Productive Imitations: Forms of Knowledge and Technologies of Mimetic Economies

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Monika Dommann
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History ; Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2013 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 213948042

After the initial project period, in which the question of economic imitation based on trademarks and brands constituted the starting point for the project's research, the second period places its focus on techniques that underlie mimetic economies. The second half of the 20th century saw the advent of technical possibilities that destabilized the possibility of differentiating between original and reproduction. In this context the project investigates which technical configurations enable replication processes in the first place, which aesthetic and economic processes are hereby created, and which epistemic applications are invoked. It is to be clarified where economically productive mimetic potentials are set free by way of technical operations. This will be achieved by way of three case studies.Monika Dommann will expand her investigations of the productive potential of Xerox technologies to include the modes of Xerox usage in new social movements. According to the hypothesis, the emergence of a new communication aesthetic since the 1980s is only seemingly paradox against the backdrop of substantial changes in replication technology. It will be investigated to which extent a recourse to analog design techniques ultimately represents a confrontation with the digital upheavals. Also addressed is the core question of the project as a whole, namely to which extent the concept of mimesis can be productive for a new history of economics and if the thesis of value creation by libidinously occupied imitation might be of benefit. Gleb J. Albert will deal with the techniques and practices of digital reproduction during the early days of the home computer, as well as with the interconnectedness of software pirates and other actors in the realm of the computer. To begin with, the focus is on the interactions between subculture and industry during the emergence of new markets for copying programs. Secondly, the focus is on subcultural methods of separating out and replicating individual elements of commercial software products, which resulted in an early form of remix. In both cases, methods of copying initiate economic and creative dynamics. Wendelin Brühwiler will explore the epistemic status of models: firstly, by way of the French trademark register where objects initially represent idiosyncratic objects in a model, or rather, exemplary role - but then gradually the formation of abstract character models becomes apparent. Secondly, in the economic sciences of the 1970s: In terms of a history of knowledge informed by media theory, it is of importance to analyze the modalities of validity and effect determination of economic models in the context of the "Lukas critique" (1976), as well as to assess their time-critical impacts. The starting point is formed by reflections on the performativity of economic knowledge, whereby realities in economic models are both reproduced and prefigured to an equal extent.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1867: History and Theory of Mimetic Practices
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Partner Organisation: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)