impulses of th
1888 slogan: "Y
has done more t
hand, it has ref
eye. It has mec
and knowledge,
Land remarked

By making it po
subject matter s
barriers between
many of the sati
new group of ph

Hence the Polar

paign) in the in
consequence, ev
the human eye
organ. It is not
has been relegat
However, dur
expansion, ther
technologies (as
time, the first
multiplied by m
medium to rep
circulation is no
In his pioneerin
Talbot drew atte
reproducing wor

All kinds of eng

application of th
general nearly f
alter the scale, a
originals as we m

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Mimesis 43

Moreover,
master dra
"multiplied
these obser
Walter Ben
Reproduct
groundwork
raphy and f
Benjamin's
concerning
original w
McLuhan's f
ogy is the c
affairs" and
intense just
However, an
not, to my
photographi
the size of a
The first is
In the pres
latest of wh
autonomy o
in a highly
practices o
demonstrate
in conjunct
pointing ou
represent a
genius, etc.
intervene in
gesture in t
detail its rel
rent debates
Thesecond
media often
shall see, wi
of complic
mechanism.
cultural gen

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44 David Tomas

terface and int

an interesting p
body and repre

Representation

Can one link d

the former mo
its preciousne
photography's r
register throu
perverse vision
representation
spatial and temp
the different g
threshold of m
pable physical
mutation gener
their own way
according to al
33) while reachi
One has only
threshold of vis
peculiar percep
bodiment under
of use in discrim
sentation. Are
as a photograph
other as conten
reside a spec in
signifier" (Lev
form to repre
qualities as text
through magn
high degree of
destabilized und
one level of pe
qualities are eith

SubSta

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 Mimesis 45

at the expe
conditions

A New Kin

Although w
use in grou
ofpropelli
up-brough
and bodies
trap," for
tion, spatial
there is no
drawing's t
thus elimin
doubt rein
ize that we
perience a s
to transcen
cal authorit
direct dialo
attributes f
defining t
means to d
the world.
an interspac
an age-old
that has tr
But, as we
changed.
It is not surprising, therefore, that these "hybrid" drawings or
"hybrid" photographs (the confusion is structural) are characterized by a
strange lack of substance in connection with representation. Nor is it
surprising that we should find this deficiency to have been generated by a
primordial artifice-mimicry, with its paradoxical play of original and
copy-?since this condition appears to have been conjured up by a decep-
tive incantation: Are we looking at a drawing that has been disguised as a
photograph or a photograph disguised as a drawing? A simple trick or a
complex artifice? The answer is both. And it is precisely this ambiguity

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 46 David Tomas

between decep
perverse exchan
has pointed out
through the ar
understood for
to pay attenti
represents on
through the in

Blurring Figur

In an unusual
Caillois drew at
concluding, on
stitute a mecha
luxury" (25). T
status in relatio
coloration w
ure/ground con
for the mimick
confusion that
the psychopath
On the basis of observations, Caillois noted similarities between
mimicry and sympathetic magic ("according to which like produces like
and upon which all incantational practice is more or less based" (ibid.),
which led to the formulation of a rather unusual definition of mimicry: "an
incantation fixed at its culminating point and having caught the sorcerer in his
own trap" (27). However, Caillois drew back from the thrust of his defini-
tion with the remark that a "recourse to the magical tendency" in what he
described as "the search for the similar" could only "be an initial ap-
proximation" (ibid.). He suggested, instead, that this "search" might con-
stitute "a means, if not an intermediate stage" culminating in a final more
radical stage: a strange "disturbance in the perception of space" created by
an organism's almost perfect "assimilation to [its] surroundings" (27,28, 27).
This idea allowed Caillois to link mimicry, sympathetic magic and
psychopathology by way of a common perceptual condition. On the one
hand he traced this disturbance directly to the foundations of vision, given
that space can both be "perceived and represented" (28). On the other
hand, it was rooted in the instincts:

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Mimesis 47

[A]longside t
creature tow
tion that ori

To this cond
sely, a "gen
the name ps

The feeling
tion from it
particular po
undermined
more specific
the disturba

Mimicry: T

Caillois's t
mimicry's
light on t
photographi
in the prese
the guise o
perception a
guish the fo
It is clear,
present case
adopted or a
first sight"
is presented
of the draw
in terms of
because it h
Finally, it
between pe
when we r
photograph.
(correspond
instantaneo
However,
completely
according t

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48 David Tomas

(lost its physic

photographic i
taneously been
on its identity
photograph rem
malaise and its
ception can be
mimicry. Specif
as a drawing, an
If we transpo
would be the p
photograph] to
symbolic value"
tent over and
Strauss, 64). Wh
contains (and th
mum "presence
since the drawin
in negative ter
sence-has been
physical presen
sonalization [of
space" (30). In
through an incr
own presence,
transformation
condition for e
nifier of its pre

Death by Mim

Having catalog
deception, are
photograph ga
singularity and
it has managed
in so doing has
sensorial regim
sentation; it now

SubSta

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 Mimesis 49

guise of a dr
mimicking a
Caillois pro
sentation" m
way space is
place:

To these dispossessed souls, space seems to be a devouring force. Space

pursues them, encircles them, digests them in a gigantic phagocytosis. It
ends by replacing them. Then the body separates itself from thought, the
individual breaks the boundary of his skin and occupies the other side of
his senses. He tries to look at himself from any point whatever in space. He
feels himself becoming space, dark space where things cannot be put. He is
similar, not similar to something, but just similar. And he invents spaces of
which he is "the convulsive possession." (30)

There is, perhaps, no better description of the perceptual and spatial

consequences of the kind of photographic mimicry I have set forth in the
preceding pages. What we are witnessing in Caillois's portrayal of the
space of schizophrenia is the death of a consciousness, an individual, an
identity, a site of difference, by mimetic assimilation: a death that is signed,
as it were, in a perceptual contract. But this is no simple death. As Caillois
suggests, it is the necessary stage in the birth of another "purer" space-not
a hybrid or third space as currently understood9 because this new space
cannot exist outside of the system of logic which has made its existence
possible. One cannot speak of this other space in physical terms-of object
and place-since, according to mimetic logic, the two have fused. In fact,
Caillois tells us that this logic is the precondition for a new form of inertia
no longer cognizant of "either consciousness or feeling" (32). Thus, as
consciousness has vacated the body, so has presence vacated the drawing
and photograph. In its place we find a space without qualities, a space
without differentiating intelligence. With this space we have reached a
perceptual limit where difference mutates into pure similarity, presence
into pure absence.

The Sorcerer Caught in His Own Trap

However, we have already noted that the interspace is animated-

rendered minimally intelligible-by a subtle disturbance created by an
absence oscillating perversely between the visual attributes of opposing
modes of representation: Is this a drawing or is this a photograph? Insofar
as we engage in this play of mimicry and insofar as we are drawn into its

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 50 David Tomas

web of decepti
proximity of a v
final frontier o
extinction.

I would like to make two concluding observations in connection with

this frontier. First, it is in terms of this limit-in terms of the death of
difference-that one must begin to redefine the role of drawing today,
since this frontier has not only been reached at its expense (the expense of
a mimetic other), but the play of deception which has brought this frontier
into view has radically recontextualized drawing's position in the history
of representation. Second, if one were to extrapolate a politics of cultural
generativity from this play of mimicry, it would have to be rooted in the
death of representation itself-signalled most poignantly by the eclipse of
the "sorcerer" caught "in his own trap" (Caillois, 27). For this eclipse, this
death, are perhaps the only ways to account for the shimmering stillness
that saturates this kind of mimetic surface with the constant presence of an
absence. And in witnessing the sorcerer's death every time we engage this
surface, can it be that we are also witness to our own deaths beyond repre-
sentation?

As de Certeau writes in "The Unnamable":

There is nevertheless a first and last coincidence of dying, believing, and

speaking. In fact, all through my life, I can ultimately only believe in my
death, if "believing" designates a relation to the other that precedes me and
is constantly occurring. There is nothing so "other" as my death, the index
of all alterity. But there is also nothing that makes clearer the place from
which I can say my desire for the other; nothing that makes clearer my
gratitude for being received-without having any guarantee or goods to
offer-into the powerless language of my expectation of the other; nothing
therefore defines more exactly than my death what speaking is. (193-194)

University of Ottawa

WORKS CITED

Barthes, Roland. 'The Grain of the Voice," in The Responsibility of Forms: Critica
on Music, Art, and Representation. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and
1985.

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducti

Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken
1976.

de Certeau, Michel. "The Arts of Theory" and "The Unnamable" in The Practice of
Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

SubStance #70, 1993

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 Mimesis 51

Caillois, Rog
Land, Edwin

Levi-Strauss,
London: Rou
McLuhan, M
1964.

O'Doherty, Brian. "Inside the White Cube, Part II: The Eye and the Spectator," Art
Forum, Vol. 14, No. 8, 1976.

Talbot, William Henry Fox. The Pencil of Nature. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969;
facsimile of original 1844 edition.

NOTES

1. I am interested in this essay in a very particular form of drawing--dr

without the aid of perspective machines or optical drawing instruments
camera obscuras and camera lucidas. For histories of the latter two instruments s
H. Hammond, The Camera Obscura: A Chronicle (Bristol: Adam Hilger, 1981) a
Hammond and Jill Austin, The Camera Lucida in Art and Science (Bristol: Adam
1987).
2. For an early canonical statement of the power of photography to demo
the production of images see a "Brief Historical Sketch of the Invention of the A
Talbot. For an equally canonical statement in connection with the invention
step or Polaroid photography see Land, p. 7. On the industrialization of photo
see Reese V. Jenkins, Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photog
Industry, 1839-1925 (Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press
3. For a contemporary statement to this effect, see Land, p. 7.
4. The origins of the word "photography" are discussed in H.J.P. Arnold, Wi
Henry Fox Talbot: Pioneer of Photography and Man of Science (London: Hutchinso
ham, 1977), p. 117.
5. The standard statement to this effect is Donna Haraway's "A Manifest
Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s," Socialist R
Vol. 15, No. 2, 1985, pp. 65-107. For a different approach see my "The Techn
Body: On Technicity in William Gibson's Cyborg Culture," New Formations
1989, pp. 113-129.
6. On hybridity, interdisciplinarity, and cultural generativity see James Cli
The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, an
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988) and "Introduction: P
Truths," in James Clifford and George E. Marcus (eds.), Writing Culture: The Poet
Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 1-26
critique of Clifford's use of the terms hybridity and interdisciplinarity see my
Gesture to Activity: Dislocating the Anthropological Scriptorium," Cultural S
6-1, 1992, pp. 1-26.
A more sophisticated discussion of hybridity, third space, and cult
generativity is presented in Homi K. Bhabha "The Commitment to Theory,"
Pines and Paul Willemen (eds.), Questions of Third Cinema (London: BFI Publi
1989), pp. 111-132 (originally published in New Formations 5, 1988) and the int

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 52 David Tomas

with Bhabha entit

munity, Culture,
ever, Bhabha's notion of third space is of little use in dealing with
intermedia-generated spaces, since it does not acknowledge the possibility of a prac-
tice that cannot be "tamed and symbolized in language" (de Certeau, op. cit., p. 61).
7. For a recent discussion of tactile vision see Michael Taussig, "Physiognomic
Aspects of Visual Worlds," Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1992, pp. 15-28.
8. In later years, Caillois rejected his study as "fantastic," and returned to a more
conventional interpretation of insect mimicry: "the insect equivalent of human games
of simulation" (quoted in Taussig, op. cit., p. 28 n. 39). Of course, the scientific veracity
of Caillois's theory of mimicry has no bearing on its truth value in the present case,
since I am not dealing with mimicry in the insect world but with questions of media
interpenetration and hybridity in connection with a specific art practice. On the other
hand, I resist equating mimicry with simulation, especially in terms of its current
formulation as a kind of hermetically sealed second-order representational system
predicated on a play of copies, since mimicry posits, as its preexisting condition, a
direct perceptual relationship between an original and its copy-a relationship which
is, moreover, based on a clear direction of acculturation. The consequences of this
relationship and, in particular, the direction of its acculturation (notwithstanding
mimicry's obvious function of confusion vis-a-vis an original) are what interest me in
the case of photographically acculturated drawings.
9. Clifford, "Introduction: Partial Truths," op. cit., p. 26; Bhabha, "The Third
Space," op. cit., p. 211. Discussions of hybridity, in-betweenness, third spaces, and
cultural generativity do not attempt to specify the mechanisms that operate in these
situations as if the use of such words automatically guaranteed the appearance of a
new space, culture, or identity. As we can see from this case, these words refer to
complex processes which more often than not lie beyond their powers of repre-
sentation.

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