Amanda Ravetz: Exploring Reverie

Amanda Ravetz: Exploring Reverie

10:00-12:00. Friday 14th June. CMB Seminar Room 5

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In this presentation Amanda Ravetz will talk about three projects that used video (x2) and drawing (x1) to explore reverie. Psychoanalyst Thomas Ogden defines reverie as the “‘ruminations, daydreams, fantasies, bodily sensations, fleeting perceptions, images emerging from states of half-sleep (Frayn 1987), tunes (Boyer 1992) and phrases (Flannery 1979) that run through our minds…” (Ogden, 158). He cautions ‘it is almost impossible not to be dismissive of reverie since it is an experience that takes the most mundane and yet most personal of shapes.’ (Ogden, 158).

In the first example, “Entry”, Ravetz developed a way to publicly assemble the conditions in which an experience of reverie might occur. In the second, “Sipping Water”, Ravetz and two co-participants used a written score to test the possibility of inducing reverie through drawing, a medium intimately connected to the body. In the third example, “All That Was Old Is New Again”, Ravetz and a co-researcher used reverie as part of a two month film archival research project at the national Film and Sound Archive Australia.

The presentation will draw on object relations theory to consider the significance of reverie to artistic and visual anthropology research. To what extent does Winnicott’s evocative phrase ‘little madnesses’ illuminate our negotiation of the line between inner and outer, domestic and public worlds? Stephanie Bunn will act as a discussant.

This event is made possible by the University of St Andrews.

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Organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain & Ireland (RAI) since 1985, it is an itinerant festival that moves biennially from one university host to another, in association with local community and cultural organisations.

The festival will be held from Thursday 13 June to Sunday 16 June 2013 in Edinburgh, hosted by National Museums Scotland and the STAR consortium. Scottish Training in Anthropological Research (STAR) is a collaboration between the Universities of Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews. Over 60 new films will be screened alongside a conference 'New Observations' and a selection of special events and workshop about art & anthropology and the use of archival film.

The RAI Film Festival is held in collaboration with the Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California.

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The Festival gratefully acknowledges sponsorship from:

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