Issue #1 / Winter 2023

THE FRINGES OF RESISTANCE

Interested in the politics of resistance as well as in forces of resistance within the  unconscious, we take a close look at the margins of the personal and the political in film practices. The mimesis of the media environment that encompasses us is crucial as much as it is endemic. Considering our social encounters as remakes of visual and time-based culture, we feel the need to unravel the cinematically entangled body and its colonial, authoritarian, patriarchal, and capitalist histories. Be it in public dance choreographies, the intimate practice of reading, ancient mesopotamian storytelling, agitprop theater or neorealist cinema - in “The Fringes of Resistance” we try to carve out the mutable contours of territories of power and make them visible to us. In our first issue we sift for threads to pick up from the myths of authenticity, identification and ideology that are engraved in the images that surround us. Through essays, fiction and conversations we explore contradictions in our practices, theorize them and (try to) make them work for us and for others.

With contributions by Noor Abed, Bojana Cvejić, Mariah Garnett, Matt Polzin, Lior Shamriz and Elbe Trakal.

Copy editing: Allison Hugill, Neha Choksi, Anna Roy Winder Salling

Introduction Conversation

Lior Shamriz & ELBE Trakal

In place of a preface. An editorial conversation about the necessity of a film and performance journal.

A CONVERSATION With Mariah Garnett

Mariah Garnett ELBE Trakal & Lior Shamriz

Mariah Garnett discusses her filmmaking methodologies and production politics. The collaboration with family members distinguishes her queer film practice. Her work centers on the histories of bodies using reenactment and improvisation.

Choreographing Bodies

Noor Abed and Bojana Cvejić

Noor Abed and Bojana Cvejić discuss dance and choreography as a political expression of the social contract. In what ways do wedding dances or solo dances embody and rehearse the ideology of state power? Are there non-totalitarian ways of dancing in crowds?

An essay on clandestine mimetic practices developed by radical left theater practitioners and activists. Their current appropriation by rightwing corona-deniers and qanon believers constitutes our contemporary semiotic warfare.

A FAILED SPECTATOR

Lior Shamriz

Borrowing from the Learnings of Seers in Ancient Mesopotamia to Suggest a Different Approach to the prophecies of the Filmic World Around us .

A Short Story about Labor Organization in Neorealist Cinema and in 2019’s University of California COLA .

ABOUT MIMESIS MAGAZINE

MIMESIS IS A PLATFORM FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CONTEMPORARY FILM PRACTICES AS ACTS OF PERFORMANCE AND THE PERFORMANCE OF OUR EVERY DAY AS FUNDAMENTALLY SHAPED BY THE CINEMATIC AND THE MOVING IMAGE. WE SEE FILM’S TRANS-TEMPORAL COMMUNICATION CAPACITY AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO HELP DECIPHER POWER STRUCTURES WITHIN OUR SENSORIAL WORLDS. WRITING ON FILM PERFORMANCE PRACTICES GUIDES OUR LEARNING PROCESS AND THE POSSIBILITIES FOR RESISTANCE AND SUBVERSION OF THOSE MODES OF POWER. WE EMBRACE THE COMPULSION FOR THE MIMETIC AS A CHANCE FOR MUTATION AND FAILURE.

MIMESIS IS AN INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED MAGAZINE FOR AND FROM PRACTITIONERS OF FILM AND PERFORMANCE. WE ARE OPEN TO EXPERIMENTAL, POETIC, THEORETICAL, FICTIONAL, AND INTERVIEW CONTRIBUTIONS.

Mimesis Magazine is a privately produced, artist-run journal, based in Oakland, CA (Germany), Mumbai (India), and Berlin (Germany).

Published by Mimetic Publishing.

Issue #1:

Editors: Lior Shamriz and Elbe Trakal

Proofreading: Neha Choksi, Allison Hugill, and Anna R Winder