Paper short abstract:

This presentation makes the case for a becoming of anthropology 'and' art that engages beyond visual investigations of either discipline.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I argue that to consider visual investigations as both anthropological and artistic firstly requires an understanding that thus far a hierarchical system of categorization of affectivities has been put in place for us to distinguish art and make sense of it. To this point, I refer to Highmore's work, stating that art has been the mechanism that has thus far provided exemplifications of what, namely "creaturely, experiential life (2010, 122)", is difficult to render via speech and writing. According to the author, it is the impossibility of translating aesthetics into anything other than art that develops into "aesthetic discourse that results in the misdirection of aesthetics, directing it to become simply synonymous with art theory (Highmore 2010, 122)." Referencing texts from affect studies, I want to make the case for the anthropologist to claim the territorialities and temporalities away from "''aesthetics' [working] as an umbrella term for heuristic inquiry into affect and its interlacing of sense perception and bodily dispensation (Highmore 2010, 123-4)". Secondly, I maintain that the way both the anthropologist/artist and the public approach visual representations of work that is both anthropological and artistic determine its affective qualities and thus its experiential meanings.

Moreover, referencing examples from work I have co-conducted in Tirana, I maintain that it is possible, if not necessary, to step away from labelling our practice of anthropology and art as 'applied practice' for it tends to categorize this becoming and its related theoretical and analytical spaces as cultural practices.