For every life situation and conundrum, we’re able to turn to popular culture for an answer. Due to the overwhelming nature and easy accessibility of mass media, we’re able to borrow our varied personas from favourite pop culture characters and live vicariously through them at any given opportunity. It may be true that life doesn’t imitate art, but rather bad television. But what’s certain is that our lives are lived in a constant state of imitation. We say we know the difference between idealisation and reality but how can we when from infanthood, society dictates that we should learn via the act of mimicry?
The Mimic asks whether we obliviously and unconsciously morph into an amalgamation of the characters found amongst the debris of pop culture narratives. Would we feel love or hate, joy or anguish, if their definitions weren’t laid out before us? The Mimic believes that we can only experience directly what we already know in theory, and struggle the most with what lies beyond this framework."
You Are A Mimic explores the consumption of the narratives deeply embedded within popular culture. The Mimic is also interested in the act of mimicry that takes place as a result of devouring these narratives and thus, the impact this has upon individual and collective identities. Investigating narrative theory and applying it to everyday experiences with popular forms of mass media, The Mimic’s research questions the effect of narrative texts upon our daily lives and the numerous gratifications we derive from these fictions.
Having set out to prove her stripes as a supposed fanatic of popular culture, The Mimic instead discovered that narratives are a fundamental part of personal and collective human experience. The images of The Mimic serve as the ultimate portrait of a character living in a constant state of appropriation; she is a product of popular culture narrative and exists as a narrative herself.
'You Are A Mimic' is a current lived performance piece slowly emerging in Sydney. The Mimic's work has just begun hitting the streets of Sydney, as well as the blogosphere and virtual-spaces of social networking (twitter, facebook), youtube etc.
A lot more information, videos, photos and merch can be found at www.the-mimic.com.
For some instant fun, check out The Mimic's youtube channel!
http://www.youtube.com/YouAreAMimic