Memes on Memes

  I am interested by what may be described as the semantic cloud surrounding the concept of images. What I mean by a semantic cloud may be illustrated with the help of a kanji – the ideograms of Chinese origin which the Japanese use to write their language. Because of the structure of Japanese language kanjis are not usually alone but associated with phonetic signs – hiragana syllabary – they form different words and in these words the kanji – the Chinese ideogram – constitutes or indicates the root meaning of the words in which it enters. Take for example the following kanji “shita”*                      which means below, as in “you will find it below the table”. That kanji enters into the following words, among others: below, down, please, to hang (a painting), to be under guidance, to give, to be unskilful, to surrender, to be discharged, to get down the train, to give an order, to make a judgement, to be inferior, to fall back, to receive, urine, diarrhea, the lower part of a rive

 by Paul Dumouchel Mimesis Girard in his works uses the word “mimesis”, “mimetic desire” and associated terms in two relatively different ways. On the one hand the terms are used in a causal way, as if mimesis and mimetic desire were some form of psychological force that brings people to copy each other, especially in their behaviour of appropriation. Mimesis in this case is understood as a kind of instinct or as a biologically determined propension to copy others. On the other hand, the terms are also used in a descriptive way. On such occasions, mimesis corresponds to or is present whenever we notice similarities in the behaviour of different individuals. This is particularly the case, but not exclusively, when Girard talks about violence. To take a recent, and uncontroversial example, Ismail Haniyeh, the senior political leader of Hamas declared after the atrocious attack on Israeli civilians: “We have only one thing to say to you: get out of our land. Get out of our sig

 Paul Dumouchel I am interested in how the production and dissemination of images using digital technologies (understood in a broad sense) and these technologies themselves transform our image of the world. The fact that the word “image” appears twice in the previous sentence and in two different meanings is no accident. The plurality of meanings of the word “image” is very ancient. It is already present in “idea” the Greek word for image derived from the ancient Greek verb idein that means to see. Idea for us no longer as the meaning of an image and only refers to an invisible immaterial concept. To see however, still also means to understand, in many languages, not only in some that are closely related, like French, English or Italian, but even for example, in Japanese. I want to see – to understand – how images relate to concepts and how this relation has changed with the introduction of new technologies of image making. What interests me is the relationship between the different ty