Anthropology, Art and
Perception 2How does a phenomenological approach to
visual representations challenge
anthropological knowledge of ethnographic
filmmaking?
University of St. Andrews
School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies
Department of Social Anthropology
Student : Eduard Claudiu Vasile
Word Count: 3829
The classic anthropological use of text has been challenged in the
past three decades by anthropologists who felt a need for
innovation and because the visual and digital is being embedded in
our lives in the Western context. This new direction in
anthropology brings a few concerns and raises a few questions. One
of the problems here is how can one adopt a sustainable and
appropriate way of doing visual anthropology? By the same token,
one feels the need to debate if anthropology as a science can
undertake an artistic approach and represent one’s understanding
of a cultural phenomenon or experience of it by the use of film or
photography. If the visual mediums could be used in anthropology,
what is the appropriate way and method to construct them?
The following paper challenges visual anthropology to adopt a
phenomenological approach to visual representations and looks for
an alternative to observational cinema. The essay begins by
looking at a short history of visual anthropology, followed by a
discussion of the problem of representation, and a proposition for
intersubjective cinema as a possible way of doing ethnographic
films. The composition is then succeeded by the means of
intersubjective cinema, proposing a theoretical background which
adopts phenomenology as ontology and intersubjectivity as
epistemology. The essay ends with a discussion of Husserl’s theory
of artistic representation and a possible application of it to the
process of doing ethnographic films in the Janis religion and
their experience of the body and soul.
Along the history of anthropology, researchers have used visual
elements for their investigations for different purposes. In the
beginning they were used as a medium of authenticity of the
research, showing the researcher present in the field. This can be
seen in the Torres Strait exhibition and Malinowski’s (1922) work.
Starting from the 20th century, anthropologists such as Flaherty,
followed up by Bateson and Mead used film as part of their
research as an objective recording of reality In the past ten
years, ethnographic filmmaking took an experimental direction. The
focus of this new path is put on aesthetics, senses, and
phenomenological anthropology. As examples, one can look at the
films of Barbash Castaing-Taylor (2009, 2012) and McDougall
(2007). However, this brings up a long debate in visual
anthropology regarding the intrinsic value and purpose of this
kind of new films, moreover, their direction towards arts
(Grimshaw 2011, Schneider 2008, Schneider and Wright 2006, 2010)
in comparison with the anthropological promise of scientific
research (Weinberg 1994). As a contra argument Castaing-Taylor and
Barbash in Schneider and Wright (2006, 2010) suggest that is not
the case of anthropology becoming art, but a possibility for both
to work together in close terms with aesthetics, while maintaining
the scientific value of the research.
The debates in visual anthropology do not stop here; the idea of
representations per se is put under sage by modern thinkers.
Clifford (1988) elaborates the problem of representation in his
book, The Predicament of Culture. Clifford questions in his
research ethnography’s right to pretend a true representation of a
specific culture. In the meantime, he asks to what extent is this
reconstruction of the “other” legitimate? The predicament in his
view is contextualized on historical cultural artifacts and their
possibility of shaping meaning, seeking the authenticity of
culture, people and products (Clifford 1988, p5). Adding to this,
questions of the sustainability of the term culture outside the
Western context are being asked. Said (1979) in Orientalism, takes
a metaphysical approach, arguing that representations are not
possible to elude, even if truths are delivered. If the problem
of representing culture at the textual level can be problematic,
the visual representation of the phenomena as an anthropologist
can raise more concerns. A possible way of avoiding this problem
can be a turn to experience, a representation not of culture but
of the experience of a phenomena. However, a distinction between
presentation and re-presentation has to be done in order to
position theoretically the researcher towards understanding how a
phenomenon is translated at the conscious level for him/her to
reconstruct it.
Brentano (1995, p 59) positions the information received by our
consciousness in two categories: mental/psychic phenomena and
physical phenomena. The first being a presentation (the act of
presentation) of what we acquire by the sensory and imaginary
perceptions, plus emotions. The non-presentations (a precursor of
representations) are being resumed to the objects of our senses;
as an example one can look at sound waves, colours saw by the eye,
scents which one senses, and also the “images that appear in our
imagination” (ibidem). Husserl on the other lane applies the term
representation for memory, expectation, phantasy and image
consciousness. Affirming that for presentations, the “content
functions as representative for the object". Hence, a filmmaker
has to look at presentations in order to understand how these are
represented in ones’ memory and how one can imagine and
discuss/represent them to others. The act of presentation is only
for the person, representation being what is made sense of the
presented act for the self or for the others. As an example,
looking at Vogel’s nets (Gell 1996) one’s consciousness is
presented with a sensory image of the net. The way one remembers
the net, the discursive reconstruction, and the manual/visual
reenactment of it can be seen as re-presentation in Husserl’s
terms.
So far I passed through a short history of ethnographic filmmaking
and the issues related to it regarding aesthetics, art and the
problem of presentation discussed by Clifford. It is now the time
to look (into) how phenomenology can be a foundation for visual
representations. In order to answer the question how can one
develop a sustainable theoretical approach to anthropological
filmmaking by the use of phenomenology?
In a recent article, Paul Hockings (2014) addressed the issue of
theory in the realm of visual anthropology, questioning if there
is a “theoretical underpinning for visual anthropology” (Hockings
2014. p 436). In his paper, he is interested in the role of theory
in the formation of anthropological knowledge, concerning theories
of meaning. In his conclusion, he suggests that “theory cannot be
applied directly to an explanation of visual cultural phenomena”
(ibis, p 440), directing the reader to look into theory as a tool of
describing an event. His inquiry into the academic/theoretical
structures of visual anthropology made me ask the following
question: how can one develop a sustainable theoretical background
for the process of ethnographic filmmaking to be used part
methodology, part theory of meaning? This question looks into
theory as a possibility to inform the actual process of filming
and the practice of doing fieldwork, binding a foundation for the
two elements. Morphy and Banks (1997, p3) advise the
anthropologists to look at methodology not as theoretically
neutral but as inscribed in the aims of the research. Malinowski
(1992, p9) addresses the same understanding, directing the
researchers to adapt his theory to his investigation. If this is
the case, then visual anthropology, more precisely the process of
ethnographic filmmaking, has to be inspired from the field. I
speak here for the methodology used as well as the actual
technique of filming, asking myself why visual anthropologists
(i.e. Mead, Bateson, Flaherty and Marshall) decided to use
observational filmmaking as a predominant technique in their
films? One of the answers can come from the view on observational
cinema as pure direct cinema, objective and distant, with no use
of artificial light, tripods, scenario and voice-overs. Even if
this sounds scientific, the process of filmmaking is never
objective (Carta 2014). If the anthropologist forms his/her
knowledge in intersubjective (Torren 2009) relations with the
researched group and environment, how can then ethnographic
filmmaking use objective cinema as technique of representation?
Here I propose, as an alternative to observational filmmaking,
intersubjectivity cinema. This approach invites the anthropologist
to develop his methodology from the field, taking
intersubjectivity as epistemology, and phenomenology as ontology
for the process of ethnographic filmmaking as well as a base for
the methodology of doing fieldwork. In this way, theory and
methodology are linked together, providing a more sustainable and
cursive inquiry in the process of gaining anthropological
knowledge. This theoretical inquest comes in strong relations with
Ingold’s (1996, p 3) view: “anthropological theory consists, in
the first place, not in an inventory of ready-made structures or
representation, to be picked up and used as it suits our
analytical purposes, but in an ongoing process of argumentation.
In this sense theory is an activity, something we do”. By offering
a direction to look at the nature and knowledge of being and
existence (ontology and epistemology) always located in the field
(intersubectivity) and by encouraging the anthropologist to adopt
(phenomenology) his methodology from the field, the researcher has
a clear view of what is to be human. Therefore, intersubjective
cinema offers a practical exploration to the problem of subjective
experience and of the unified model of human being proposed by
Torren (2012).
In the next part of this paper, I am discussing the importance of
the two ontological and epistemological positions for visual
representations, with an emphasis on phenomenology. The dialogue
follows the work of Husserl on phenomenology and his theory of
artistic representation. More precisely, the argument is
constructed around ethnographic filmmaking and the aesthetics
implied in the process of visual reconstruction.
If one discusses film, he/she must position against Bazin’s
realism, understanding the world towards the perception of each
individual in intersubjectivity. In this way, the supposition of
an abstract real world independent of the knowing mind is not
useful to look at as each of us has a perception of it and
anthropology is concerned with the social relations informed by
our perceptions of reality. In this way, film “depicts a language,
ideological beliefs, aesthetic sensibilities and unconscious
processes” (Casebier 1991, p 2). The account of film theory for
the universal and particular understanding of reality, and after
Goodman’s nominalist theory (Shottenkirk 2009), a sensibility for
particulars, has its answers in the position taken in ontology. As
described by Aristotle in Metaphysics as a critique of Plato’s
forms, ontology can undertake two positions: either a sensibility
for particulars, or for both universals and particulars. Even if
Aristotle’s view was inclined for the second position, this paper
takes into account the nature of being and existence under the
particular, as supported by Goodman (1968). Coming back to
perception, it is worth mentioning that visual anthropology is an
investigation of modes of representation for the perception of the
real. Gledihill (1984) asks where can this “real” be found and how
can one have knowledge of it? In order to obtain an answer to this
question, lived experience and phenomena have to be investigated
without deferring the independent existence of the object to the
subject. Here the use of phenomenology, coined by Husserl, offers
the theoretical background for such investigation: “looking at the
same time at both subject and object in the cognitive act while
maintaining the object of the act as existing independently”
(Casebier 1991, p 4). In this way, the ontology of the mode of
representation of the real has to be rooted in phenomenology.
Moreover, Husserl points out that intentionality is the core
property of consciousness (Dreyfus 1982), always speaking of a
consciousness of something. Therefore, all conscious acts have an
intention. This piece of information is important because the
process of perception of the “real” is intended, and in order to
comprehend and represent it in a film, one has to understand how
this conscious intentional act if informed. Keeping the intention
of the perceiver in mind, the anthropologist can reconfigure the
perceived act, being aware of the cause and effect of the action.
As an example, filming a ritual without understanding what it
means, what is the intention of the moves/acts and what effects is
supposed to have on the cause is not a study of the
object/subject, giving no information whatsoever of the act. It is
just a recording of shapes and moves.
Before moving into clear examples of the use of phenomenology in
ethnographic filmmaking, I feel a need to explain what Husserl
underpins in his theory of artistic representation. He exemplifies
his theory by using Durer’s engraving – “Knight, Death and the
Devil”.
Husserl is interested in the “capacity of the perceivers to
transcend their perceptual act in recognizing what an art object
such as Durer’s engraving depicts”(Casebier 1991, p 9). In this
sense, the flesh and bones knight, who exists autonomously to the
perceiver’s mind. The knight is the object, which is re-presented,
and he is discoverable through intersubjective relations to the
perceivers. As another example, in the ethnographic movie
Leviathan (2012), the perceivers understand that the movie is a
representation of people fishing on a boat in the ocean. The boat
in the ocean and the people who are fishing are real and exist
without an audience to perceive them. What is important is the
experience the audience has when it perceives the film. In this
way, Husserl is looking at representations in terms of experience
of the art object and not to the link between objects in the world
and art. He does this by looking at the art objects in the
“technical terms of noema, noesis, hyletic, apperception and
horizon” (ibidem). Some of his terms are coming from ancient Greek
because the philosopher could not find in his language terms that
did not have any prejudices attached to when used to discuss
perception.
Noema stands for “the product or the medium of thinking; concepts,
notions or appearances” (ibis 12). Noemata can be the small gray
figures seen in Durer’s engraving. In Leviathan, noemata is the
appearances of how the fishermen, the non-actors look like (their
cloths, the light on their faces) when they are sorting out the
fish. In strong relations to noema, noesis is the “mental act in
which an object is apprehended”(ibidem). Noesis is referred to as
the position in which the mind situates towards to objects, in
order to comprehend them. For Leviathan (2012), we apprehend more
than a performance of fishing and visual aesthetics, we see the
dangers of the job in itself, perceiving the struggles of the
fishing crew founded on their looks, the noemata. Carrying on with
understanding the highly mediated way in which art objects/films
appear to us, Husserl looks at the hyletic or sense, which relates
to what one experiences by looking at a film: camera movement,
patterns, sizes, editing forms, sounds and so forth. For the
engraving, this can be the shapes and patters of how the knight is
represented. For the ethnographic film, this can be the shape of
the boat, the sound of the birds, the specific editing style or
the camera placement.
Husserl refers to apperception as a distinct mode of apprehension,
in strong relations to perception, but in the same time different.
He speaks about the way in which a perceiver “lives through the
object without making them objects of perception”. It is like
looking through sunglasses, focusing on the world exposed in front
of us and not giving importance to the lenses. In the experience
of the engraving we see above the hyletic data, we apprehend the
knight. At the same time, In Leviathan we look above camera
movement, editing styles and the sound to grasp the boat and the
fishermen’s experiences.
Horizon, refers to “our acts of perceptions having horizons that
are predelineated due to the codeterminative activity of the
perceiver”(ibis p22). More precisely, the background knowledge the
audience has in order to understand the art object. If the
perceivers never saw a knight before, they will not make any sense
of the engraving, the same for the fishermen and the boat on the
ocean.
All this technical terms of looking at an art object are
developing from Husserl’s reduction method. This is used to “turn
our inquiry away from the objects of our acts and turn our
attention towards the acts themselves in order that we may
discover the structures that mediate intentionality”(ibis 16). As
an example, in looking at a body paining in Nagarna, portraying
the “Fire Dreaming” (Dussart in Banks & Morphy 1997) one has to
make a difference between perceiving the representation of the
myth and the emotion/pleasure/fear one feels when seeing such
image. Reduction allows in the process of perceiving looking at
objects and subjects. In the ethnographic film Sweetgrass (2009)
we step aside the objects represented – the sheep, the mountain,
the shepherds who walk the sheep – we subtract these details and
turn our attention to the process of summer pasture, while the
objects are still present in the footage. The reduction method can
get three forms: phenomenological, eidetic or transcendental. For
the purpose of this essay, I will only discuss the first. Casebier
(1991, p 17) details the phenomenological reduction with “the aim
to focus attention on consciousness and its experiences while
correspondingly turning attention away from external objects”.
As the theory of artistic representation goes on into more details
of how to experience an art object, my question is how can this
theory of artistic representation be adapted to create art
objects, and not only to experience them? How can one look at the
world and do phenomenological reduction in order to represent
his/her intersubjective understanding of the undertaken research?
In addition, is a phenomenological approach to visual aesthetics
sustainable for anthropological knowledge? An attempt to extend
Husserl’s theory of artistic representation to ethnographic
filming is made in the next part, looking at Jains representation
of the Body; with an account of phenomenology as ontology and
intersubjectivity as epistemology.
In my point of view, in order for one to create intersubjective
cinema, one needs to have a great knowledge of the group of people
he/she studies and to understand the phenomenon he/she is
representing in intersubjectivity. Because I do not have a great
knowledge about the Janis, I will turn at Banks (1997) and use his
comprehension of the visual representations undertaken by the
people following this religion. The Janis’s representation of the
body has as foundation their religious views. They transposed the
religious experience presented to them in representations of the
body. If one wants to do a visual representation of their
experience of the body and soul, one has to look at how they
construct these artifacts of the body/soul (statues) and how they
relate to them. Hence, the representation done by the
anthropologists is inspired by the representations of the
religious followers on the philosophy of the body and soul. At a
general level, this can be done by looking at how people
materialize their thoughts in local aesthetics, decorations,
architecture, art and so forth. In the Janis case, one can look at
the noema, noesis and hyletic data from the statues and their
particularities. For the lack of space, I will only focus on how
the anthropologist can develop an editing style by looking at
these statues/artifacts from Husserl’s theory of artistic
representation. With no doubt, the model can be extended to the
other processes involved in making and acquiring information for
an ethnographic film.
So far I have an abstract, borrowed intersubjective view (with
Banks’ help) on the representations of the body and the soul, and
I am adopting a phenomenological position to the artifacts to
develop an editing style for a possible ethnographic film about
the experience of people of the liberated body in Jainism.
Fig 1. The liberated soul – M. Sakler
Gallery India
Fig 2. Siddha – the liberated being. Digambra Temple
India
The notion of the body is seen as a duality: the liberated soul,
which is invisible but takes the shape of the last human being
(fig2), and the body of the living human being. (Banks 1997,
p221). In all their representations the thirhankaras (fig 1) idols
seem to have the same form, they are always represented in very
similar colors, simple decorated, siting in a meditation position
and always male (female liberation being impossible in their
view). On the other side, the Siddha idol is an absence, a contour
of the soul. In this case the noema is the appearance of the
absence of the soul. The noesis is the position of the mind
towards the representation of the pure liberated soul; and the
hyletic being the patterns and size, and the posture of the idol.
A possible ways of editing a movie about the experience of the
body/soul starting from the two figures shown can be an overlap of
images – of human beings and recognizable shadows in the form of a
human moving in the image (Example fig 3). As the idols are always
represented in white/light-brown/black, the colors used in the
footage can be either black and white, or light colors in contrast
with the liberated souls, which can be distinct or invisible only
with a drawn contour. Even if the Janis prefer the human body as
being fat and big, their idols are always slim, male, and almost
identical in appearances. Therefore, the anthropologist can choose
to represent the body and the soul by using the same
character/shadow of a man and multiply it on the screen. The speed
of the movement in the film can be inspired from the attitude
towards meditation, always slow and deep, with the body in the
same position. So, the anthropologist can position the camera at
the level of the idols, depicting the footage in slow motion or
making soft, symmetrical moves as the idols are represented. This
editing developed from the appearance of the idols can be combined
with the rituals (Banks 1997) Indians have to relate and worship
them in order to create an ethnographic film.
Fig 3. Doctor Who and the Army of Ghosts
Even if the editing sounds abstract, it is a short example of how
one can take a phenomenological approach towards visual
representations with an epistemological intersubjectivity.
As discussed so far, if the debates around the artistic turn in
ethnographic filmmaking and the problems of representation are
passed, intersubjective cinema can be used as an alternative to
observational cinema. Discussions of the theory in visual
representation showed that it is important for the anthropologist
to develop his/her theories and methods from the field. The
adoption of phenomenology as ontology and intersubjectivity as
epistemology can bring the anthropologist in doing ethnographic
films closer to grasp the point of view of the researched group.
Allowing the researcher the freedom of expression and the
liberation of the style and modes of creating an ethnographic film
with roots in the field.
Intersubjective cinema, as shown in the editing example, can be a
sustainable form of ethnographic filmmaking, permitting a
phenomenological reduction of the researched phenomenon in order
for it to be represented. The limitations of such approach can be
seen in the failure of an audience with no training and expertize
in the research phenomenon to grasp the intended experience or
meaning. This problem can be overdue by always presenting an
ethnography/monograph next to an ethnographic film and not
separate the two mediums of representation.
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