THE HORIZONTAL AXIS · LEFT

The game's most important pole, and the least formalised, and it is not the feint. The simulacrum produces movements with no intent to touch or to unbalance: they sustain a false-semblance of duel, which the internal logic requires. Not-touching is a skill in its own right, the equal of touching. It is a dialogical relation, tension held within release: the wide, almost-certain attack does not seek to land, it offers the other the chance to respond, then withdraws. To strike for real is to end the game; to sustain the semblance is to keep it alive. The simulacrum is the art of the almost.

IN THE SYSTEM

→ Touch / near-touch, Breaking the other's harmony, not knocking him out.

→ The invitation to rupture, The offered breach, not a ruse, but a rule of the game.

IN THE CORPUS

→ Winning by Falling, Touching Without Touching

HOW TO CITE THIS CONCEPT

MALO, Olivier. Simulacrum. In: Black Combat Arts Institute, Concepts of the Internal Logic [online]. 2026. Available from: https://www.blackcombatarts.com/concepts-en/simulacrum [accessed date].