Paper short abstract:

This paper explores human kinesthetic movement as observed across time and space through visual anthropology in terms of culturesand affective ecologies in relation to transforming present life ways.

Paper long abstract:

Our 'lifeworlds'research is demonstrated through 20th century advances of anthropology in Bali, Sri Lanka, Japan, and America. From the 1930s to 1960s anthropologists (Gregory Bateson &Margaret Mead, John Collier, Jr., Edward Hall, John Adair, Don and Ron Rundstrom) have observed continual process of 'becoming' through the ways it is expressed as movement in the context of space.

I will revisit the methodological practices in case studies and opening up to advanced virtual systems. The purpose is exploring diverse knowledge, practice, and problems as documented in movement encompassing visual, aesthetic, and sensory anthropologies vis-à-vis discourses of public community discussion and scholarly interaction.

The result is revealingimagined status, virtual, and/or textually accounted for giving a sense of self worth and place in social contexts and/or natural environment. Our media begins with analog photography and film to virtual reality (VR) 360-surround immersive interactive environments.

Resulting ethnographic interactive platforms activate viewer participation and allows people to engage the subject matter in a uniquely individualized experience of people and place: one that not only questions how one can understand issues of identity and traditions in a rapidly changing globalized cultural landscape, but also how one can experience local culture and geography through a malleable, immersive, non-linear mosaic narrative.

Examples will be given through photography and film presented in cultural kinesthetic movement in new research media to illustratevirtual reality in terms of individual cultural values.