Originary Scene

The Originary Scene is possibly the most fundamental concept in Generative Anthropology. It is fundamental because it is the scene that all future scenes are modeled on, and that all other scenes can be traced back to. Eric Gans called the Originary Scene the "little bang" of culture, analogous to the "big bang" of the Universe.

On the Originary Scene, humanity came into existence for the first time by issuing the first sign which created the first human community. Language, culture, religion, irony, science, and everything recognizably "human" can be traced back to this first scene.

Understanding, revising, minimizing, and maximizing this Originary Scene is what thinking in terms of Generative Anthropology is all about.

series of moments whereby the originary event was instantiated, which is coeval with all significance: Constituent elements of this scene include language, desire, the esthetic, the sacred, etc., which all then correspond with the geometry between various social actors. The pragmatic paradox between participants within this scene, effected the birth of representation from the mimetic triangle, following the emission of the aborted gesture of appropriation. The gesture was capable of carrying over one’s intention to defer appropriation of the central object, to other participants within the scene.

References

http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/gaintro/