Playful mimikry: performing realtime scores and the anthropology of play

Speaking about mimesis in aesthetic theory, Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin come up as some of the most often quoted points of reference. In my contribution to the symposium I want to open the view on another concept of mimesis that has been formative for Adorno’s writings: In his „Man, Play and Games“ (1961) French anthropologist Roger Caillois considered mimétisme as a basic cultural phenomenon which he links closely to the role and paradigms of play in human societies. Following pre-Socratic theories, Caillois defines competition (agon), chance (alea), flow (ilinx) and masking / imitation (mimikry) as basic elements of human play. I will take Caillois’ theories as starting point to reflect on mimesis as a form of playfulness that informs behaviours and interactions of performers in live music performance with realtime scores, making aesthetic approaches towards mimesis meet with performance theory and game theory. Performing realtime scores, it turns out, as a fairly new contemporary art form is deeply rooted in basic human needs and historically grown cultural practices while also linking the human with the more-than-human.