François Laplantine: The Life of the Senses: Introduction to a Modal Anthropology (2005/2015)

“Both a vital theoretical work and a fine illustration of the principles and practice of sensory ethnography, this much anticipated translation is destined to figure as a major catalyst in the expanding field of sensory studies.

Drawing on his own fieldwork in Brazil and Japan and a wide range of philosophical, literary and cinematic sources, the author outlines his vision for a ‘modal anthropology’. François Laplantine challenges the primacy accorded to ‘sign’ and ‘structure’ in conventional social science research, and redirects attention to the tonalities and rhythmic intensities of different ways of living. Arguing that meaning, sensation and sociality cannot be considered separately, he calls for a ‘politics of the sensible’ and a complete reorientation of our habitual ways of understanding reality.”

First published as Le social et le sensible: introduction à une anthropologie modale, Téraèdre, Paris, 2005.

Translated by Jamie Furniss
With an Introduction by David Howes
Publisher Bloomsbury, London, 2015
Sensory Studies series, 1
ISBN 1472534808, 9781472534804
xviii+152 pages

Reviews: Claude Rivière (Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, 2006, FR), Fabien Pernet (Anthropologie et sociétés, 2006, FR), Georges Bertin (Esprit critique, 2009, FR).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (updated on 2016-8-20)

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L. Moholy-Nagy: Vision in Motion (1947)

“This book is written for the artist and the layman, for everyone interested in his relationship to our existing civilization. It is an extension of my previous book, The New Vision. But while The New Vision gave mainly particulars about the educational methods of the old Bauhaus, Vision in Motion concentrates on the work of the Institute of Design, Chicago, and presents a broader, more general view of the interrelatedness of art and life.” (from the author’s foreword)

Publisher Paul Theobald, Chicago, 1947
371 pages

WorldCat

PDF (114 MB, no OCR)

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Mikkel Bolt, Jakob Jakobsen (eds.): Cosmonauts of the Future: Texts from the Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere (2015)

“This is the first ever English-language anthology collecting texts and documents from the still little-known Scandinavian part of the Situationist movement.

The book covers over three decades of writing, from Asger Jorn’s Luck and Chance published in 1953, to the statements of the Situationist Antinational set up by Jens Jørgen Thorsen and J.V. Martin in 1974. The writings collected gravitate around the year 1962 when the Situationist movement went through it’s most dynamic and critical moments, and the disagreements about the relationship between art and politics came to a culmination, resulting in exclusions and the split of the Situationist International.

The Situationists did not win, and the almost forgotten Scandinavian fractions even less so. The book broadens the understanding of the Situationist movement by bringing into view the wild and unruly activities of the Scandinavian fractions of the organisation and the more artistic, experimental, and actionist attitude that characterised them. They did, nevertheless, constitute a decisive break with the ruling socio-economic order through their project of bringing into being new forms of life. Only an analysis of the multifaceted and often contradictory Situationist revolution will allow us to break away from the dull contemplation of yet another document of Debord’s archive or yet another drawing by Jorn.

There is a lot to be learned from the history of revolutionary failure. It is along these lines that this book points forward beyond the crisis-ridden capitalist order that survives today.”

Texts by Asger Jorn, Jørgen Nash, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, Bauhaus Situationniste, Jacqueline de Jong, Gordon Fazakerley, Gruppe SPUR, Dieter Kunzelman, J.V. Martin, and Guy Debord.

Translated by Peter Shield, James Manley, Anja Buchele, Matthew Hyland, Fabian Tompsett, and Jakob Jakobsen
Publisher Nebula, Copenhagen, in association with Autonomedia, New York, May 2015
This book can be freely pirated and quoted except for the texts covered by copyrights.
ISBN 9788799365180 (Nebula), 9781570273049 (Autonomedia)
304 pages

Publisher (Nebula)
Distributor (Minor Compositions)

PDF, PDF, PDF (2 MB)
Scribd

See also Bolt, Jakobsen (eds.), Expect Anything Fear Nothing: The Situationist Movement in Scandinavia and Elsewhere, 2011.
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