Beyond Form and Content: Towards Materiality
Sławomir Sikora
slawomir.sikora@uw.edu.plUniversity of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2147-8543
Abstract
The article offers a reflection on Leviathan (2012), a film made by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, anthropologists associated with the Sensory Ethnography Lab (Harvard University). The author proposes to regard the film as a new type of anthropology, breaking with the traditional Geertzian “thick description” and anthropocentric perspective, but also with the philosophy of representation dominant in the Western world. It emphasizes the importance of materiality/materials, sensuality, processuality, but also the indistinguishability of human and non-human actors. The argument draws on the concepts of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as Tim Ingold. Perhaps the latter’s sentence (To engage with things is to sense the world, not to inhabit a world of sense) could be a kind of introduction to the film.
Keywords:
anthropology of film, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, materiality, postanthropocentrismReferences
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Authors
Sławomir Sikoraslawomir.sikora@uw.edu.pl
University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2147-8543
PhD, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw; his field of interest covers primarily visual and urban anthropology, and anthropology of contemporary culture. Author of the books Fotografia. Między dokumentem a symbolem [Photography: Between a Document and a Symbol] (2004) and Film i paradoksy wizualności. Praktykowanie antropologii [Film and the Paradoxes of Visuality: Practicing Anthropology] (2012), as well as numerous scientific articles. Co-author of the film Żeby to było ciekawe (Making It Interesting, 2009) and co-editor of the book Zanikające granice. Antropologizacja nauki i jej dyskursów [Vanishing Boundaries: Anthropologisation of Science and Its Discourses] (2009). Coordinator of several funded research projects, including Oddolne tworzenie kultury [Bottom-up Culture] and Obrazy różnorodności kulturowej i dziedzictwa [Images of Cultural Diversity and Heritage] (NAFA Film Festival, Warsaw 2015).
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