What we describe as an «image» is different, meaning that the spectrum of the term is broad and requires a range of further clarification. Sometimes we mean the result of visual perception processes. Under the influence of neuroscience and its visualisation strategies, the results of the perception with other senses are often even described as «images». We then speak about mental or «inner» images, which bring to mind something which is not actually present. These include, for example, souvenir pictures, which differ to the perceptions due to their vagueness. The same applies to sketches or drafts of future situations, to dreams, hallucinations or visions. Many aesthetic products also take the form of images. They are products of a process aimed at the creation of an image. As metaphors, they are ultimately a constitutive element of language. Creating images, recognising images as images, dealing with images using one’s imagination, is a universal capability of humans (Wulf 2014, 2018). However, it varies depending on the historical period and culture. Because which images we see and how we see images is determined by complex historical and cultural processes. How we perceive images and deal with them is also influenced by the unique nature of our life history and subjectivity.

Like all images, human images are the result of energetic processes. They transform the world of objects, actions and other people into images. Using the imagination they are imagined and become part of the collective and individual imaginary world. Many of these processes are mimetic and result in an assimilation to other people, environments, ideas and images. In mimetic processes the outer world becomes the «inner world», which is a world of images (Gebauer and Wulf 2018. 1998). This world of imaginary images plays a part in shaping the outer world. As these images are performative, they contribute to the emergence of actions and to the production and performance of our relationship to other people and to our surrounding world. The imaginary world is the place of the images as such, the destination of the imagination process generating the images. At the same time, it is the starting point of the mimetic and performative energies of the images.

No less than the language is the imagination, a conditio humana, a human condition, whose foundations lie in the constitution of the human body (Adorno 1984; Belting 2001; Hüppauf, and Wulf 2009; Wulf 2013b, Wulf 2018). The performativity, i.e. the orchestrated character of human action, is a consequence of the principle openness and role which the imagination plays in the form of this openness. With its help the past, present and future are interwoven. The imagination creates the world of the person, the social and cultural, the symbolic and the imaginary. It creates human images. It makes possible history and culture and thus historic and cultural diversity. It creates the world of images and the imaginary and is involved in the creation of the practices with the body. Not only is an awareness of these practices required for their production and performance. In reality, they must be incorporated and be part of a practical, body-based, implicit knowledge, whose dynamic character makes possible social and cultural changes and designs. Here mimetic processes based on the imagination are of central importance. Cultural learning takes place in these processes, which creates a social and cultural identity that is a central prerequisite for well-being and happiness.