Mimesis as a mode of knowing : vision and movement in the Aesthetic Practice of Jean Painlevé

This paper explores the idea that mimesis constitutes a way of knowing, focusing in particular on the example of the mimetic relations between human and non-human species orchestrated by Jean Painlevé’s filmmaking, itself a mimetic practice in which such relations are mediated by the camera’s lens. It is important to clarify at the outset that I do not use mimesis in the literary sense of life-like representation here, but rather refer to mimesis as a form of corporeal copying ormimetic communication involving a sharing of movement and form (Gibbs) in which affect plays a significant role. This, rather than the work of affect in film per se, is the focus of the paper. I discuss Painlevé’s work here both because mimetic relations feature as a key concern in his work and because there is, I want to suggest, an isomorphic relationship between this concern and the methods of his aesthetic practice.