Art And Agency

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Art and Agency

Author : Alfred Gell
Publisher : Clarendon Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 1998-07-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780191037450

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Art and Agency by Alfred Gell Pdf

Alfred Gell puts forward a new anthropological theory of visual art, seen as a form of instrumental action: the making of things as a means of influencing the thoughts and actions of others. He argues that existing anthropological and aesthetic theories take an overwhelmingly passive point of view, and questions the criteria that accord art status only to a certain class of objects and not to others. The anthropology of art is here reformulated as the anthropology of a category of action: Gell shows how art objects embody complex intentionalities and mediate social agency. He explores the psychology of patterns and perceptions, art and personhood, the control of knowledge, and the interpretation of meaning, drawing upon a diversity of artistic traditions—European, Indian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian. Art and Agency was completed just before Alfred Gell's death at the age of 51 in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigour, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.

Art and Agency

Author : Alfred Gell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780198280132

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Art and Agency by Alfred Gell Pdf

In Art and Agency, Alfred Gell formulates an anthropological theory of visual art that focuses on the social context of art production, circulation, and reception. As a theory of the nexus of social relations involving works of art, this work suggests that in certain contexts, art-objects substitute for persons and thus mediate social agency. Diversely illustrated and based on European, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Australian sources, Art and Agency was completed just before Gell's death at the age of fifty-one in January 1997. It embodies the intellectual bravura, lively wit, vigor, and erudition for which he was admired, and will stand as an enduring testament to one of the most gifted anthropologists of his generation.

The Anthropology of Art

Author : Howard Morphy,Morgan Perkins
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2009-02-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781405155328

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The Anthropology of Art by Howard Morphy,Morgan Perkins Pdf

This anthology provides a single-volume overview of the essential theoretical debates in the anthropology of art. Drawing together significant work in the field from the second half of the twentieth century, it enables readers to appreciate the art of different cultures at different times. Advances a cross-cultural concept of art that moves beyond traditional distinctions between Western and non-Western art. Provides the basis for the appreciation of art of different cultures and times. Enhances readers’ appreciation of the aesthetics of art and of the important role it plays in human society.

Games

Author : C. Thi Nguyen
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : Games & Activities
ISBN : 9780190052089

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Games by C. Thi Nguyen Pdf

"Games are a unique art form. The game designer doesn't just create a world; they create who you will be in that world. They tell you what abilities to use and what goals to take on. In other words, they specify a form of agency. Games work in the medium of agency. And to play them, we take on alternate agencies and submerge ourselves in them. What can we learn about our own rationality and agency, from thinking about games? We learn that we have a considerable degree of fluidity with our agency. First, we have the capacity for a peculiar sort of motivational inversion. For some of us, winning is not the point. We take on an interest in winning temporarily, so that we can play the game. Thus, we are capable of taking on temporary and disposable ends. We can submerge ourselves in alternate agencies, letting them dominate our consciousness, and then dropping them the moment the game is over. Games are, then, a way of recording forms of agency, of encoding them in artifacts. Our games are a library of agencies. And exploring that library can help us develop our own agency and autonomy. But this technology can also be used for art. Games can sculpt our practical activity, for the sake of the beauty of our own actions. Games are part of a crucial, but overlooked category of art - the process arts. These are the arts which evoke an activity, and then ask you to appreciate your own activity. And games are a special place where we can foster beautiful experiences of our own activity. Because our struggles, in games, can be designed to fit our capacities. Games can present a harmonious world, where our abilities fit the task, and where we pursue obvious goals and act under clear values. Games are a kind of existential balm against the difficult and exhausting value clarity of the world. But this presents a special danger. Games can be a fantasy of value clarity. And when that fantasy leaks out into the world, we can be tempted to oversimplify our enduring values. Then, the pleasures of games can seduce us away from our autonomy, and reduce our agency."--

Perception and Agency in Shared Spaces of Contemporary Art

Author : Cristina Albu,Dawna Schuld
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2017-12-15
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781315437118

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Perception and Agency in Shared Spaces of Contemporary Art by Cristina Albu,Dawna Schuld Pdf

This book examines the interconnections between art, phenomenology, and cognitive studies. Contributors question the binary oppositions generally drawn between visuality and agency, sensing and thinking, phenomenal art and politics, phenomenology and structuralism, and subjective involvement and social belonging. Instead, they foreground the many ways that artists ask us to consider how we sense, think, and act in relation to a work of art.

Art's Agency and Art History

Author : Robin Osborne,Jeremy Tanner
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2008-04-15
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780470777275

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Art's Agency and Art History by Robin Osborne,Jeremy Tanner Pdf

Art's Agency and Art History re-articulates the relationship of the anthropology of art to key methodological and theoretical approaches in art history, sociology, and linguistics. Explores important concepts and perspectives in the anthropology of art Includes nine groundbreaking case studies by an internationally renowned group of art historians and art theorists Covers a wide range of periods, including Bronze-Age China, Classical Greece, Rome, and Mayan, as well as the modern Western world Features an introductory essay by leading experts, which helps clarify issues in the field Includes numerous illustrations

Distributed Objects

Author : Liana Chua,Mark Elliott
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 232 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2013-03-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780857457431

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Distributed Objects by Liana Chua,Mark Elliott Pdf

One of the most influential anthropological works of the last two decades, Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency is a provocative and ambitious work that both challenged and reshaped anthropological understandings of art, agency, creativity and the social. It has become a touchstone in contemporary artifact-based scholarship. This volume brings together leading anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians and other scholars into an interdisciplinary dialogue with Art and Agency, generating a timely re-engagement with the themes, issues and arguments at the heart of Gell’s work, which remains salient, and controversial, in the social sciences and humanities. Extending his theory into new territory – from music to literary technology and ontology to technological change – the contributors do not simply take stock, but also provoke, critically reassessing this important work while using it to challenge conceptual and disciplinary boundaries.

Art, Agency and Living Presence

Author : Caroline van Eck
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2015-03-10
Category : Art
ISBN : 9783110380354

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Art, Agency and Living Presence by Caroline van Eck Pdf

Throughout history, and all over the world, viewers have treated works of art as if they are living beings: speaking to them, falling in love with them, kissing or beating them. Although over the past 20 years the catalogue of individual cases of such behavior towards art has increased immensely, there are few attempts at formulating a theoretical account of them, or writing the history of how such responses were considered, defined or understood. That is what this book sets out to do: to reconstruct some crucial chapters in the history of thought about such reflections in Western Europe, and to offer some building blocks towards a theoretical account of such responses, drawing on the work of Aby Warburg and Alfred Gell.

The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art

Author : Grażyna Jurkowlaniec,Ika Matyjaszkiewicz,Zuzanna Sarnecka
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2017-09-22
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781351681490

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The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art by Grażyna Jurkowlaniec,Ika Matyjaszkiewicz,Zuzanna Sarnecka Pdf

This volume explores the late medieval and early modern periods from the perspective of objects. While the agency of things has been studied in anthropology and archaeology, it is an innovative approach for art historical investigations. Each contributor takes as a point of departure active things: objects that were collected, exchanged, held in hand, carried on a body, assembled, cared for or pawned. Through a series of case studies set in various geographic locations, this volume examines a rich variety of systems throughout Europe and beyond. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Beyond Aesthetics

Author : Christopher Pinney,Nicholas Thomas
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2020-05-25
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000180947

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Beyond Aesthetics by Christopher Pinney,Nicholas Thomas Pdf

The anthropology of art is currently at a crossroads. Although well versed in the meaning of art in small-scale tribal societies, anthropologists are still wrestling with the question of how to interpret art in a complex, post-colonial environment. Alfred Gell recently confronted this problem in his posthumous book Art and Agency. The central thesis of his study was that art objects could be seen, not as bearers of meaning or aesthetic value, but as forms mediating social action. At a stroke, Gell provocatively dismissed many longstanding but tired questions of definition and issues of aesthetic value. His book proposed a novel perspective on the roles of art in political practice and made fresh links between analyses of style, tradition and society. Offering a new overview of the anthropology of art, this book begins where Gell left off. Presenting wide-ranging critiques of the limits of aesthetic interpretation, the workings of objects in practice, the relations between meaning and efficacy and the politics of postcolonial art, its distinguished contributors both elaborate on and dissent from the controversies of Gells important text. Subjects covered include music and the internet as well as ethnographic traditions and contemporary indigenous art. Geographically its case studies range from India to Oceania to North America and Europe.

Agency

Author : Theron Schmidt
Publisher : Intellect (UK)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Art, British
ISBN : 1783209909

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Agency by Theron Schmidt Pdf

Notoriously difficult to define as a genre, Live Art is commonly positioned as a challenge to received artistic, social, and political categories: not theatre, not dance, not visual art, and often wilfully anti-mainstream and anti-establishment. But as it has become increasingly prevalent in international festivals, major art galleries, and university courses, it is ripe for a reassessment. Including almost 50 contributing artists and scholars, this collection of essays, conversations, provocations, and archival images takes the twentieth anniversary of the founding of one of the sector's most committed champions, the Live Art Development Agency in London, as an opportunity to consider not only what Live Art has been against, but also what it has been for. Through the work of this particular 'Agency', the book explores the idea of agency more generally: how Live Art has enabled the possibility for new kinds of thoughts, actions, and alliances for diverse individuals and groups.

Sustainability in an Imaginary World

Author : David Maggs,Taylor & Francis Group,John Robinson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2021-12-13
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1032238747

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Sustainability in an Imaginary World by David Maggs,Taylor & Francis Group,John Robinson Pdf

Sustainability in an Imaginary World explores the social agency of art and its connection to complex issues of sustainability. Over the past decade, interest in art's agency has ballooned as an increasing number of fields turn to the arts with ever-expanding expectations. Yet just as art is being heralded as a magic bullet of social change, research is beginning to throw cautionary light on such enthusiasm, challenging the linear, prescriptive, instrumental expectations such transdisciplinary interactions often imply. In this, art finds itself at a treacherous crossroads, unable to turn a deaf ear to calls for help from an increasing number of ostensibly non-aesthetic fields, yet in answering such prescriptive urgencies, jeopardizing the very power for which its help was sought in the first place. This book goes in search of a way forward, proposing a theory of art aiming to preserve the integrity of arts practices within transdisciplinary mandates. This approach is then explored through a series of case studies developed in collaboration with some of Canada's most prominent artists, including internationally renowned nature poet Don McKay; Italian composer and Head of Vancouver New Music, Giorgio Magnanesi; the renowned Electric Company Theatre, led by Kevin Kerr; and finally through a largescale multimedia installation aiming to reimagine the relationship between climate, culture, and human agency. Sustainability in an Imaginary World will be of great interest to students and scholars of arts-based research fields, sustainability studies, and environmental humanities.

African Art and Agency in the Workshop

Author : Sidney Littlefield Kasfir,Till Förster
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 402 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-04-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780253007582

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African Art and Agency in the Workshop by Sidney Littlefield Kasfir,Till Förster Pdf

“Compelling case studies demonstrate how African workshops have long mediated collective expression and individual imagination.” —Allen F. Roberts, University of California, Los Angeles The role of the workshop in the creation of African art is the subject of this revelatory book. In the group setting of the workshop, innovation and imitation collide, artists share ideas and techniques, and creative expression flourishes. African Art and Agency in the Workshop examines the variety of workshops, from those which are politically driven or tourist oriented, to those based on historical patronage or allied to current artistic trends. Fifteen lively essays explore the impact of the workshop on the production of artists such as Zimbabwean stone sculptors, master potters from Cameroon, wood carvers from Nigeria, and others from across the continent. Contributions by Nicolas Argenti, Jessica Gershultz, Norma Wolff, Christine Scherer, Silvia Forni, Elizabeth Morton, Alexander Bortolot, Brenda Schmahmann, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Karen E. Milbourne and Namubiru Rose Kirumira “A closer examination of the workshop provides important insights into art histories and cultural politics. We may think we know what we mean when we use the term ‘workshop,’ but in fact the organization of groups of artists takes on vastly different forms and encourages the production of diverse styles of art within larger social structures and power dynamics.” —Victoria Rovine, University of Florida “Taken as a whole, the case studies provide a wide window into the very diverse structural and functional characteristics of workshops. They also clearly describe how African workshops have served both contemporary political and cultural needs and have responded to patronage, whether it be traditional or stimulated by tourism.” —African Studies Review

Reclaiming Female Agency

Author : Norma Broude,Mary D. Garrard
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 488 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2005-04-11
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780520242524

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Reclaiming Female Agency by Norma Broude,Mary D. Garrard Pdf

'Reclaiming Feminine Agency' identifies female agency as a central theme of recent feminist scholarship & offers 23 essays on artists & issues from the Renaissance to the present, written in the 1990s & after.

Art and Visibility in Migratory Culture

Author : Mieke Bal,Miguel Á. Hernández-Navarro
Publisher : Rodopi
Page : 335 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2011-01-15
Category : Art
ISBN : 9789042032644

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Art and Visibility in Migratory Culture by Mieke Bal,Miguel Á. Hernández-Navarro Pdf

This book explores the idea that art can enact small-scale resistances against the status quo in the social domain. These acts, which we call “little resistances,” determine the limited yet potentially powerful political impact of art. From different angles, seventeen authors consider the spaces where art events occur as “political spaces,” and explore how such spaces host events of disagreements in migratory culture. The newly coined word “migratory” refers to the sensate traces of the movements of migration that characterize contemporary culture. In other words, movement is not an exceptional occurrence in an otherwise stable world, but a normal, generalized process in a world that cannot be grasped in terms of any given notion of stability. Thus the book offers fresh reflections on art’s power to move people, in the double sense of that verb, and shows how it helps to illuminate migratory culture’s contributions to this process.