Mimesis

Abstract

The desire for camouflage is the desire to feel connected. It is the desire to find our place in the world and to feel at home This article analyses this desire through Walter Benjamin's theory of mimesis. This is a linguistic theory that argues that we find meaning in the world through the discovery of similarities, We are therefore inclined to model ourselves on the world, and make ourselves similar to it According to Benjamin, it is children who have the greatest capacity to blend in with their environment in their games of hide-and-seek and so on. There is. then, something to be learnt perhaps from the behaviour of children — from their openness and powers of imagination — if we want to fully comprehend the mechanism by which we identify with our homes and architectural spaces