Mimicry is a protective device for camouflage. In nature, it is an advantage for survival through adaptation.
Adaptation that serves to deceive or protect oneself.
Mimicry serves to merge with the environment, to disappear.
In psychology, mimicry is the phenomenon of people automatically and unconsciously imitating other people. It leads to the imitated person liking the other person more and thus building a better relationship between those involved. Behavioral and verbal mimicry can also lead to people being more easily convinced when they are imitated. You are mirrored by the other person.
Mimicry can also be seen as an act of camouflage: One disappears as a perceptible object in the big city. In this sense, this behavior is described several times in the “Großstadt-Dokumente” published by Hans Ostwald. As part of his metropolitan research, Ostwald published fifty volumes on life in the big city and the peculiarities of social interaction between 1904 and 1908.
In volume 41, the author Magnus Hirschfeld even described imitative behavior as the “law of mimicry”. He thus examined the dynamics of imitation and transformation as a strategy of camouflage arising from social and economic conflicts.
Where can we find manifestations of mimicry in the city of Vienna today? Where do such phenomena become visible in society, in public or private space?
You lived and worked in Vienna for a long time. This city was your home. Where do you see examples of mimicry in your former home?
Sevrina Giard
