Visual and New Media Review

Visual and New Media Review is a multimedia forum for expanding the boundaries of academic and artistic engagement. Working at the intersections of anthropology, contemporary art, media, sound and film studies, and the digital humanities, the section seeks to sustain dialogues among these kindred pursuits and to provide a platform for experimental and innovative work, as well as critical assessment and reviews of scholarship, film, and visual culture.

Contact Us

Questions and proposals for guest posts can be sent to section editors Jill J. Tan ([email protected]), Ara Ortiz ([email protected]), and Alejandro Jaramillo ([email protected]).

The Politics of Compilation: Around India with Sandhya Suri

The Politics of Compilation: Around India with Sandhya Suri

How does one approach the past? Whether as a vast, uneven field, a spiral, or a stairway, spatial metaphors fail to do justice to time. Excavating memory, as ... More

The Margins of a Home: A Review of Familienleben

The Margins of a Home: A Review of Familienleben

Some bodies run toward loud noises. Others flee from such sounds, running away as fast as they can. Rosa Hannah Ziegler’s Familienleben (2018) incites attentio... More

Sketching Visual Anthropology: An Interview with Illustrator Judit Ferencz

Sketching Visual Anthropology: An Interview with Illustrator Judit Ferencz

In I Swear I Saw This, Michael Taussig (2011) chronicles his travels in Colombia through his mostly colorless drawings. He writes that he is “not much of a dr... More

The Seeds of Divinity: An Interview with Antonia Foias and Robert Rock

The Seeds of Divinity: An Interview with Antonia Foias and Robert Rock

This spring and summer, the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) features an exhibition entitled The Seeds of Divinity, curated by Antonia Foias, Chair and Pr... More

Chemical Immersions: The Chemo-Ethnography Installation at #AmAnth2017

Chemical Immersions: The Chemo-Ethnography Installation at #AmAnth2017

Stepping into the Chemo-Ethnography installation felt a bit like walking into a party. Noisy, excited conversation filled the dark, hot room, which was lit by s... More

Sonic Registers and Observational Techniques: A Review of Linefork

Sonic Registers and Observational Techniques: A Review of Linefork

Sound precedes most imagery and all meaning: it causes trajectories and orientations to rebound, as though its resonance and timbre mark affective and atmosph... More

Making the Rounds: Ethnographic Film in Circulation

Making the Rounds: Ethnographic Film in Circulation

In April 2017, Melissa Lefkowitz and Alia Ayman invited five anthropologists, filmmakers, and industry professionals whose work is integral to thinking about ... More

Deserts of Polyphonic Longing: A Review of El Mar La Mar

Deserts of Polyphonic Longing: A Review of El Mar La Mar

The world appears tranquil at its edges. There, on the radiating borders between this and that, there’s a slight fog, or the thinnest of desert dust: almost f... More

Watery Worlds: A Review of Helena Wittman and Theresa George’s Drift

Watery Worlds: A Review of Helena Wittman and Theresa George’s Drift

Imagine a giant crocodile is paddling in the primeval ocean, back and forth, circling around, constantly mixing the mud with the water. Everything is in motio... More

Film, Photography, and the Contemporary Museum: An Interview with Denis Chevallier and Florent Molle

Film, Photography, and the Contemporary Museum: An Interview with Denis Chevallier and Florent Molle

What follows is an edited transcript of an interview that contributing editor Julien Porquet conducted with Denis Chevallier, Professor of Anthropology at Uni... More