What Do Artifacts Do？

Michael Rowlands (Author);Tang Yun Zhang Lisheng (Translators)

（1.Department of Anthropology，University College London，UK; 2.Southwest Nationalities

Research Academy，Southwest University for Nationalities，Chengdu，610041，Sichuan，China;3.University College London，UK）

JOURNAL OF ETHNOLOGY， VOL.6，NO.5，01-06，2015（CN51-1731/C，in Chinese）

DOI：10.3969/j.issn.1674-9391.2015.05.01

Abstract：

I rather deliberately use artifact and object in my title rather than thing and thingness.My aim is to emphasise the ars/artis element of making/fabricating and facts /objects as outcomes/realities.Bruno Latour has made an elegant pastiche of the terms fetish and fact to create hybrid factiches - which I am certainly taking advantage of.My focus is also Theodore Adornos use of the term object to characterise why it is so often used negatively as the decontextualised object.The quote I want to use is from the beginning of his article Valery Proust Museum in the collection Prisms – “The German word museal（museum like）has unpleasant overtones.It describes objects to which the observer no longer has any vital relationship and which are in the process of dying.They owe their preservation more to historical respect than to the needs of the present.” Thankfully a little later he goes on to say： “One cannot be content，however，with the general recognition of a negative situation.An intellectual dispute like this must be fought out with specific arguments.” So I want to present one to retrieve the value of de-contextualised objects.

In the back of my mind is that other dispute on this theme in archaeological dialogues.Tim Ingold takes materials seriously and accuses the material culture bunch at UCL（University College London）of reducing materials to social relations or sociality.A seemingly unlikely hero for Tim Ingold is Henry Hodges who wrote a book Artifacts.Ingold advocates the autonomy of the object/ materials separately from peoples intentions towards them.In his response to Tim Ingold，Danny Miller accused him of primitivism - a desire to naturalise the world – see us all inhabiting it through natural processes of self-making - making things /doing things for ourselves.Instead of the Stone Age – he says –we live in a Plastic Age - we encounter the material world already made – and we responds as consumers in acts of appropriation.

I think that Adorno is the more accurate here in his addressing a fear that the museal object is deathlike – as does the dusty artefact in the museum case figuring death - perhaps but also the forgotten objects in the attic –those taken to the charity shop – put in recycling bin – and certainly the clothes and personal effects of the dead.But why is there such a horror of the dusty object in the museum case – or the de-contextualised object？I would argue you have to see this in the context of the history of Christianity in Europe，and in particular the problem of relics.Relics are literally the “remains of saints bodies”.Late Medieval relics in particular were hidden and only revealed at special festivals.Protestant iconoclasm against any kind of evidence of divine presence in the shape of idolatrous statues/relics and priestly led rituals was tempered by Catholic retention of the spirit of God encountered in the mass.

As relics were being destroyed in Spain，Portugal，and elsewhere，Portuguese colonists would discover them again as fetishes in the West African coast during the 16th-17th centuries，and would destroy “idols” in the hundreds of thousands there as well.It is of course no coincidence that as the relics were destroyed or removed into obscurity，the museum was born as “cabinets of curiosity” first in Italy and Spain，and then in France and Southern Germany.The power of objects – whether mimetic or contiguous – i.e.you nearly always in fact have a combination of the two forms of magical actions described by Mauss（ influenced by Frazier ）– lies in the Christian tradition of isolating and hiding them to allow them to emanate their powers that literally catch the eye of the beholder.

The subject of splitting/separating，and then，re-joining fact and fetish is well illustrated in Bruno Latours term for this as in his On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods or Factishism.In his summary diagram – he shows how “We Moderns”separate subjects and objects/representations from things above the line，and then reunite them below it.

What Europeans condemned in the notion of the fetish – encountered in West Africa and elsewhere – condemned as a disease of the mind – revolves around the deeply theological point of creation.How could the “African” say，on the one hand，they made the object，and，at the same time，claim it to be a deity or divine？

The choice of the Portuguese word “fetishism” from the Portuguese adjective “fetico” which is derived from the verb “feito” to make or fabricate - suggests this ambiguity in the European sensorium.Masks as “fetish” in the European imagination evokes horror –the monstrous – it is a feature of borders and transgressions.Also it compelled an inquiry into the nature of materiality as materializing the invisible.

Fabrication and Divinity

According to Latour the fetishist is confused – mistaken about the source of the power of something of his own creation – i.e.something he has built  on his own by his own hands and means – yet attributes to it the power he creates to the object itself.As Latour says -a paradox is generated.If you remove the power from the object，where is it to be located，in the hands of the fabricator as author？ Or，to the social context that produced it？ Or，as mystification in Marxs use of the term for commodity fetishism？ So，a fetishless world is one populated by commodities which we can only know and relate to as consumers，and as objects we know.If we remove the consumer from the fetish-like nature of the commodity，we do not reveal a truth in production，nor some kind of objective truth or some truth that leads to humans regaining mastery as a result.We simply produce more aliens – more fetishes.

The struggle to keep facts separate from fetishes is at the heart of this paradox，and，of course，in the past at least neatly exported them to the primitive periphery.A certain kind of Anthropology and Archaeology provide suitable avenues here – i.e.Anthropology has been dedicated to mend the break - e.g.the Anthropology of Art departure from Primitive Art.

But we have to ask how does the museum/art gallery/concert hall provide a unique access to authenticity by addressing the form of the object or image on display without knowing any of the contexts？ What is so fascinating about “contextlessness” – i.e.objects to look at which do not speak？

Both Valery and Proust argue against return to context – and for the uniqueness of form – where objects are offered for contemplation as ends in themselves.Both are pointing to this legacy of the relic from the counter reformation – the isolation and picking out of the unique object that once isolated i.e.can no longer be seen or touched– the power of the object that goes beyond mere fabrication – transcends the spirit.

Within the setting of the impact of fetishism in West Africa，anthropologists have rightly striven to isolate the context of ritually empowered objects from the projections of a post counter reformationist fear that being rid of relics in one place – would only lead to their rediscovery as fetish somewhere else.

Going Beyond Fabrication

Our eponymous African hero – displaying blank misrecognition to the European colonialist or now the Pentecostal pastor – who both condemned as paradoxical that something can be made by human hand and yet its power can transcend its origin as a fetish -but our hero doesnt understand what they are on about in being supposed to have some reason for not seeing the contradiction.We can surmise that this must also be something to do with access to objects that are deemed to be in themselves powerful.

Here I will draw on an analogous situation of conserving，preserving and displaying objects in an indigenous context of artefact creation and display in West Africa.Why do the shrines in annual rituals always look like a jumble of things – lacking connection – and yet，clearly what is seen as disorderly to the tidy European mind– is precisely the source of its power.

It is of course very tempting to make sense of this by creating an itinerary of objects，actions，names，etc.But，I think this is a bit of a classificatory trap.The intention of informants is precisely to differentiate things and to treat differentiation as a source of efficacy.

Epilogue

So what has been my point in this paper？ I have asked what it would mean for us to allow things to think for themselves – to generate their own terms of analytical argument.In the move from artefact to concept - probably here activation would be my central point.

I am also saying that contra Adorno – although maybe this is where his sympathies really lay - the dusty objects decontextualized in their museum cases – have an innate attraction - as Alfred Gell says，they have an ability to attract and seduce in their own right - they activate a response in us the viewers（ or not if display fails the artefacts ）.Putting objects back into the “living context” reduces this attraction，displaces them into some kind of social meaning that betrays the value of the objects，Perhaps primitive art had something going for it.

The Eurocentric fascination with display - in art museums; ethnographic collections like the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford – or，in a concert hall when you forget about what Wagner said and listen to the music - are products of isolating this experience from the rationality of work – the market – administration – capitalism，etc.- into the privatised world of leisure /pleasure（I think this is Adornos point，and it– certainly would be Walter Benjamins and Bruno Latours）.

In my Cameroon context - and more broadly West Africa - this isolation is not the case，and the expectation that artefacts fabricate lives for themselves and you through ritual means is taken as a more everyday occurrence.You fear or enjoy them more than the clandestine /secretive European sense of guilty pleasure or internalised subjectivity.

Finally for the archaeologists - the autonomy of artefacts is a rare resource.But bear in mind，Henry Hodges book Artefacts - one of the most boring books ever written.

Key Words：   artifacts，materiality，museum，factishism，divinity

References：

Bruno Latour.On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods，Durham： Duke Univ Press，2010.

Friedrich Nietzsche.On the Use and Abuse of History for Life，Richer Resources Publications，2010.

Karl Marx.Capital： A Critique of Political Economy，New York： The Modern Library，1906，pp.81-96.

Henry Hodges.Artifacts： Introduction to Early Materials and Technology，Bristol Classical Press，1995.

Marcel Mauss，（with collaboration of H.Hubert）.A General Theory of Magic， London ：Routledge.2001（1902-3）.

T.Adorno.Valery Proust Museum，in his Prisms，Cambridge： MIT Press.，1981，pp.173-187.

Theodore Adorno.Valery Proust Museum，in Prisms，Cambridge： MIT Press，1981.

V.Baeke.Water Spirits and Witchcraft： Ritual，Myths and Objects.In de Heusch Luc（ed）Objects： Signs of Africa.Tervuren： Snoeck Ducaju and Zoon，2010.