Upon waking, I opened my eyes slightly and saw an apple floating in midair through my blurred vision. As I gradually became more alert, the strangeness of the sight startled me into sitting bolt upright. The sudden movement put some distance between me and the apple, and I realized with relief that it was merely a painting I had made, propped against the wall in front of me. It was a trivial incident from many years ago, yet it reveals an intriguing reversal in perception.

Ordinarily, we distinguish between the experience of seeing an object and the experience of seeing something that represents an object. When we look at a represented object, we necessarily experience it through something else. Thus, my mistaken perception that “there is an apple” was corrected to the accurate recognition that “there is a painting of an apple” as I became aware of the boundary between the painting and the wall and the materiality of the paper and paint.

In my work Intermimesis, however, these two ordinarily distinct experiences are directed toward a single wooden frame. The frame that appears to be represented is also the very thing doing the representing. It is, perhaps, as though a real apple and a painted apple were to exist partially superimposed upon one another. I have come to call this peculiar relationship between what represents and what is represented intermimesis.
 

目を覚まして薄っすら瞼を開くと、ぼんやりとした視界に林檎がひとつ宙に浮いていた。ゆっくりと覚醒していく中で、その光景の不自然さに思わず跳ね起きる。林檎との間に距離が生まれ、それが自分の描いた絵で、目の前の壁に立てかけてあっただけなのだと気づいて安堵する。随分昔の些細な出来事ではあるが、ここには興味深い知覚上の転倒がある。
通常、「ものをみる経験」と「ものを示したものをみる経験」というのは区別されている。示された対象をみるとき、私たちは必ず何か別のものを通してその対象を経験する。ゆえに「林檎があるという誤った認識」は、絵と壁の境界や紙と絵具の物質性を知覚することで「林檎の絵があるという正しい認識」に訂正された。

だが「Intermimesis」という作品では、このように区別される二つの経験が、一つの木枠に向けられる。示されたはずの木枠は示すものそのものでもある。いわば現実の林檎と絵の中の林檎が半分重なって存在しているようなものかもしれない。私はこの示すものと示されるものの歪な関係を相互擬態と呼ぶことにした。