Aesthetics And Anthropology

This book focuses on the reconfiguration of aesthetic anthropology into an anthropological problem of cogitation, opening up a fascinating new dialogue between the domains of anthropology, philosophy, and art. Tarek Elhaik embarks on an inquiry composed of a series of cogitations based on fieldwork in an ecology of artistic and scientific practices: from conceptual art exhibitions to architectural environments; from photographic montages to the videotaping of spirit seances; and from artistic interventions in natural history museums to ongoing dialogues between performance artists and marine scientists. The chapters examine the image-work, ethical demands, and aesthetic struggles of interlocutors including artists Mathias Goeritz, Mounir Fatmi, Silvia Gruner, Joan Jonas, and Patricia Lagarde.

"Aesthetics and Anthropology" is a collection of contributions by an international and interdisciplinary team of authors from the fields of anthropology, performance studies, curatorial studies and the arts. The title refers to the paths that lead to the in-betweens and the beyonds of aura and trace in the representation of life that is performed in aesthetic reflexivity. Aesthetic reflexivity refers not only to the authors' attempts at an interdisciplinary encounter with one another, but also to their encounter with the readers, and with the recipients of an intended message in an aesthetic dialogue. Our approach is innovative in that it looks upon aesthetics as a "topos of the living". We seek to capture the present discourse of ethnographic and aesthetic disciplinary "turns" with the intent of bringing them together in theory and practice. Here, academics and artists approach one another's respective forms of representation in a "Gesamtkunstwerk" of texts and images. The book presents experimental approaches and interdisciplinary "turns", and hoped-for interactions between anthropologists and artists, and recipients of aesthetic encounters. We believe this is presently the most innovative pathway to interdisciplinary encounters with aesthetics. You, the readers, meet us, the artists and authors of an aesthetic reflexivity. Are we tricksters in an aesthetic turn toward performing life and reflecting performed lives in the in-betweens?

Organised around the theme of beauty, this innovative collection offers insight into the development of anthropological thinking on art, aesthetics and creativity in recent years. The volume incorporates current work on perception and generative processes, and seeks to move beyond a purely aesthetic and relativist stance. The chapters invite readers to consider how people sense and seek out beauty, whether through acts of human creativity and production; through sensory experience of sound, light or touch, or experiencing architecture; visiting heritage sites or ancient buildings; experiencing the environment through ‘places of outstanding natural beauty’; or through cooperative action, machine-engineering or designing for the future.

The anthropology of art is a fast-developing area of intellectual debate and academic study. This beautifully illustrated volume is a unique survey of the current state of anthropological thinking on art and aesthetics. The distinguished contributors draw on contemporary anthropological theory and on classic anthropological topics such as myth and ritual to deepen our understanding of particular aesthetic traditions in their socio-cultural and historical contexts. Many of the essays present new findings based on recent field research in Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia, and Mexico; while others draw on classical anthropological accounts of the Trobriand Islanders of Melanesia and the Nuer of the Southern Sudan to form new arguments and conclusions. The introductory overview of the history of the anthropology of art, by Sir Raymond Firth, makes this volume especially useful for those interested in learning what anthropology has to contribute to our understanding of art and aesthetics in general.

The book aims at a new exposition of the basic idea of modern aesthetics by way of a reconstruction of its genesis in the 18th century, between Baumgarten''s Aesthetics and Kant''s Critique of Judgment. The claim is that the historical invention of aesthetics was not about expanding the range of legitimate objects of philosophical inquiry--these objects all existed before aesthetics. Rather, aesthetics, by introducing the category of the "aesthetic," fundamentally redefined these objects. But most importantly, the reconstruction of the historical genesis of aesthetics shows that the introduction of the category of the "aesthetic" required nothing less than a transformation of the fundamental terms of philosophy. What begins in--or as--aesthetics is modern philosophy. More precisely, Force shows that in--or as--aesthetics modern philosophy began twice, in two different, even opposite forms. On the one hand, Baumgarten''s Aesthetics is organized around the new concept of the "subject": the concept of the subject as the totality of faculties, as the agent defined by his capabilities; of the subject as one who is able. By conceiving sensible cognition and (re)presentation as the exercise of subjective faculties acquired in practice, Baumgarten has framed the modern conception of human practices (and of philosophy as the inquiry into the conditions that enable the success of these practices). That is why aesthetics, the reflection upon the aesthetic, is a central pillar of modern philosophy: in aesthetics, the philosophy of the subject or of the subject''s faculties assures itself of its own possibility. Yet here, in the aesthetic and the reflection on it, the aesthetics "in the Baumgartian manner" (Herder), as the theory of the sensible faculties of the subject, at once faces a different aesthetics: the aesthetics of force, which conceives the aesthetic not as sensible cognition but instead as a play of expression--propelled by a force that, rather than being exercised, like a faculty, in practices, realizes itself; a force that does not recognize or represent anything because it is "obscure" and unconscious; a force not of the subject but of man as distinct from the same man as subject. The aesthetics of force is a science of the nature of man: of his aesthetic nature as distinct from the culture, acquired by practice, of his practices. That is the hypothesis the six chapters of Force intend to unfold. The first chapter, analyzing the rationalist concept of the sensible, recollects the point of departure of aesthetics: the sensible is that which is without determinable definition or measure. The second chapter reconstructs Baumgarten''s aesthetics of sensible cognition as a theory of the subject and its faculties. The third and fourth chapters draw on writings by Herder, Sulzer, and Mendelssohn to develop the basic motifs of a counter-model, an aesthetics of force: the aesthetic, as the operation of an "obscure" force, is a performance without generality, divorced from all norm, law, and purpose--a play. And the aesthetic, as the pleasure of self-reflection, is a process of the transformation of the subject, of its faculties and practices--a process of aestheticization. The aesthetics of force founds an anthropology of difference: between force and faculty, between man and subject. The two concluding chapters explore the consequences: for the idea of philosophical aesthetics; and for ethics as the theory of the good. The fifth chapter engages Kant to show that an aesthetics conceived as an aesthetics of force is the scene of an irresolvable contention: aesthetics unfolds within philosophy the contention between philosophy and aesthetic experience. The sixth chapter draws on Nietzsche to demonstrate the ethical import of aesthetic experience as the experience of the play of force: it teaches us to distinguish between action and life; it teaches the other good of life. - "The last word of aesthetics is human freedom."

In surveying the field of the anthropology of aesthetics, the author argues that the phenomenon of cultural relativism in easthetic preference may be accounted for by demonstrating that culturally varying notions of beauty are inspired by culturally varying sociocultural ideals.

In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Lévi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Lévi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensée sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of anthropology, philosophy, aesthetic theory and literary criticism into an unusual and imaginative whole.