a journal for experiments in critical media practice

Sensate is a peer-reviewed, graduate-student-run journal for experiments in critical media practice. It aims to create, present, and critique innovative projects in the arts, humanities, and sciences  and to build on the groundswell of pioneering activities in the digital humanities, scholarly publishing, and innovative media practice to provide a forum for scholarly and artistic experiments not conducive to the printed page.
Sensate is currently accepting:

1. Submissions for publication (Due: February 8, 2012)
2. Applications (Due: February 1, 2012)

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Read more »

The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) is inviting SVA members to consider applying to the program, which focuses on ethnographic objects in museums. According to SIMA director Candace Greene, “We would love to see more applications from students trained in visual anthropology. It would be exciting to see how methods developed for the analysis of film or photographs could be extended to the study of three-dimensional objects. Interested students who have questions about the program or aren’t sure just how to develop an object-based proposal should get in touch with me at sima@si.edu. I’d be glad to talk.”

The Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) is accepting applications for the summer 2012 program until March 1. SIMA is an intensive four-week training program that teaches graduate students in anthropology and related disciplines how to use museum collections in research, incorporating Smithsonian collections as an integral part of their training. It is based at the Smithsonian Department of Anthropology and includes both classroom training and guided work on individual collection-based research projects. Support from the Cultural Anthropology Program at NSF covers full tuition and living expenses for 12 students each summer. Full information, including application instructions, eligibility, and program dates, is available at: http://anthropology.si.edu/summerinstitute.

If you would like a print copy of the attached poster image to display in your department, please send a mailing address to sima@si.edu and we will be glad to send one.

Visual Anthropology Review Cover, Vol.27.2

Table of Contents

ARTICLES

Tattoo Removal: Three Snapshots
by Susan A. Phillips

Round Trip: Filming a Return Home
by Angela Torresan

Ravens and Film: Stories of Continuity and Mediation
by Eugenia Kisin

A Child’s Right to Participation: Photovoice as Methodology for Documenting the Experiences of Children Living in Kenyan Orphanages
by Ginger A. Johnson

“I’ll Show You My Wounds”: Engaging Suffering through Film
by Alberto Guevara and Elysée Nouvet

FILM REVIEWS

Many Mexicos, Vistas de la frontera. Arizona State Museum. November 19, 2010–November 17, 2012.
Michael M. Brescia (lead curator).
reviewed by: Lucero Radonic

Eating Alaska. Directed by Ellen Frankenstein, 2008, 57 minutes, color. Distributed by New Day Films, P.O. Box 1084, Harriman, NY 10926, http://www.newday.com
reviewed by: Madeline Chera

Umiaq Skin Boat. Directed by Jobie Weetaluktuk, 2008, 31 minutes, B&W and color. Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, http://www.der.org
reviewed by: Nelson Graburn

BOOK REVIEWS

Hong Kong: Migrant Lives, Landscapes, and Journeys. Caroline Knowles and Douglas Harper. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.
reviewed by: Sharon R. Roseman

Global Indigenous Media: Culture, Poetics, and Politics. Edited by Pamela Wilson and Michelle Stewart. ••: Duke University Press, 2008.
reviewed by: Pavel Shlossberg

Making the Scene: A History of Stage Design and Technology in Europe and the United States. Oscar G. Brockett, Margaret Mitchell, and Linda Hardberger. San Antonio: Tobin Theatre Arts Fund, U of Texas P, 2010.
reviewed by: Irene Middleton

Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologist at Work. Edited by Mary Strong and Laena Wilder. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.
reviewed by: Jason E. Miller

(Tsantsa 18.2013)

Guest Editors of the Dossier: Heinz Nigg (Universität Bern) und Kathrin Oester (PH Bern)

Media anthropology examines how people relate to media, how media produce and reproduce reality and how they are embedded within economic and political contexts. How does technological change shape and transform media landscapes? What is so specific about media communication and its aesthetic expression? These questions show that media anthropology cannot be reduced to the tradition of ethnographic film or visual anthropology alone. Visual anthropology has become one among other fields of interest in media anthropology. New topics arise, like the study of communication with and through social media or their use as interactive tools in research and teaching. Last but not least, audiovisual media are now indispensable for communicating anthropological work to a wider public, particularly in settings of transnational dialogue. The number of universities and colleges offering postgraduate programmes in media anthropology or visual studies is growing.  It has also become an accepted practice for students to submit academic work in the form of film, photographic documents and exhibition.

Both visual and media anthropology, are exposed to similar epistemological questions: Are the messages transmitted by audiovisual documents different to those transmitted by written texts? Or are written texts, spoken words and visual representations just different versions of the same content? The growing popularity of audiovisual media in societies across the world suggests that images and sounds address our senses in a more direct way than written texts. The picture of a person wounded in a war can evoke strong feelings of pity, horror or disgust. Or the painting of a solitary landscape may elicit personal memories or feelings of nostalgia. However, if a written text is metaphorically charged, it can also speak immediately to our senses with great emotional and poetic impact. So the relation between text, image and sound is a complex one. As much as we complement visual perceptions with specific notions and ideas, in order to know and classify an object, we also complement verbal messages and notions with visual associations in the process of knowledge production. Read more »

Artist and Curator Talk: Friday 18 Nov., 5:30 PM

Opening Night Reception/Vernissage: Friday 18 Nov., 7:30PM

FREE SHUTTLE from AAA Conference to Eastern Bloc–see schedule here.

Full a full list of events and timetable, please visit the Ethnographic Terminalia website…

Society for Visual Anthropology’s “At-a-Glance Schedule of Events”

110th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
November 15-20, 2011 Montréal, Quebec

Schedule of Events - 2011

Download the pdf:  sva-program-for-web.pdf

We encourage those who are attending the AAA annual meeting in Montreal to check out the sessions, roundtables, workshops, films, exhibitions, and meetings that are sponsored by SVA.

There’s a lot to be discussed, debated, and discovered about visual anthropology and visual research, and hopefully these sessions and events during the AAA meeting will provide opportunities for us to share thoughts and consider new perspectives.

All SVA sponsored, and invited, panels are listed here.

Everyone, and anyone, interested in visual anthropology and the SVA is welcome to attend our Business Meeting on Friday, November 18 at 1215, which will be immediately followed by a roundtable discussion on visual ethics.

We are also running two workshops on photography and fieldwork, which you can read about and register for here.

Finally, we have put together a general guide to SVA events during the AAA meeting, which can be picked up during the week at the convention center.

ETNOFILm - an international festival of ethnographic film organized by the Ethnographic Museum of Istria is now accepting submissions for the official section of the programme. Applications for the 4th edition of the festival are open to documentary films employing innovative approaches in depicting cultural phenomena and the ethnography of the everyday. The festival will take place from 3-5 May 2012 in Rovinj, Croatia. Apart from live discussions with guest authors, the audience will be able to enjoy a visual anthropology workshop, lectures on recent issues in visual-anthropology, as well as an exhibition and a concert as part of the side programme.

The deadline for all submissions is 20 November 2011.
Download the application form from
http://etnofilm.com/Prijava.aspx

Dear Colleagues,

We ( Chris Wright, Octavi Rofes, Jen Clarke and me) are organising a Workshop in the next EASA in Paris July 2012 and we would like to invite you to participate, or to forward this invitation to people who may be interested in participating. The call for papers is open till November 28th.

The title of the workshop is “Ethnographies of the artistic event: managing uncertainty as a method”

In this link you will find an abstract: 
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2012/panels.php5?PanelID=1140

We are also thinking about using EASA as a platform to start  building up a network of anthropologists working on contemporary art.

We hope you are interested!

ROGER SANSI
Goldsmiths University of London