Figure 4 - uploaded by Elizabeth DeMarrais
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Chavín de Huantar stone carving from the New Temple patio, showing a fanged figure (identified as the primary deity) clutching shells, with braided snakes in place of hair. (Photograph: courtesy D. Beresford-Jones.)
Source publication
In this article, I set out a relational approach to Andean art, with the aim of investigating, in broad terms, the making, viewing and experience of art among pre-Hispanic peoples. The analysis draws upon the ideas of art historians, as well as upon the work of ethnographers and archaeologists, to integrate theoretical approaches that consider anim...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... (Urton 2008) and references to the supernatural (Burger 1992). Images frequently juxtapose human and animal features, blurring the lines separating human from non-human forms (see further discussion below). A well-known Chavín stone carving, referred to as the supreme deity (Burger 1992), combines anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features (Fig. 4) (Conklin & Quilter 2008;Diessl 2004). Chavín art suggests associations with, or aspects of, the supernatural, and the balancing of opposing forces. The point to emphasize is that, for these examples, the boundaries separating humans, non-humans and places appear fuzzier in the artist's perspective than they would be for contemporary ...
Citations
... In these contexts, colors aim to promote sensations of belongingness and identity. Likewise, in many cases the access to, and easiness of, reproducing "official colors" enable the incorporation of political discourses into the sphere of the daily life, interweaving the notions of habitus with power, desires, and affects (DeMarrais, 2017). ...
In this essay I bring Gregory Bateson together with Deleuze and Guattari (primarily with the latter) to show their ecological compatibility, especially with Guattari’s ecosophy. I do this against the backdrop of the Anthropocene which presents us not only with a ‘climate’ of post-truth and political corruption, but also with the so-called climate crisis. In the context of these two broad examinations, I ask what can an artisan-artist-designer do given this problematic context? My reply is to call on ‘speculative design’ by an ‘avant-garde without authority’ to expose the symptoms of the Anthropocene era.
This work shows new relevant research on the diverse manifestations of rock art in Latin America.
Investigations focus on the use of territories as a habitat delimited by natural and symbolic boundaries, and as a means of obtaining resources, as well as their link to collective memory.
The analysis, both stylistic and symbolic, provide the reader with a great thematic richness of areas and regions, making this volume an important reference in the study of rock art in this vast continent.
This article undertakes a critical analysis of the adoption of process metaphysics in the field of archaeology and anthropology for the explanation of animism. The field of “new animism” has adopted process metaphysics in order to counter the nineteenth-century definition of animism as epistemological projection toward animism as ontological condition. This shift from epistemology to ontology has the danger of equating animism with process metaphysics as such. By examining the category of propositional judgment within Whitehead’s metaphysics, I argue that the condition of animism emerges through a judgment of truth, which is aesthetic. It is through Whitehead’s integration of propositional judgment within his metaphysical system that one can understand that an ontological approach toward animism is not necessarily opposed to a reflective type of experience.
Archaeological concept-, theory-, and model-building in the Andes tend to lag behind some major archaeological regions of the world. A brief review of previous dominant models in the Andes are considered and attention is made of the need to envision new interpretative modelling in the region, based on new and exciting discoveries over the past two decades. Suggestions are made as to some directions this modelling may take.
This paper aims to shift debate in the study of archaeological art away from epistemological questions of definition towards ontological approaches. To this aim, the paper proposes a non-representational study of archaeological art based on the twin concepts of affect and agential intra-action. As an example of this approach, the paper examines the carved stone balls of Neolithic Scotland. The analysis of carved stone balls focuses on their making and on their inter-regional circulation and exchange as a way of approaching the affective character of these artefacts. The paper finishes with a detailed consideration of the concepts of affect and intra-action and advocates their use in the archaeology of art.
