Anthropology of Performance

The relationship between art and anthropology is not at all new and has had a diverse range of implications for arts practices, including ethnographic film making, study of culture through performance, research as practice and all sorts of reverberations and after effects. We banana’s are interested in the way the two fields can support and formally effect each other without either form being dominant.

Its a slightly different approach to the ideas explored here in this 1987 text by victor turner… however it gives some context to the terrain. Antrophology of performance

The Cultural Centre for the Future!

And it all starts with some long conversations about art, fog and expertise.

Our first research trip to Penaranda took place at the end of June and was quite intense! We met with almost all of the staff of the centre,  (all those that were available and on our busy schedule) and we interviewed each of them with some questions that covered their working days, home life, usage of technology, artworks that they remember, foggy days and subjects of interest or expertise.

Above all it was lovely to meet everyone and through the interviews we learnt a lot about the town, the centre and the people that we will be collaborating with on this project.

a tour around the town

It was very interesting to hear about peoples foggy memories, as part of the initial thinking about the project we have been talking a lot about the idea of Fog. We are thinking about it as a metaphor for connectivity, as a lower version of a cloud that exists between us and connects more closely to the space we are in together. Fog or “Neibla” will form a sort of structural map and metaphor for the project. It was very interesting to hear that in Spain, the Fog, has very specific cultural associations of death, sadness and loss. Some of the memories were lovely to hear but it is something to be aware to when structuring and making our project…. As we don’t want to make the audiences of the future sad!

An Introduction in June

At the end of June Banana Asylum returned to Penaranda de Bracamonte to begin phase one of our project. The week consisited of interviews with every staff member at the centre. Our motivation was to get to know each staff member better, not only in their roles as employees at FGSR, but as individuals. We were also interested in gauging interest and/ or barriers to the project, so we could understand obstacles that might present themselves along the way.

In spending a week in Penaranada we came to learn that, well, all streets lead to the centre. It really is a tiny town, something we are both unfamiliar with, adding to the intensity of the project. We located some beautful locations around town and became very excited about what me might be able to do with them!

By the end of the week we had consumed a huge amount of jamon y queso, began to understood the rhythm of Penaranda and identified some of the FGSR staffs main concerns. On the whole people were excited, but apprehensive about the project. There is a real sense of pride for all the staff that work there, something that makes doing this kind of project inspiring for us, but also understandable that they are concerned about what we will get them to do! Fog continues to be a theme as we asked each staff member a memory they have of fog. It is useful to use this as a guding principle and to realise how murky and threatening it is to most.

Public Space and Exchange

Here is a lovely article about a knitting group that takes place in a library in canada, the researchers observe that the intersection between the social activity of knitting and the library as a public place of stories and story telling allows for a rich exchange beween the knitters. Purls_of_wisdom

Ethnography as research OR practice

We’ve been reading a lot about ethnography as a research tool in both art and anthropology and debating the different methods and aims when using ethnography for such different endeavours.

Reading this article by Mark Westmoreland has provided much food for thought.

Twitter art

http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/blog/icreative-time-tweetsi-puts-public-art-both-on-and-offline

Artists & Libraries

On Friday 3rd June, as part of our cloud research, banana asylum attended a symposium on artists in the library. Here is a list of some projects undertaken by artists with a fascination for libraries, archives and books.

Library of Secrets

The Quiet Volume

Future Editions

Book Arts

Banana Asylum are also inspired by the work of the human library movement.

The human library

and the inspirational city project

Ciudades Paralelas