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Coda
MIMESIS AND MEDIA IN AFRICAM i m e s i s i s a b a s ic human way of approaching the world. We un-
derstand by imitating, we appropriate through copying, and we connect
to other people and things by shaping our artistic products or ourselves
after them. According to Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf (2003:
8), “Mimetic processes can be conceptualized as iterative creations of
antecedent worlds through which humans make these their own, how-
ever, not by means of theoretical thinking but by means of the senses,
that is, aesthetic” (my translation). Our mimetic faculty combines with
and is extended by that of “mimetically capacious machines” (Taussig
1993: 243), which are able to produce likenesses and also form the basis of
larger media apparatuses, replicating them en masse. Mimesis and media
are inextricably linked: mimesis not only mediates but is always already
mediated. Mimesis depends on media. Even at its most basic form, it needs
the medium of the human body to produce likenesses of other humans,
a n i ma ls or t h i ngs. However, as representat iona l med ia, such as pa i nt i ngs,
sculptures, books, and modern mass media, are also difficult to imagine
without mimesis, the dependency is mutual.
Across the chapters of this book, I am interested in instances of mi-
mesis and media in African encounters with cultural difference. By its
very definition, mimesis is built upon a difference between the imitator