Abstract:
This study aims to investigate the changing ontological nature of the portrait from
mimesis to methexis in relation to South African portraiture. It proposes that the
representational nature of traditional portraiture changes in response to the social and
political climate. The early phases of the Western mimetic portrait are marked by the
desire to capture and maintain the subject's presence. This will-to-presence is
facilitated by the development of a socio-economic milieu of individualism. The
Renaissance emphasis, on the human being as individual through humanist
philosophy, the legal system and mirror technologies intensified the individual's
desire to become and remain present in the portrait. This study proposes that the
portrait becomes the location of the metaphysics of presence, offering the promise of
life after the subject's physical demise. The metaphysics of presence in the portrait
gained a political dimension when the sitter's likeness was portrayed through the
ideological lens of colonialism. The portrait became a strategy of what Mirzoeff
(2001:7) refers to as 'visuality'. Visuality is a form of biopower that establishes and
maintains power over the portrayed. During apartheid, iconic categorisation resulted
in the classification and segregation of different "races". The study proposes that the
politics of presence is founded on mimetic representational strategies. It argues that
during the close of apartheid, mimetology was identified as an apparatus of
colonisation.
The mimetic process however, is laced with pitfalls. It creates the illusion of
sameness whereas in reality, it only produces difference. Derrida and Lacoue-
Labarthe point out that what is produced by mimesis is not a copy, but an entirely in
its own right. The hope created by mimesis fades in the face of poststructuralist ideas.
The notion of Platonic mimetic is revisited by Gadamer. He identifies mimesis as part
of methexis. This provides hope yet again, not of innocent representation (adequatio),
but of a presentation (Darstellung) through mediation and play. This study proposes
that revisiting the linear representational process of mimesis, through Gadamer's
notion of methexis, results in the idea of participation. The democratic participation of
the subject in his or her self(ie) portrayal is facilitated by contemporary smartphone
technology. This technology facilitates the participation in the iconic categorisation of the past and enable the rewriting of historical repressive portraits. Aesthetic
participation includes devices such as appropriation. Methexis is therefore identified
as descriptive of the ontological nature of self(ie) presentations.
