Iconophobia

Chaiqian/Demolition: Reflections on Media Practice

“…Synaesthesia, the materiality of objects, the execution of a particular gesture, the texture of a surface, even “the rustling of leaves in the background” (as in the early days of Lumière) can all trigger idiosyncratic reactions from viewers and thereby constitute cinematic excess (Vaughan :5) . Taylor points out that, in the case of ethnographic film, excess grants the image a seductive power that “draws the viewer into an interpretive relationship that bypasses professional mediation” (1996:68). That is, if everyone can engage excess—understood in anthropological discourse as social complexity and cultural difference—on its own terms, drawing conclusions for themselves, then anthropologists are no longer necessary, or so the argument goes.…”

“Insomnia” and field notes on the film “P’ra Irem P’ró Céu”

“…Procurando perceber a atribuição da qualidade de "conhecimento antropológico" aos produtos escritos e fílmicos, Lucien Taylor (1996) diagnostica "iconofobia" aos antropólogos, uma ansiedade e medo em relação ao visual. Muitos consideram que a câmara distorce o visível, simplificando-o e descontextualizando-o, e que impõe uma visão, subtraindo a possibilidade de crítica.…”

Blurred Visions: Reflecting Visual Anthropology

“…The radical difference between these views reflects less on the identification of a nominal subject -visual culture -than on different ideas about the nature of visual practices: as functionaries of the structure of imaging technology (Tomas 1992;Weiner 1997), as an ethnographic mode involving reflection upon processes of image production (Pink 2001), or as a quality of corporeal engagement with persons, places and events (Grimshaw and Ravetz 2009;Macdougall 2006). In all these cases, appreciation of image productions as ethnography has been made on the basis of their relative distinctiveness from texts, a tendency which has been judged to betray, at best, circumspection about the visual and, at worst, 'iconophobia' (Taylor 1996). This notion may be extreme but it is still important to understanding debates about the relevance of visual anthropology to the discipline at large, which is the focus of the second half of this essay.…”

“…Feld's photographs directly illustrate the kinds of oppositional models that are still central to much current discussion within visual anthropology, models that continue to underlie what Lucien Taylor has argued is anthropology's 'iconophobia' (Taylor 1996). These dyadic oppositional models -text vs image, illustration vs evocation, art vs science, realism vs impressionism, expression vs reportage, etc.…”