Juan Downey's Yanomami Video Project Reassessed in 2017 Article

In 2017, an article by Benjamin Murphy reevaluated Juan Downey's video work with the Yanomami people, recorded from 1976 to 1977. While Downey's experiments have been praised for critiquing anthropology through feedback technology, Murphy argues they reveal a more complex stance. The artist's enthusiasm for synchronous, closed-circuit video feedback in his Yanomami project inadvertently affirmed problematic anthropological principles, portraying Yanomami society as a static, changeless system outside historical time. This synchronic bias was already being critiqued by anthropologists during Downey's era. Focusing on the 1979 video The Laughing Alligator, the essay contends that Downey's critical contribution lies not in synchronous feedback but in video techniques involving temporal lag, delay, and spacing. The article, published on October 5, 2017, is available via MIT Press under a subscription model. It challenges previous interpretations of Downey's work, highlighting a nuanced relationship between art and anthropological discourse.