Tim Ingold

Tim Ingold est professeur d'anthropologie sociale à l'Université d'Aberdeen (Écosse). Il a publié notamment, en français, Une brève histoire des lignes (Zone sensible), Marcher avec les dragons (Zone sensible),  Être au monde, quelle expérience commune ? (avec Philippe Descola, PUL), Faire - Anthropologie, Archéologie, Art et Architecture (Dehors).

Biographie de Tim Ingold (en anglais)

« With the rise of digital technology, the work of the hand has been removed to the tips of the fingers. But these fingers, while they mediate the transmission of information in a virtual world of artificial intelligence, have no purchase in the real world of forces and materials. They cannot feel its surface textures, nor can they intertwine with one another, curl around things, squeeze, grasp, hold or carry. For millennia, human beings have used their fingers in skilled manual operations, ranging from knotting and weaving through breadmaking and milking to embroidery and handwriting. Today, as the digital increasingly invades the theatres of everyday life, we are close to losing these skills. Many are already lost, or sustained only within narrow specialist circles. What, then, will become of our descendants, centuries on from now? We can be sure of two things: first, that they will still be possessed of hands and fingers; second, that the age of digitisation will have long past, leaving only the ruins of discarded devices in its wake. The technology is manifestly unsustainable. We therefore owe it to coming generations to look after the skills that have served our ancestors for so long. For far into the future, people will still need them, just as they did in the past. »

— Tim Ingold

Cette conférence est organisée dans le cadre du programme de recherche Arts & Crafts aujourd'hui, financé par le projet européen Erasmus +