⌊ ON PURPOSE ⌉

Art, Craft, Culture

Education

BA, University Studies - Cultural Studies (2023), Idaho State University
I examined cultural representation in audio, image, live performance, text, and video via anthropological, geographical, and historical lenses. Notable research topics included:
AA, Communication (2020), North Idaho College
I studied communication and mass media in the arts as well as the social and physical sciences. Notable research topics included:

Interests

i. Visual Typology

In Beyond Representation, Julianne H. Newton (1998) outlines a formula for evaluating and categorizing anthropological images. Her system begins with the assumption that all visual representations are a combination of just three variables. The first variable is Perspective, which can be either the photographer’s, the subject’s, or the viewer’s. The second variable is the Direction – point-to-point or person-to-person – in which the action is flowing, and the third variable is the Intensity or the “evocatory capacity of the behavior” being photographed (65). When these variables are combined, they result in fourteen possible forms of visual interaction: the embrace, gift, encounter, quote, document, theatrical performance, cliché, lie, intrusion, theft, assault, rape, murder, or suicide (Newton 1998, 62).

It is important to note that the photographer does not decide to which category a photograph belongs. With Newton’s formula, the photographer’s intentions only result in the creation of an initial data point – E1. The categorized data point – E2 – only emerges when the photograph has been reviewed and discussed by both the photographer, the subject, and occasionally the audience (69). It’s also important to acknowledge that context can cause an image to shift from one type of data to another. To illustrate this, Newton recalls the image of OJ Simpson wearing a particular kind of shoe. This image “had little value until its documentary status became known” (66).

Source: Newton, Julianne H. (1998). “Beyond representation: Toward a typology of visual behavior.” Visual Anthropology Review. 14/1: 58-72.


ii. Dialoguing with Reality

In Real with Fiction, Marc Henri Piault (2007) claims that visual anthropology has the ability to “express reality with reality,” (23) even if the imagery is depicted using narrative techniques more common in fiction. In fact, as people tend to exhibit altered behavior in the presence of a camera, the line between factual and fictional representation in ethnographic imagery is always fuzzy.

Rather than fight this, Piault argues that we should accept it and orient our efforts toward increasing dialogue with and among viewers. “[C]ontemporary anthropology,” he writes, “implicates the viewer in whatever he or she views” (18). In doing so, it enables “postponed, repetitive and sometimes contradictory analyses of the lived world” (22). These analyses are the living legacy of the historical moments captured in visual ethnographies, and the hope is that they will foster connection, create suitable conditions to exchange cultural information, and allow for the elaboration of shared values and differences between peoples.

Source: Piault, Marc Henri. (2007). “Real with fiction.” Visual Anthropology Review. 23/1: 16-25.


iii. Visualizing the Senses

In Tasting Tea and Filming Tea, Jinghong Zhang (2017) introduces both visual and audio recording into the Chinese tea ceremony. This cultural activity revolves around the preparation and drinking of tea in a silent environment. As such, it is primarily expressed through scent and taste – two sensations which have traditionally eluded visual, auditory, and written description. Zhang contends that film has an advantage in this regard, as it can “represent non-visual and non-audio sensations through showing rather than telling” (142). However, introducing recording equipment to the activity resulted in an inexplicable loss of taste. Something about their observational recording methods had eliminated Zhang’s capacity to experience taste or recall it afterward (143).

To address this, Zhang switched their recording style from passive to active; from simple observation to a more interactive style wherein the camera lens became the eyes of the researcher. Zhang shot scenes of their hands touching the tea glass so that they could later connect with their haptic memory. To evoke scent memory, Zhang abstained from using the camera’s zoom function and instead moved the lens physically closer to the brewed tea. “When the camera was close to the brews, it was not only working like my eyes looking at the brews, but could also indicate my nose smelling them” (148). This active style of filmmaking creates a dialogue which is evocative, interpretive and, by Zhang’s estimation, capable of extending research beyond the five senses.

Source: Zhang, Jinghong. (2017). “Tasting tea and filming tea: The filmmaker’s engaged sensory experience.” Visual Anthropology Review. 33/2: 141-151.


iv. Sensing the Unseen

In Sensing The Night, Diamanti & Boudreault-Fournier (2021) detail their experience recording the short film Guardians of the Night. Their approach to documenting night embraces the inherent difficulties of capturing on visual media an environmental experience which is primarily non-visual. They argue that the bodily, sensorial, physical, and technical constraints imposed on researchers by the nocturnal dimension should be “understood as a starting point to better study the night as a culturalized, spatiotemporal dimension that requires a specific, nocturnal approach” (307).

Their approach utilized a Zoom H4n handheld audio recorder and a Canon EOS 70D DSLR camera with a 50mm prime lens. A prime lens is incapable of zooming in to a subject of interest or zooming out to capture the environment broadly. At 50mm, the images captured by the camera are also closer and more magnified than the world seen by the human eye. Though initially disappointing, Diamanti & Boudreault-Fournier (2021) quickly adopted this as part of their active voice. After all, if much is unseen in the night, shouldn’t images about it also depict a limited amount of data? Diecentric biases toward data acquisition can be effectively bypassed if researchers design their “filmmaking practice in a self-reflective manner, focusing on the creative process and the felt bodily experience of visual anthropologists wandering the night” (307).

Source: Diamanti, Eleonora & Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier. (2021). “Sensing the night: Nocturnal filmmaking in Guantánamo, Cuba.” Visual Anthropology Review. 37/2: 290-309.


I made this in 2023.