Projecting Films to Spirits: on shrines as conjunctural space and the ritual economy of outdoor cinema in Bangkok

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MacDonald, Richard L. 2017. Projecting Films to Spirits: on shrines as conjunctural space and the ritual economy of outdoor cinema in Bangkok. Visual Anthropology Review, 33(2), pp. 152-163. ISSN 1058-7187 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

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.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12133

Additional Information:

Funding: ASEASUK (Association of South East Asia Scholars in the UK), British Academy

Keywords:

outdoor cinema, conjunctural space, ritual economy, spirit shrines, sacred sites, Bangkok

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Dates: