BIO I enter ANTH258: Visualizing/Peopling the Past as a Cultural Anthropology major with minors in Science, Technology and Society and Theater Arts. My research foci over the past few years have been performativity and the anthropological significance of theater, semiotics and space, the anthropology of modern/postmodern/global cities, and the cultural impact of new technologies, particularly new media. I have tended towards the examination of contemporary cultures, so this project encourages relatively new modes of analysis and research for me (read: my research subjects are not usually dead). My interest in performance comes from my experience in theater, film and drumming; in theater, I have spent a lot of time on both sides of the curtain doing technical work (including using Sketch-Up as a designing tool for sets) as well as acting. I enjoy the methodology of cultural anthropology (participant observation, interviewing, surveying), which I had the opportunity to employ over the summer in conducting ethnographic fieldwork for my thesis on the effects/implications of the experimentation with small media by big media as a means of coping with uncertainty in the field of journalism in the age of Web 2.0. I speak Spanish and would often rather decode theoretical texts than read a novel. With this background, I hope that I will be able to add value to our final project as an observer, analyzer and transposer (or translator) of performative and technological phenomena past and present.
PROJECT INTEREST Having been influenced and informed by the work of Lawrence Coben, I am interested in looking at the way specific huaca sites and architectural loci of ritual and theatrical performance in and around Cuzco transmitted semiotic cues to and guided the activities of the people, helping maintain order and strengthen the Inca empire. The spatial configuration of the huacas, both in their grand schematic placement within the ceque system and as individual sites, has multiple functions. The theatrics enacted about, within and around these sites, like the structures themselves, convey messages that carry meanings, which are decoded and interpreted by the citizens of the empire. I hope to examine one or two specific rituals that are situated within specific sites along the ceque system, paying special attention to the symbolic/semiotic messages that are constructed there and the interpretations that can be drawn from them. While my technical capabilities are not nearly as developed as my analytical/theoretical capabilities, I would like to contribute to the visual reconstruction of the sites using Sketch-Up and perhaps even Maya (albeit if only elementarily). I am particularly interested in collaborating with a technically gifted member of the class to reconstruct and bring to life some of the physical movements enacted in rituals, utilizing the motion capture technologies available to us through Penn/Digital Media Design department. As Coben discusses in his brief article about digital reconstruction, the drama that results from the combination of the spatial features of the environment and the performance of the ritual itself is heightened by the interplay of the two and carries important meanings for the empire. The more impressive these spectacles are, the more impact they have on the society at large. If there’s time, it might be interesting to examine present-day rituals in light of the rituals of the past (using other media such as video of recent rituals or interviews of people who have taken part) and chronologically superimpose layers of ritual over specific huacas or places along the ceque system.
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