Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to discuss the distinct uses of photography in our ethnographic fieldwork and how it captures the sensorial and transformative aspects of the more-than-human agencies that compose the speculative future histories of the artists with whom we collaborate in our research.

Paper long abstract:

Transdisciplinary studies about art, more-than-human agencies, and speculative futures have emerged in recent years (Tsing 2015, 2019; Latour 2017; Stengers 2009; Haraway 2016; Hache 2019). These studies deal with themes and issues dear to Anthropology, especially those involving multispecies ethnographies (Kirksey & Helmreich 2010; van Dooren, Kirksey & Munster 2016). At the same time, as Logé (2019) argues, in the face of the current uncertain environmental scenario, art also seems to have adopted a "poetic essence" that is particularly linked to the idea of ecology. In light of these discussions, by following the current debates on the possibilities of visual anthropology and sensory approaches in ethnography (Pink 2014, 2015, 2021), this paper aims to reflect on the uses of photography in our fieldwork as a way to capture the sensorial and transformative aspects of more-than-human agencies in art. Our interest lies in the speculative future histories that compose the work of the artists with whom we collaborate and the role of more-than-human agencies in their work. By making approximations between the photographs of our distinct fieldworks, we propose to investigate how the particularities of our photographic materials - choice of angles, distortions, light, and shadows - compose with the propositions of the artistic works of our collaborators. We ask: How can photographing artworks that present themselves as biologically living compositions help build speculative narratives of more-than-human worlds? How to use photography to capture and transmit the subtleties of more-than-human worlds and the constant transformation of the more-than-human in contemporary art?