Internal Scene of Representation

The internal scene of representation is a highly contested concept within generative anthropology, which states that each human has a subjective space where events are processed and decisions are made.

Disputes

The internal scene of representation is a concept of Eric Gans’s that Adam Katz rejects. Gans assumes that there must be some subjective space where events are processed and decisions made. So, it would make sense to see the external scene upon which the sign is generated as replicated in an internal scene—this, in turn, would support the whole vocabulary of interiority (consciousness, soul, psychology, conscience, will, and so on). In contrast, Katz sees these concepts as products of disciplinary spaces mediating imperative exchanges, and insists that we are performative and mimetic all the way down.