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Projecting Films to Spirits

On Shrines as Conjunctural Space and the Ritual Economy of Outdoor Cinema in Bangkok

Bibliographic Data

ID12409754
AuthorsRichard L Macdonald (0000-0002-9539-5556), Richard Macdonald (Goldsmiths University of London, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume33
Issue2
Pages152-163
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Anthropology Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1058-7187 • E-ISSN: 1548-7458
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/var.12133
OpenAlexW2756461097
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

This article is concerned with the ritually embedded character of open‐air cinema in Thailand. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Isaan and Bangkok and interviews with different actors within the ritual economy of open‐air cinema at shrines and temples. Outlining different ritual actions through which cinema is sponsored, it then focuses on a particular practice: pledging film screenings to spirits and deities at shrines. Looking at a specific site, a Daoist shrine in suburban Bangkok, it foregrounds the implications of a disjuncture between the personal nature of the spiritual transaction and the public character of its fulfillment. It considers these implications through an analysis of the spatial conjuncture formed when a projector casts its light in a particular setting, which is then appropriated by those customarily excluded by the institution of cinema in its commodity form

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Business · Character (mathematics · Commodity · Ethnography · Institution · Movie theater · Social science · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Philosophy · South Asian Cinema and Culture · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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Unique citing works1
Citations per year0,2
Citation span2021 - 2021 (1)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 1
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