Paper short abstract:

How might a Mongolian lasso known as the 'uurga', facilitate a new style of exchange between art and anthropology? "I Like Mongolia..." re-evaluates the performance of an interspecies object, and the role of drawing as an anthropologically relevant method.

Paper long abstract:

"I Like Mongolia..." re-evaluates the performance of an object as a social participant and the role of drawing as an anthropologically relevant method, exploring the potential for an object-centred approach to interdisciplinary exchange between the fields of participatory art and anthropology. In light of Alfred Gell's thesis of 'traps as artworks and artworks as traps' (1996), the lasso presents an alternative point of view to the western zoological framing criticised by Massumi (2014). Instead the lasso functions as a non-Euclidean drawing tool, a frame through which to view collaborative efforts between species, and between art and anthropology, differently.

From the digital capture of the Photoshop lasso to the 'drawing in' of a wild horse in nomadic Mongolia, drawing is explored as an inherently mimetic and intimate method for analysing moving relationships. With a focus on the drawn line as a connecting device that lends itself to figure-ground reversal, drawing itself becomes a lasso-like technology that suggests new possibilities for practice-based research. 

(This presentation includes two-channel video drawing by Hermione Spriggs + Rebecca Empson, 2017. A version of this work is also installed as part of the conference exhibition.)