08 april, 1996
Shamanism, Grant
Michael Taussig's
Mimesis and Alterity. a thick book indeed, after a reassuring intro, he launches into full bodied theory. I had a dialogue with my friend Wilson,"He is driven...to awaken congealed life in petrified objects. Thus, Benjamin, in addressing the fetish character of objecthood under capitalism, demystifying and reenchanting, out-fetishizing the fetish. And if this necessarily involves a movement in the other direction, not awakening but petrifying life, reifying instead of fetishizing, doing what Adorno describes as the scrutiny of living things so that they present themselves as being Ur-historical and hence abruptly release their significance, then a strange parallel is set up with my reading of the Cuna shaman of the San Blas Islands off Panama, faced with a woman in obstructed labour and singing for the restoration of her soul."I read him the first three sentences response to a Benjamin quote:- page 1 "Sounds impenetrable"
When you penetrate, it gives a great sense of power."You're penetrating it?
I'm underlining stuff.I was warned ahead of time that the book would be an indulgent read. Indeed, I found his tone quite informal
at firwst put off by the unreflectivity, belied by poassages
"I am hell-bent on analyzing..." (page 8) of course relating this to web production, western media personhood reproduction -page 13, the making and existence of the artifact that portrays something gives one power over that which is portrayed." so he sez on page 62 that "the image is more powerful than what it is an image of." this he posits based on Florencio's army violence in gold vision in terms of tools creating fictions so what? it's a wild, reflective ride. schizophrenia mindfuck
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