© Antony Gormley's Waste Man commissioned by Artangel for Penny Woolcock's feature film Exodus
In his recent book The Corporeal Image, the film-maker and visual anthropologist David MacDougall has re-visited the debate about forms of anthropological knowledge that may be communicated through visual rather than textual means and by the combination of different media. Interest in this issue has become particularly active in the context of the 'sensory turn' in contemporary anthropology and its relationship to practice-led research. The Beyond Text? conference brings together international scholars, not only from within anthropology but also from a number of cognate disciplines (cultural studies, material culture, film and performance studies, art history, architecture, sociology) to explore non-textual methods and modes of representation.
Beyond Text? explores the implications of the 'sensory turn' for practice led anthropology. It asks what may lie beyond text and considers the possibilities of combining different elements of image:sound::voice:object?
Beyond Text? asks how might be possible for anthropology to communicate human experience and construct forms of knowledge through different combinations of visual, material and acoustic media?
Beyond Text? considers artistic methods of doing and representing ethnography, including film, photography, sound recordings, art installations, sculptural and other plastic media, dramatic performance and museum display.
Timetable
SATURDAY 30 JUNE, AFTERNOON - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE | |
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10.00 - 11.00 | Soundwalk (from Martin Harris Bldg) and viewing of Castaways exhibition |
11.00 - 13.00 | Registration and equipment check |
13.00 - 13.10 | Opening Introduction: Rupert Cox |
13.10 - 13.45 | Keynote Address: Steven Feld |
13.50 - 15.20 |
Session 1: Power of Images |
Convener - Chris Wright Chris Wright: The Lives of Images Chris Pinney: Performative Possession Elizabeth Edwards: Photographs and the Sound of History |
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Break |
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15.50 - 18.00 |
Session 2: Sensory Formations |
Convener – Andrew Irving David MacDougall: Beyond Vision: Evoking Nonvisual Sensory Experiences Through Images David Howes: Ekphrastic Ethnography Andrew Irving: Everyday Adventures in Attachment and Alienation Special Film Screening: The BAFTA nominated Black Sun introduced by director Gary Tarn |
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Wine Reception |
SUNDAY 1 JULY | |
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Break-out Panels A: 9.00 - 10.30 |
1) Sound and Senses 1 - JOHN THAW THEATRE |
Convener - Angus Carlyle Mags Adams: On Soundwalking as Sensory Sociology John Drever: On Acoustic Ecology as Sensory Research Tom Rice: Murmurs, Clicks and Shunts: Learning to Listen through Ethnography John Wynne: Transplant: Sound (art), Trauma, Transformation and Identity |
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2) Visuality and Embodied Practice: The Body as Register - BRAGG THEATRE |
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Conveners – Penny Harvey/Janet Wolff Amelia Jones: Live Art in History: The Body and/as Document Rachel Davies: (Presentation of two films) Kath Woodward: Boxing Bodies: images, practices |
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3) New Voices/New Visions 1: New Experiments from the Harvard Media Anthropology Lab - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE |
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Convener - Toby Lee Diana Allen: Still Life Toby Lee: Royal, Nebraska Stephanie Spray: The Gayek Family Ernst Karel: Heard Laboratories |
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4) Sensory Worlds/Sensory Practices - ROOM F20 |
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Conveners & Discussants – Arnd Schneider and Chris Wright Victoria Walters: "Artistic Detours": Joseph Beuys as Anthropologist Rachel Lehr and Molly Crowley: Rediscovering Afghanistan through the Crossroads of New and Old Media Maureen Matthews: Audio as Evidence: The Art of True Sound Lydia Nakashima Degarrod: Violence and the Creation of Bodily Knowledge and Empathy in Art and Ethnography |
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Break-out Panels B: 10.500 - 12.20 |
1) Sound and Senses 2 - JOHN THAW THEATRE |
Conveners - Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox Marina Roseman: Why do Sounds and Movements Touch us so Deeply? Leonardo Menegola: Healing Soundscapes: Politics of the Senses, the Ritual and Anthropological Representation Peter Cusack: On Positive Soundscapes Cathy Lane: Listening with Old Ears |
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2) Visuality and Embodied Practice: The Text as Register - BRAGG THEATRE |
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Conveners – Penny Harvey/Janet Wolff Rajinder Dudrah: Bollywood Popular Cultures and Haptic Urban Ethnoscapes: Towards a Multi-sensory Methodology Hannah Knox: Beyond Information: The Dangers and Desires of Documentation Simon Guy: Sites of Assembly: Enacting Architecture Maryon McDonald: Learning to See Bodies |
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3) New Voices/New Visions 2 - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE |
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Convener - Johannes Sjöberg Itsushi Kawase: Filmmaking Project for Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage Program: The Case from Ethiopian Traditional Music/Dance Scene in Addis Ababa Johannes Sjoberg: Ethnofiction in Practise-Based Research Penny McCall Howard: Soundings Atsuhide Ito: Beyond Ethnography |
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4) Sensory Worlds/Sensory Practices - ROOM F20 |
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Conveners – Arnd Schneider and Chris Wright Catherine Choron-Baix: Sensory Images for a "Total Art": Filming Embroidery in Laos Marcel Reyes-Cortez: Visual Research in Sacred and Social Spaces of the Dead Laurent Van Lancker: Asynchronicity, or the Politics and Poetics of Orality Elisabeth Hsu: Hearing the qi or feeling its flow? Ruminations on how we know what we think we know |
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12.30 onwards at Whitworth Art Gallery: Buffet Lunch followed by a reading and discussion with the author Caryl Phillips, the artist Virginia Ryan and Steven Feld. Chaired by Don Brenneis |
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Break-out Panels C: 14.50 - 16.20 |
1) Sound and Senses 3- JOHN THAW THEATRE |
Conveners - Angus Carlyle and Rupert Cox Discussant - Don Brenneis Stephanie Bunn: The sound of song and history: beyond the field from Kyrgyzstan Hart Cohen: Every Song is a Pool: Williams' and Schultz' Journey to Horseshoe Bend Cantata Tomie Hahn and Curtis Bahn: Sensational knowledge, Sensational Ethnography Steve Coleman: Deterritorialising Memory: Irish traditional Music and Visual Diagesis |
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2) Art, Affect and the Intercultural - BRAGG THEATRE |
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Convener - Jennifer Biddle Jennifer Biddle: "Getting off" on Aboriginal Art Jill Bennett: Art, Affect and Mimesis Robyn Ferrell: Relating Affect and Image in the Intercultural Anna Gibbs: The Dynamics of Resonance: Intercultural Encounters in an Exhibition |
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3) Visual Knowledges - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE |
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Convener - Chris Wright Raymond Lucas, Wolfgang Sonne & Gordon Mair: Lines of Understanding: Multimodal Representations of Urban Space Barbara Glowczewski: Anthropology of Perception and the Australian Indigenous dreaming network Mitchell Sedgwick: Collaborating Images of Social Relations: Taking Place at a Japanese Multinational Corporation in France Paul Sillitoe & Abram Pointet: Going Beyond Text with GISc: Ethno-Environmental Satellite Research in the Papua New Guinea Highlands |
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4) Imaging Absence and Presence - ROOM F20 |
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Convener - Andrew Irving Jane Mulcock & Perdita Phillips: Thinking Skin (On the Absence and Presence of Cane Toads in Australia) Catherine Richards: I was Scared to Death/I Could have Died of Joy Edgar Teodoro da Cunha Bororo: Funeral in Images The Construction of Meaning through Sensitive Strategies H.J. Middendorf: Tjitjingalla 3D Multimedial Reconstruction of a Forgotten Dance of the Arrernte in Central Australia as a Catalyst for Cultural Encounter |
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Break |
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Break-out Panels D: 16.40 - 18.10 |
1) Material Ghosts - JOHN THAW THEATRE |
Convener - Rupert Cox Alyssa Grossman: Bringing Memory to the Table: Reflections on the Post-socialist Romanian Past Carolina Cambre: Haunts and Hauntings: A dialogue with the image of Che Guevara Ross Wilson: The Image and the Body: Embodied Ethnography Andréa Barbosa: The Presence of Silence: Meaning and Senses in Texts and Images |
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2) Making Art, Making Anthropology - BRAGG THEATRE |
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Convener - Chris Wright An van. Dienderen: Playful Correspondence between Artists and Anthropologists Amanda Ravetz: Active Conversations: staging an art/anthropology dialogue Marko Zivkovic: Marina Abramovic and Mr. Wilson: 3-dimensional Beings Passing Through Flatlands of Art, Anthropology, and Science Aparne Sharma: Entwining the senses and cultural critique - a reflection on the implications of montage and ethnography |
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3) Playing with Corporeality - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE |
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Discussant - Richard Werbner Zemirah Moffat: Back to Basics: The corporeal counter-gifts of gender, ethnography and film Felicia Hughes-Freeland: Ghost in the machine? On not being able to film a trance-possession Rebecca Morrison: Deluxe Plush and The Sensuous Endeavours of Toy Collecting Guido Bertolotti, Lui'Angelini, Rosella Schillaci: Archival Plays. Combinatorial Puppets |
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4) On Museums - ROOM F20 |
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Discussant – Sharon MacDonald Beatrice Kümin and Dario Donati: Installation of Ethnographic Images Kirsten Wehner and Martha Sear: Engaging the Material World: Object Knowledge and Museum Exhibition Angela McClanahan: Perceptions of the Historic Environment in Post-devolution Scotland:The Northern City Exhibition at Scotland's Centre for Architecture, Design and the City Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov: The affect of conceptual art ethnography: making post-socialist public at the 'Gift to Soviet Leaders' exhibition of the Kremlin Museum |
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Light snacks will be available at this time |
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Break-out Panels E: 18.30 - 20.00 |
1) Memories of the Future - JOHN THAW THEATRE |
Convener - Rupert Cox Christopher Fletcher: Prophecy in Anthropological and Dene Worlds: Visualizing in the Post-nuclear Frontier Craig Campbell: Agitating at the Soviet Base of Culture: Photography and the Historical Event Barbara Knorpp: Ethnography, film stills and Arrested memory Louise Wilson: Listening to the Cold War |
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2) Tickling the Senses: Colour, Synaesthesia, Film and Culture - BRAGG THEATRE |
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Conveners & Discussants - Diana Young and Jennifer Deger Barbara Saunders: Virilio and the Technology of Colour Diana Young: The Invention of Colour Cathy Greenhalgh: "Messing" with the Colours of Natural Light: Cinematographic Assumptions and Expressions Jennifer Deger: The Spectrum of Remembrance: on Colour, Collaboration and Sensuous Evocation in a Yolngu Video Project |
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3) War, Trauma and Visuality - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE |
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Convener - Richard Werbner Ana Carden-Coyne: Visualising the History and Memory of Conflict Catalina Cortes Severino: Performative Documentary Practices within the Politics and Ethics of Memory in Contexts of Violence in the Pacific region of Colombia Roxana Waterson: Testimony, Trauma and Performance: Some Examples from Southeast Asian Theatre Nayanika Mookherjee: Imaging 'Trauma' and the Raped Woman of the Bangladesh War of 1971 |
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4) The Sensory Experience of Materiality in the Museum - ROOM F20 |
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Discussant – Sandra Dudley Chris Wingfield: Touching the Buddha: an Object Demanding a Response Elizabeth Cory-Pearce: Sense and Sensitivity: body arts, body parts, and the limits of embodiment Vivian Ting: Making Sense of Chinese Ceramics in UK Museums Elizabeth Carnegie: Beyond Words: Interpreting the Unspeakable? |
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8.30 pm onwards, Complimetary Buffet Supper at KroBar 2, near conference site |
MONDAY 2 JULY - COSMO RODEWALD THEATRE | |
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9.00 - 10.40 |
Session 3: Film as ethnography |
Discussant - Karl Heider Catherine Russell: 'Films about Ordinary People': The Japanese Shoshimin-eiga and Ethnographic Film Criticism Samantha Lackey: The 'surrealist ethnography' of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film, Mysterious Object at Noon Jeff Silva: 'And Never the Twain Shall Meet': Ambiguity & the Empowered Eye in Post-Modern Documentary Alan Marcus: Observing contemporary Dachau on film |
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11.10 - 12.30 |
Session 4: Sound Cultures |
Discussant – Don Brenneis Steven Feld: Acoustemology in Accra: Honk Horn Music and the Chronotope of the Road Peter Crawford: The Sound of Silence: Aural and Visual Constituents of Anthropological Understanding Rupert Cox: The Aurality of Art: creating a sensory vision of Nagasaki city’s painted past through sound recordings |
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12.45 - 13.45 | Screening of the film 'Sheep Rushes' by Lucien Castaing Taylor (John Thaw) |
Lunch |
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14.00 - 15.40 |
Session 5: On Photography |
Discussant - Chris Wright Patrick Sutherland: From description to allusion: recent strategies in documentary photography Benjamin Smith: Photographs and Ghosts Roger Brown: Between Sense and Sensibility: where next with documentary photography in ethnographic research? Susan Meiselas: (showing and discussing her work) |
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16.10 - 17.40 |
Session 6: Performances |
Discussant – Sharon MacDonald George Marcus: The Ethnographic Potential in Performance, Installation, and Conceptual Art Movements James Thompson: In on the Act: International Researchers and Performing Memories of the Rwandan Genocide Paul Carter: Prospects for ethno-philosophy: an Indigenous place-making tradition in the laboratory of performance |
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Closing Remarks - Howard Morphy (17.40 - 18.00) |
Conference Conveners: Rupert Cox and Andrew Irving (Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology) and Chris Wright (Goldsmiths)
On Sunday 1st of July, the author Caryl Phillips will do a reading and take part in a lunchtime discussion with anthropologist Steven Feld and the artist Virginia Ryan, about their exhibition 'Castaways' which is being staged at the Whitworth art gallery. Read more
From the Making of an Englishman to the Last King of Scotland
Kevin MacDonald In Conversation
Opening Night - Wed 27 June