Performing Subjectivities: Multi-Mimesis in These Waves of Girls

Initially the representations of the protagonist's life pit image against text, each struggling to illustrate something more than the other. The initial imposing image of a wave of photographic film is set above the more "default" Times New Roman text (see fig.1). Three clicks into These Waves of Girls and Niran Abbas's "third nature" is (re)produced. The crashing of the waves, the impish laughter, the digital photographs and the potent prose combine and recombine to "modif[y] the natural order of perception and experience by dramatically collapsing the ontological distinction between immediate and mediate engagement with the world."

In the node entitled, "A Hand," the giggling high-pitched voices of schoolgirls rouses and calms like a tide of sound, at times appearing to deafen the accompanying text and digital photograph. According to Bernstein, "visual elements need not merely repeat what the text says; the text need not merely explain the meaning of the picture. Words and images can flow together to illuminate and subvert each other." As each narrative fragment emerges, text, image, and sound blend offering a multi-mimetic relationship which goes beyond complementary explanation or opposing subversion. In These Waves of Girls the multiple mimetic modes both reinforce and destabilise meanings.

In the node entitled "Wake Up Fairy" (fig.2), the image of a young girl's clenched hands and legs fades in and out of focus as the text, and the narrator's memory, remains bold and static.

Recounting abuse she experienced at the hands of "older men", Tracey "knew everything about them - well the important things anyway. That they were so weak even a seven year old girl could see them crumble, desperate and fearful when she spread her legs." The text itself, written in bold black font implies that the narrator is strong, unperturbed, and certainly not a victim, unlike her abusers. The image belies this masquerade as does the writing at the bottom of the text, "just a little wider." Thus Tracey's own thoughts contradict the self-assured image she tries to cultivate for herself and the reader. The memory of what she was forced to do leaves her feeling small and inadequate and explains her urge to frequently remind herself and that reader that she is a "tough girl" who hides "her As in chemistry and smok[es] in soccer halftime." The dynamic interplay between text, image, and sound in this mode are mimetic of Tracey's struggle to contain her memories

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