ABSTRACT

Metalepsis is a magic trick based on the division between the frame and the framed, diegesis and mimesis. It allows the audience to encounter some form of itself, installed within the mimetic particulars of the work. Mimesis converts interiority, the framed representation, into an exterior, an imitation of life. Diegesis conversion takes place silently, with the consensus of the audience and actors. Mimesis now absorbs the job of diegesis. The diegetic frame begins as an insulation device. In diegesis without metalepsis, no dream or story contaminates reality, even a fictional one. Diegesis frames a mimetic field; metalepsis recombines the framing elements in material ways tied to appearance/disappearance and inserts them into this field. The point of insertion appears to be an exception, but in fact it is the logic of the whole, brought into focus through an instance that calls forth latent truths, ancient topologies.