multimedia
anthropology
lab.
UCL MAL is a student-led research network aimed at developing innovative methods for anthropological practice. We experiment with diverse tools and mediums for gathering data and presenting research, including sound, film, VR/360 video, AI, performance, exhibitions and installations, and explore how they can contribute towards alternative forms of anthropological thinking. If anthropology is to remain relevant today we must develop new forms of practice which can dialogue with more diverse audiences, collaborate with colleagues across disciplines, and disrupt existing models of thought.
LOCATION: MS, Brazil
MEDIUM: 360 Video, Ambisonic Sound, Sound, Video,
Photogrammetry, Photography,
SUPPORTED BY: British Museum
This project aims to document the material processes and technical knowledge through which Guarani & Kaiowá ceremonial houses are constructed and the ritual practices that these structures enable. A wide range of recording techniques will be used in the process of documentation. All the recordings will be delivered to the British Museum's Endangered Material Knowledges Program
LOCATION: Tate Modern, UK
MEDIUM: Exhibition 360 Video, VR, AR, Sound
SUPPORTED BY: UCL
This exhibition examined technologies of capture and perspective exchange, exploring their role in both art and anthropology. Taking place in the context of Higher Resolution, as part of TATE Exchange, we led a workshop that explored how ways of seeing and believing encode themselves into technological objects.
LOCATION: UCL Festival of Culture
MEDIUM: Exhibition Featuring: Ambisonic Spatial Audio,
Installation, Projection mapping, 360 Video, VR, Olfactory Narration & Interactive Sculpture
SUPPORTED BY: UCL Festival of Culture
LOCATION: MS, Brazil
MEDIUM: 360 Video, Ambisonic Sound, Sound, Video,
Photogrammetry, Photography,
SUPPORTED BY: FIMI
This immersive exhibition presents contemporary research on ecological crisis and human futures, in an experimental collaboration by UCL’s Multimedia Anthropology Lab. Bringing together interdisciplinary works conducted by anthropologists, artists, and sound designers, this event draws on immersive spatial audio, projection mapping, and VR to take us through the shifting ecologies of our times, while inviting us to speculate on alternative futures.
This project is a collaborative knowledge-exchange between UCL MAL and the Kuñangue Aty Guasu: the Guarani & Kaiowá indigenous women’s council meeting, which this year will take place online In tandem, we are finalising preparations for MAL’s Multimedia Encounters conference, and the translation of this event into an online format invites us to reflect on the parallels between the knowledge practices of indigenous communities and those of anthropologists.
LOCATION: London, UK & South Brazil
MEDIUM: Audio-Visual Piece Shot with Super 8,
Handpainted and Scratched
SUPPORTED BY: Independent Production.
Research Conducted at the Wellcome Collection
Plantaphilia is a collaborative project that consists of a series of analog films exploring the life of plants through responsive visual and sound, encompassing the perspective of plant ontology. The plants are specifically connected to the history of botany and medicine, acknowledging the colonial encounter between the Old and the New World and consequently how plants are seeing and spread.
LOCATION: MS, Brazil
MEDIUM: 360 Video, VR, Photogrammetry
SUPPORTED BY: UCL Grand Challenges
From the Other's Point of View is an interdisciplinary project developing practical mechanisms for immersive technologies to change the ways human-environment relationships are perceived and understood. This is especially important in the context of contemporary environmental crises where the prevalence of exploitative human-environment relationships threaten global ecologies, leading to an increased urgency to both interrogate these exploitative relationships and to explore alternatives.
