The imagination has a strong performative power, which produces and performs social and cultural actions. The imagination helps create the imaginary world, which includes images stored in memory, images of the past and the future. Using mimetic movements the iconic character of the images can be captured. In the reproduction of its image character the images are incorporated in the imaginary. As part of the mental world they are references of the outer world. Which images, structures and models become part of the imaginary depends on many factors. In these images the presence and absence of the outer world is inextricably interwoven. Images emerging from the imaginary are transferred from the imagination to new contexts. Image networks develop, with which we transform the world and which determine our view of the world.

The performative character of the imagination ensures the images of the social field make up a central part of the imaginary (Wulf and Zirfas 2007). The power structures of the social relationships and social structures are represented therein. Many of these processes have their roots in people’s childhoods and take place to a large extent unconsciously. The perception of social constellations and arrangements is already learned during this time. These earlier visual experiences and the resulting images play an important, irreplaceable role in the visual understanding of the world. A comprehending viewing of social actions arises through the fact that biographically influenced historical and cultural diagrams and mental images play a part in every perception. We see social actions and relate to them in their perception. As a result, these actions become more important for us. If the actions of other people are directed at us, the impulse to link a relationship originates from these; a response on our part is expected. In each case a relationship is formed, for whose inception the images of our imagination form an important precondition. We enter an action and do not act according to the expectations in this social arrangement, be it that we respond to them, modify them or act contrary to them. Our action is mimetic to a lesser extent because of similarity, but more because of the generated correspondences. Embedded in an action, we perceive the actions of the other and act mimetically.

Our imaginary is created essentially through mimetic processes which also use the images of the imaginary to shape the outside world. Images of the human being are key to our understanding of ourselves. They are irreducible. They arise because we communicate about ourselves and must develop similarities and feelings of belonging with other people. They are the result of complex anthropological processes, in which social and cultural power structures play an important role. Owing to their iconic character, they reduce the complexity of the person and his being-in-the-world to select features and do not create a complete view of the person. There are approximations to the homo absconditus, the human being who cannot fully understand himself (Wulf 2013b). In the Ten Commandments there is therefore talk that the human should not create an image of God and by analogy – today we would say – no image should be made from another human being. Images and mimetic processes are important for our relationship with the world, with other people and with ourselves, Image critic is required in order to escape the power of interpretation of images and in particular images of the human being. The same applies to a critical view of the ideas and images created in the discourses on the human being. We must recognise the importance of images, mimesis and imagination for the development of the imaginary and for the understanding of the human being.