Animism Exhibition Conference
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16.3. – 6.5.2012 Animism Exhibition Conference English Table of Contents Preface Bernd M. Scherer 4 Chapter 6: Soul Design 59 Al Clah, Erik Steinbrecher, Daria Martin, Roee Rosen, Adam Curtis, Exhibition 6 Antje Majewski, archival material Introduction Anselm Franke 7 Chapter 7: The Politics of Animism / Ecology / Nature 71 Walon Green, Jean Painlevé, Didier Demorcy, Angela Melitopoulos / Maurizio Lazzarato, Paulo Tavares, archival material Chapter 1: Background 11 Archival material Guided Tours 81 Chapter 2: Objectification 16 Chris Marker / Alain Resnais, Jimmie Durham, Candida Höfer, Victor Grippo, kids&teens@hkw 82 Agency, Vincent Monnikendam, Artefakte // anti-humboldt, archival material Conference: Roundtables, Lectures 85 Chapter 3: The Great Divide 27 León Ferrari, Walt Disney, Len Lye, David Maljkovic, Hans Richter, Anna and Publication 92 Bernhard Blume, archival material In Context: Contemporary Realism and Materialism 93 Chapter 4: Symptoms & Media 37 Heinz Schott / Erhard Schüttpelz / Ehler Voss, Anja Dreschke / Martin Credits 94 Zillinger, Camillo Negro, Lars Laumann, Rosemarie Trockel, Yayoi Kusama, archival material Chapter 5: Capitalism & Phantasmagoria 47 Ken Jacobs, Marcel Broodthaers, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fernand Léger, Thomas Alva Edison, Dierk Schmidt, Tom Holert, archival material 2 3 Preface In close interaction with techno- In terms of the latter, ethnology Against the backdrop of the exis- to the many artists and academics logical inventions, and fueled by a placed itself in the service of a tential crisis currently confronting who have collaborated with us Capitalist economic system, the modernity defined by the natural us, the Haus der Kulturen der on the project, without whom we natural sciences finally began to sciences, and described the prac- Welt sees its primary challenge could not have achieved the de- establish themselves and their tices of non-European societies as reappraising the relationship sired complexity and multiplicity world view in the 19th century. The as animistic. In seeking to forge a both to the natural and social of perspectives. science of physics became the developmental model of human environment. This will also entail paradigm with which to understand thought, it endeavored to assert reviving the lost traditions of our Bernd M. Scherer the world. And that meant that unequivocally that the categorical history, applying them to our Director of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Europe’s outlook on the world was separation between subject and current problems and integrating essentially shaped by objectifying object did not “yet” lie within the fruitfully the modes of thought and processes predicated on a clear capability of “pre-modern” socie- perception of the “other” into our separation of subject and object, as ties, as long as they still endowed own thinking. To do this we must already introduced in Descartes’s animals and objects with a spirit. abandon our practice of defining distinction between “res cogitans” who the “others” are, and engage und “res extensa.” However, this These two evidently closely inter- with them in an open exchange of also implied that interpretations of linked processes, the objectifica- views. the world which did not draw this tion of all our relationships to na- distinction were being increasingly ture, together with the devaluation The “Animism” project constitutes superseded or confined to the of the societal models of so-called an essential building-block periphery. This applied both to the “primitive” peoples, laid the foun- within this process. I would like to European traditions which were dations for both the exploitation express my gratitude to Anselm able to sustain their momentum of the natural resources and the Franke and Irene Albers for having until well into the 19th century, and displacement, even elimination, of conceived and curated this project also to non-European traditions. pre-modern societies. for our Haus. My thanks also go 4 5 Animism—Exhibition Introduction Anselm Franke The exhibition “Animism” begins beyond doubt. But where is the with that which we are all familiar dividing line? What possesses a with from art and the products soul, life, and the power to act? of mass culture—the cartoon for That the border between animate example—as animation. Within and inanimate matter, or between art, animation is a common effect pure subjects and mere objects, used to evoke life and vitality, in is in no sense a natural given is particular through movement, demonstrated by the simple although it is also present when fact that in different cultures this art works—sculptures or specific border is perceived and con- pictures—appear to return the ceived of in highly different ways. gaze of the viewer. Consequently, there can never be an ultimately “objective” designa- However, what we accept as tion of the “correct” division—in an effect in art is a subject of order to illustrate this in terms of historical contention beyond its one’s own culture one only has to confines. What do we perceive think of the imponderables in the as being alive? When we ask debate on the point of death and this question outside the field of the definition of so called “brain art it invariably raises questions death.” However, the dividing which call on us to provide further line is not a “purely” subjective distinctions for the purpose of matter either—after all, it is just as clarification. The mere effect of important for the organization of vitality is not to be equated with our material relations to nature as independent life, this appears for the question of the social and 6 7 political status of living beings in subject and object) is to be found As real as animistic cultures sents a real limit to the conception a specific society. Is it possible to in animism. Animism is applied to are—according to a Christian of Western modernity, a provoca- examine this dividing line itself, to- those world views in which there handbook for missionaries they tion to the modern principle of gether with the organizing knowl- is seemingly no division between currently make up, in all their reality which has become deeply edge systems and practices? nature and culture, in which heterogeneity, around 40 percent inscribed in everyday perception. The project “Animism” proceeds objects, nature, or the entire of the world’s population—they At best animistic practices are from the premise that imaginary cosmos, are perceived of as being proved hard to explain for the recognized under the category of demarcations symptomatically alive, and thus quasi subjectified. tradition of Western modernity. “culture,” but only as long as they reflect cultures, that representa- At the end of the 19th century, at If we start from our basic as- don’t raise any claims to making tions, aesthetic processes and the zenith of colonialism and the sumptions as to what constitutes statements about the actual char- media images consolidate, reflect belief in scientific progress, the “nature” and “culture,” “subject” acter of nature or suchlike. and transgress these dividing modern world view attempted to and “object,” then it appears that lines. Consequently, the exhibi- find self-confirmation in its image we have no other option than to Consequently, “Animism” is not an tion explores how this border is of the pre-modern other. Animism characterize animism as a “faith” exhibition about animism which reflected in aesthetic subjectifica- became the exemplary manifesta- which fails to grasp the objective exhibits ethnographic objects tion and objectification processes, tion of this idea of the other. reality of things, explaining it in in display cases which other and attempts to situate these aes- Animism is an antitype to the the last instance as a psychologi- cultures claim to be animate. The thetic processes in the concrete “disenchanted,” objectified, reified cal mechanism. However, in the Western idea of animism as the socio-political contexts of colonial world of modernity. From the process, one’s own basic as- pre-modern other that falsely modernity. modern perspective, it stands for sumptions and demarcations are believes in the ensoulment of ob- a world of magic transformations uncritically projected onto other jects which are in fact inanimate The most radical antitype to in which the borders are sup- cultures. is itself a symptomatic expression the modern Western world view posedly misconceived, or—in a of modernity’s basic assumptions. (whose dualistic conception is romantic-utopian turn—overcome. We have taken animism as our In contrast, the intention is to view built on a categorical separation of theme precisely because it repre- the term and the idea inscribed 8 9 within it as a mirror which can be used to examine our own basic assumptions and thus recognize them as the product of demarca- tions. Is it possible to gain an understanding of animism as a praxis extending beyond Western conceptions of “life,” “soul,” “self,” “nature,” “supernatural forces” or “belief,” which embraces other experiences, subjectification and objectification processes and mutual interactions, and not just rigid categories? The project “Animism,” raises the necessity of a revision and decolonization, not just of the obsolete understanding of animism, but also of the modern imagination of which it is an expression. Anselm Franke is an exhibition maker, critic, and lecturer. He is the curator of “Animism,” presented in different chapters in Antwerp, Berne, Vienna, Berlin and “Tupinamba Indians Attacked by Demons” Engraving by New York (2010 – 2012). Theodor de Bry (detail) © CORBIS 10 Chapter 1: Animism—Background The term “animism” was intro- There are a number of long pre- reaction to the “disenchanted declared animism to be the “sub- duced by British anthropologist histories to Tylor’s conception of world.” During the course of the ject’s narcissistic overvaluation Edward B. Tylor, (1832-1917) who animism. The first is of a religious 20th century, Tylor’s animism was of his own mental processes,” adopted it from the proto-vitalist nature.