Plastik Figürler: Mimesis, Metamorfoz, Benliğin Teknikleri

Abstract

Batı felsefesindeki baskın idealist gelenekler, mimesisi çoğunlukla ideal formlardan uzak, görsel temsillerle sınırlama eğilimindeyken daha azınlık ama dirençli bir maddeci düşünürler silsilesi, öznelik deneyiminin bizzat taklitçi doğasına odaklanma eğilimini sürdürmüştür. Homo mimeticus’un alabileceği plastik biçimlere duyarlı disiplinler arası mimesis çalışmaları alanına yaslanan bu makale, Catherine Malabou’nun formu yeniden değerlendirme girişimini ilerleterek hem form alabilme hem de form verebilme kapasitesiyle donatılmış dört plastik figürün yeni maddeci bir şeceresini çıkarmaktadır: “Figura,” “metamorfoz,” “benliğin teknikleri” ve “üst insan.” Antik (Platon, Homeros), modern (Montaigne, Nietzsche) ve çağdaş (Hadot, Foucault) düşünürlerin eşliğinde yeniden ele alınan bu kavramsal çerçeve, plastisite ve figura kavramlarının birbirini yansıtan nitelikleriyle estetik tarihinin kritik anlarından geçtiğini geniş soybilimsel hatlarla ortaya koyar. Öne sürülen iddia şudur: Plastik figürler, özne oluşumunun tekniklerinde merkezî bir rol oynayan edimsel güçlerle donatılmıştır ve bu güçler antik çağ ve moderniteden günümüze kadar uzanarak mimesis çalışmalarının ufkunu genişletmektedir.

Keywords

• Öznellik
• plastisite
• mimesis
• estetik
• mimesis çalışmaları
• Malabou

Plastic Figures: Mimesis, Metamorphosis, Techniques of the Self

Abstract

While dominant idealist traditions in western philosophy tended to restrict mimesis to visual representations far removed from ideal Forms, a minor, yet nonetheless resilient genealogy of materialist thinkers has tended to focus on the mimetic nature of subjectivity itself. Building on the interdisciplinary field of mimetic studies sensitive to the plastic forms homo mimeticus can take, this essay furthers Catherine Malabou’s re- evaluation of form by outlining a new materialist genealogy of four plastic figures endowed with the capacity to both receive form and give form: namely, “figura,” “metamorphosis,” “techniques of the self,” and the “overman.” Reframed in the company of ancient (Plato, Homer), modern (Montaigne, Nietzsche), and contemporary (Hadot, Foucault) theorists, the essay argues, in broad genealogical strokes, that the mirroring concepts of plasticity and figura traverse key moments in the history of aesthetics. My wager is that plastic figures are endowed with performative powers central to techniques of subject formation that reach from antiquity to modernity into the present, furthering the field of mimetic studies.

Keywords

• Subjectivity
• plasticity
• mimesis
• aesthetics
• mimetic studies
• Malabou

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