Approach to a Concept of Mimesis in Games

Introduction

In my last works I highlighted elements of the game, of playing, related to movement as an expression and the ability of the human being to move to other “realities” through immersion. These are but components of a broader phenomenon which I choose to call mimesis and its study or analysis, mimetics. The following article attempts an approach into an articulated definition of this phenomenon, as well as to present ways to understand and apply it to the design of artistic productions and, in this particular case, games and video games.

Core

There are two concepts that must be addressed before tackling this task. They are “play” and “mimesis” according to their etymological root. The first is complex in nature, but evident in its action: it implies a recreation, which in itself has two meanings. One, recreating how to create something from another existing element. In games nothing is created out of nothing, but we build activity from certain ideas, certain concepts, and certain mental or bodily or volitional movements. On the other hand is the representative sense of recreation, which is to reproduce something as faithfully as possible. This sense would be identified more with an imitation. Therefore, the game is a creative act, and also a representative act. It imitates reality, but it also recreates it, resignifies it, alters it or deconstructs it in order to “re-create” it in a new or original way. Perhaps on the contrary, more in its representative nature, the game does not create anything new, but rather synthesizes the most fundamental elements of certain dynamics and actions among the elements of the natural world, almost to the point of seeing it as pure “movement”, such as case of a “Police and Thief” where some are persecuted, and others persecute. In the real world this happens to the point of being an essential dynamic in many circumstances, not only those represented in the game through its social agents (the police and the thief), but the act itself behind the context, “the persecution” .

This alludes superficially to the act of play. We see that from this definition the following is also invited, mimesis. Mimesis, outside the recreational area, is a term from the ancient Greek attributed to Aristotle, which means”imitation”.This element is defined in its quality of imitation and not of representation, since it denies the necessary contrast of something that is known to be different from what it wants to represent. In the case of mimesis, imitation seeks to be as equal to what is imitated as it can, pretending to be original.

From these two complementary notions we can approach the mimesis concept present here. Roughly said, before breaking it down, it could be summed up in this:

Mimesis is the state in which the game is lived as if it were real.

What does this mean? That we play the game as if it were real, with all that this entails. As long as you play dispassionately, detached from the experience from an observer or casual gamer spot, there will be no mimesis. And for mimesis to be lived, experienced, two events must necessarily occur: surrender and imagination. However, let’s expand on this preliminary definition of mimesis first. In principle we ask ourselves: What does “lived” mean, and what happens when“we live a game”?

For the first we can appeal to a well-known phrase: “to be present in the present moment”. It occurs when we are fully aware and inserted in the moment, in what is happening, in our role in that plot and actively acting on it. Perhaps the reader shudders now because if this is close to living, to true living that is distinguished from surviving the passage of days on automatic pilot, then it means that we are not “living” most of the time as long as we live in a way that is foreign to this vision. That is a philosophical issue that we cannot give ourselves the pleasure of investigating in this disquisition. But well: mimesis demands that we be present, that we are living in the moment. But of course, we are talking about a fictitious context, re-created, which is that of the playful experience or, ultimately, any artistic element as Aristotle would have faced it. Unlike other representational arts such as cinema, theater, literature and stories, the game provides us with a real or virtual physical space in which we can be the main actors in creative action. This is different from other media, where we are imaginators but not actors. This facilitates mimesis and makes it, perhaps, more suitable for games than for any other, although, as we will see later, its phenomenon is created in any medium that has a playful component, that is, recreational, representative, projective — Paidia, as Roger Caillois would name it. And it is by taking this word, that of “projecting”, that we address the following point about “living the game”: we live the game when we project ourselves into fantasy and assume the mentality and activity necessary to live it. We immerse ourselves in the experience and live it as if it were something real. But here is the slogan of mimesis: this experience is real for a brain that believes so — because during mimesis the mind operates in the same way that it does in the world that we believe to be real. To interpret, configure, create meaning and structure, a meaning, and a judgment of things that happen and compose this reality. The action is coherent and leads to specific objectives of the circumstance, as we defined at the beginning of this segment. There is no separation between the subject and the experience, we do not stop to say “this is a game, I am a player who plays it” but we fully experience it. We develop bonds, desires, preferences, expectations and attachments. The moments of pain, victory, climax and drama are felt in the skin and in the soul. In this connection, we are in the mimetic state.

But now, with living and living the game (or experience) explained, we advance to the core of mimetic theory:

That during mimesis we can connect with ideas, with real feelings and emotions.

Because what makes any of these real is not that which is palpable, but the one that can be experienced inside, where it happens, in our mind and in our being — so called soul or heart.

The brain does not care if something is real or not if it is not to generate important judgments; when an experience is real for the user, what he experiences is real.

This, if the reader has not already noticed it, is incredibly powerful. And surprisingly, not at all foreign to almost any of us. Who has not seen a film, a series, a program, read a book, heard a story, played a game and has found a character, developed an affection for it, and then suffered its loss or rejoiced with its victories? Do we not suffer its death as if that of a loved one, even if only momentarily, while the fantasy to which we are exposing itself lasts? And this goes even further than fantasy, as some mimetic experiences are so powerful that they outlast the end of fantasy, thus developing a true bond between a person and a representation, thus generating preferences, rivalries, loves and devotions. Without going any further, evoking scandal, isn’t this what happens with the deities of each cult and religion? Are they not a representation, real in itself insofar as it worthily invokes what it represents? An act of heroism is an act of heroism whether it actually happened or not. What matters is in what context it happens, and how intimately the person can connect with the event. And insofar as the person can connect with a character, with an event, with a reflection or even an illumination, from surrender and imagination, in an affinity with experience, a connection, this person lives it — and when you live it, you are touched and transformed by it.

This means, in a few words, that we can really live what we experience in fiction and we can be transformed by it, because although the representation is fictitious, what happens to us within it is very real. This gives a superior, almost divine quality to any art form that can achieve the quality of mimesis: it has the potential to connect human beings with transformative experiences, enriching for the intellect and the heart, for the development of wisdom and understanding of life. Quality that is undoubtedly contemporary and codependent between work and player: the work must respect certain rules to provide a fantasy excellent enough for the players to find the means to immerse themselves in it, but it is also up to the player to possess the qualities of delivery and the imagination, said the first in other words: a predisposition to live this experience and be moved by it.

Conclusion

From this approach, two especially interesting ideas emerge that I would like to work on soon, as necessary:

• On the one hand, the structure of the mimesis, how it manifests itself exactly and what elements or forms within an experience promote it.
• On the other, how do we as human beings come to mimesis, how is it experienced and what may be the reasons why we stop playing, recreating ourselves, both in fiction and in real life.

Perhaps in the day to day we cannot fight dragons, save the kingdom and become heroes. We cannot travel to strange dimensions, administer kingdoms, or create from thin air and will. However, through mimesis we can experience the ideas, sensations, emotions and lessons that these acts can transmit and, in that contact, transform us. And it is more; perhaps even, by coming into contact with these “ideas” such as heroism, justice, love, loss and so on, we can learn to see them more clearly in our daily lives, more subtle perhaps, and bring from the fantasy world to reality that character that lives in you.

Thank you for reading.