Synopses & Reviews
This exciting new textbook takes an entirely new approach to the study of four related disciplines: anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Tim Ingold argues that these four disciplines are concerned with exploring, interpreting and describing the worlds we inhabit and the ways we perceive them. Too often we treat the products of the processes as objects to be analysed, whilst neglecting the practices which produce them. Ingold calls for a reintegration of theory and practice, looking at the processes of producing art and architecture, arguing that this involves a new way of doing anthropology and archaeology. Students are encouraged to think about materiality by working with stuff gathered from the ground, such as soil, gravel and leaf-mould, to consider ideas of agency and animacy by making and flying kites, to reflect on the capacities of the hand by making and knotting string, to investigate sensory perception by walking on the seashore, and to explore ways of reconnecting observation and description through exercises in drawing and model-making.
This new approach offers a way of drawing these four disciplines together in a way which should excite, challenge and stimulate students taking advanced courses in social and cultural anthropology, archaology, material culture, art and architecture.
Synopsis
Making creates knowledge, builds environments and transforms lives. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture are all ways of making, and all are dedicated to exploring the conditions and potentials of human life. In this exciting book, Tim Ingold ties the four disciplines together in a way that has never been attempted before. In a radical departure from conventional studies that treat art and architecture as compendia of objects for analysis, Ingold proposes an anthropology and archaeology not of but with art and architecture. He advocates a way of thinking through making in which sentient practitioners and active materials continually answer to, or 'correspond', with one another in the generation of form.
Making offers a series of profound reflections on what it means to create things, on materials and form, the meaning of design, landscape perception, animate life, personal knowledge and the work of the hand. It draws on examples and experiments ranging from prehistoric stone tool-making to the building of medieval cathedrals, from round mounds to monuments, from flying kites to winding string, from drawing to writing. The book will appeal to students and practitioners alike, with interests in social and cultural anthropology, archaeology, architecture, art and design, visual studies and material culture.