While philosophy as a field was totally dependent on the concept of modernity, it appeared to me that anthropology could be an entry into the contemporary: precisely because it took ontology seriously at last. Not as a symbolic representation. Not as those beliefs left on the wrong side of the modernizing frontier. But as a life and death struggle to have the right to stand in one’s own time and place.
–Bruno Latour (2014b), “Anthropology at the time of the Anthropocene”
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Ethnography， isn’t only a research method but also a process and result of cultural display. Ethnography often refers to words or images that describe the culture of a community. It uses field research to provide descriptive research on human society.
Visual ethnography is one of the types of analysis: ethnographic research that can be combined with photography, video, or hypermedia.
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So when talking about eating, there is always a connection with food culture. Always symbolizes your identity and community. Food Plays a unique role in defining self-profile. Just like this iconic work by, Zina Saro-Wiwa’s work “Table Manners” (2014-2016). It explores the political implications of the Epicurean community from West Africa and emphasizes performance related to food consumption. She said these videos are essential for others to understand them.
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Based on the opinions from last week, I connected the “eating” images from more cultures, ages, and places through montages.
See if I can use the visual ethnography method to carry out research.
But when I gradually reduced the quality of the images, it blurred the “differences” between the characters in the video. It retained their similarities, they are all eating. The process allowed me to realize their own bodies, not the superficial cultural symbols.
This made me think that perhaps the biological function and cultural function of the body are separable (Emmelhainz, 2018).
As I put these vague eating images together, the similarity becomes more obvious.
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In the article Anthropology of Ontologies by Eduardo Kohn (2015), he mentioned a concept named ontological poetics. He cited Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s experimental ethnographic documentary named “Leviathan” (2012), which observed a fishing boat without a specific storyline.
Cameras are installed at different locations around the boat that disrupting a single human perspective or narrative and result in self-destruction (Kohn, 2015). This work does not give any conclusions. Kohn believes that it dissolves the conceptual structures that connect us together, and transforms to unexpected realities or powers that emerge from the depths, and explores more essential connotations (Kohn, 2015).
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I think this disintegration is instructive, and at the same time, this theory reminds me of dress-up games. No matter how the outside is replaced, the inside is the same.
Next Week
Using the Visual Anthropology method to research city life in London. It is a very diverse and inclusive city, and these qualities are reflecting in the food. I found the restaurant that within 2 miles of Oxford St, there are nearly 30 different cuisines. eg: Chinese, French, Italian, Indian, Greek, Thai, Korean, Japanese, and even vegetarian restaurant.
Making a visual system that can randomly put small iconic accessories from different cuisine to the same body, like putting chopsticks or fork. Then create multiple different figures. Let them doing the eating action together to show the “similarity” as the political value while breaking down the outside culture symbolism forms.