This book introduces camera-based practices at the intersections of artistic and ethnographic research that critically examine the means of their own production and social embeddedness. In shared practices such as recording in the field, editing in post-production and modes of presentation, the camera is involved as an agent rather than an innocent device. How does the camera grapple with the invisible and how does it reveal what the camerawoman is unable to see? How do films, videos and photographs provide access to vulnerable knowledges and what presentation formats can extend the linearity of narration?
Taking account of their own situatedness and the limits of representation, many of this book’s contributors attempt to speak with — rather than about — the other. These negotiations appearing in the featured projects open up a shared field of artistic and ethnographic inquiry, whose potential — for experiments and reflections — is far from exhausted.
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Trading Zones: Camera Work in Artistic and Ethnographic Research
Edited by Barbara Preisig, Laura von Niederhäusern, and Jürgen Krusche
Contributions by Sepideh Abtahi, Shirin Barghnavard, Laura Coppens, Louis Henderson, Heidrun Holzfeind, Mina Keshavarz, Daniel Kötter, Jürgen Krusche, Bärbel Küster, Bina Elisabeth Mohn, Laura von Niederhäusern, Uriel Orlow, Barbara Preisig, Rani al Raji, Nahid Rezaei, Anette Rose, Sahar Salahshoori, Christoph Schenker, Amira Solh, Lena Maria Thüring, Zheng Mahler
Translations:
Bram Opstelten
Pip Hare (for Bina Mohn’s contribution)
Transcriptions:
Flavia Trachsler
Translators: Carrisa Fletcher, Huang Wenlong, Liang Yuheng, Lisa A.Orcutt, Sun Gaorui, Zhang Zhihui
Mark Kyburz
Corinne Butta
TM – David Mamie, Nicola Todeschini