My name is Omar Khalid. I’m a senior at UCLA, and this is my Mimesis blog for Philosophy 161: Philosophy of Aesthetics. In this class we will be exploring what mimesis is, and the different forms of mimetic art.

I’m not exactly sure what mimesis is yet, and it will be a working definition for me. Right now I understand mimesis to mean imitation, or representation of the world. This means mimesis can include various forms of art like paintings, pictures, videos, games and other forms if they attempt to represent the world and create a virtual world within the piece.

When I say virtual world, I mean it in the wide sense, covering anything which pictures or depicts a part or aspect of the world at any particular time(s). For example a picture of a house represents the virtual world of the house at the time the picture was taken. Another example would be a video game, being a virtual world. In a game the virtual world doesn’t necessarily mimic earth, but mimics our world in the sense that the game has an environment, with laws of the game, etc… The game creates a virtual world in the game is therefor consider mimetic art.

I don’t believe I have a full grasp of the concept just yet, but I seek to better understand it and I will post my thought/findings here.