Wizards, Vampires, Klingons, and Other Alternative Cultures
On the last day of my introduction to anthropology class, we watch scenes from the documentary Trekkies. Students grin at the sincere folks dressed as Starfleet officers and…
Tag: art
An Homage to Teotihuacan
Gabriel Vistrain Andrade travels through time at his shop near the ruins of Teotihuacan. Dominic Bracco II The ruins of Teotihuacan, just outside Mexico City, are Mexico’s most…
‘Wasted hours in the field’ as a key to understanding the research topic
By Herbert Ploegman Originally attributed to Winston Churchill, the statement “never waste a good crisis” has become an aforism that, by now, has been appropriated by many voices.…
Funny, Awkward, Tender, Focused: Drawing Bodies by Andrea Ford
Drawings from my research on childbirth in California created an opportunity for sharing reflections on fieldwork and “seeing.” Birth is a highly mediated experience, with ubiquitous images of…
A Radical New Theory About the Origins of Art
Co-author Paul Pettitt inspects ancient paintings on a wall in Spain’s El Castillo Cave. Becky Harrison/Gobierno de Cantabria This article was originally published at The Conversation and…
It’s Official: Neanderthals Created Art
Neanderthal art. P. Saura This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. What makes us human? A lot of people would argue it…
“Living Art” and aesthetic learning – An interview with filmmaker Tina Krüger
Living Art is a sensory oriented film that uses audiovisual methodologies to study the aesthetics and embodiment of contemporary art. I became interested, as a researcher on the…
Curious Affection by Eben Kirksey
A gigantic balloon—pink and glistening—billows up overhead. It is like a womb, or a tumor, filling the huge atrium at the entrance to Patricia Piccinini’s biggest show to…
Wissen/Schaffen: From #Fieldwork to #Exhibition – A photo essay
In 2016-17, I did fieldwork on the materials of scholarship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, an institute of advanced study. For this investigation, I worked with “the stuff…
#Review: White Faces. Reframing memory #PerformanceArt
“It was so special” appears in simple white letters on a black screen while the performer Yadgar Bakir is speaking in a calm voice about childhood events that…
Solving a Riddle About the Dawn of Art
Figures of horses in the Atxurra cave system in Spain astounded archaeologist Diego Garate, who shines his headlamp on this previously unknown panel of artwork. Diego Garate On…
Do Instagram And Flickr Shape the Art of the Revolution?
Is Instagram a significant factor in how Egyptian artists used street art to protest the revolution? How about Flickr? My sense, based on all the recent books and…
Art by Mehita Iqani
Cape Mongo is a multimedia installation that focuses on consumer waste as medium and subject. It is a complex artwork, comprising sculpture using found materials (mostly what viewers…
Waste by Jennifer Wenzel
Waste is a tricky word. In our meditations in Somatosphere, waste hews toward its concrete sense as discard: material byproducts of some transformative process, metabolic or mechanical; things…
What mysteries could be unlocked by new Antikythera shipwreck finds?
Excavation has revealed fragments of bronze sculpture and raises the possibility of several buried statues in the area. So what do these discoveries tell us? The shipwreck at…
What mysteries could be unlocked by new Antikythera shipwreck finds?
Excavation has revealed fragments of bronze sculpture and raises the possibility of several buried statues in the area. So what do these discoveries tell us? The shipwreck at…
How subversive artists made thrift shopping cool
Over the past 100 years, visual artists probably deserve the most credit for thrift shopping’s place in the cultural milieu.
Margaret’s Mead: C&A’s First Zine
Last week, we printed off the first zine produced by the Culture & Agriculture section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). It’s a collaborative effort with essays, art, and…
Wisdom Without a Country
In the oasis of his studio, Constantin Brâncuși revolutionized sculpture by drawing out the “being that is within matter”—the cosmic essence or spirit that exists underneath the surface.…
Interview: Sonic Rupture by Jordan Lacey
Sonic Rupture: A Practice-led Approach to Urban Soundscape Design (Bloomsbury 2016) by Jordan Lacey offers a practice-led alternative approach to urban soundscape design. Rather than understanding the…
Interview: Is Berlin done with walls? #MMTW
The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop (MMTW) evolves by “settling” into one site after another. In each location, the workshop works with a local institution. For this month’s exhibition…
Reorganized Organ: youth mentorship project
Are you an artist, musician, hacker, tinkerer, or generally a curious person, between 18 and 24 years?
Capturing the Art of Imprisonment
Over the span of about four decades, the late Russian artist Vasily Konovalenko (1929–1989) produced more than 70 wonderful gem-carving sculptures that depict themes and scenes of Russian…