Jostein Gundersen
Relations
In “Map Ethics” in seminar 3 and the video lecture “Relations” for seminar 4 (shared above), I propose to use concepts from Actor Network Theory to map our projects. I encourage the researchers to identify the actors in their research projects and consider how these different actors have agency. In the last years, the anthropologist Tim Ingold, and especially his book “Making” (Routledge, 2013), has become a reference for quite a few artistic researchers in the Norwegian artistic PhD programmes. Ingold argues that “…there is absolutely no reason to credit humans with agency…” (p. 96) and that “…humans do not possess agency; nor, for that matter, do non-humans. They are rather possessed by action.” (p. 97) In this presentation, I would like to discuss my own trouble with mapping actors, and have a look at how Ingold’s concepts of correspondence, transduction and animacity might be helpful in understanding the complexities of our projects.
References mentioned in the lecture:
- Gundersen, J. et al. (2020). Map Ethics! A method for identifying and addressing ethical dimensions of artistic research projects
- Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Noë, A. (2015). Strange Tools. Art and Human Nature. New York: Hill and Wang.
Recommended reading:
- Ingold, T. (2013): Making. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge. Esp. chapter 7, “Bodies on the run”, p. 91-108