First there was Comedy of Things. Then came Group 4 – and made a Comedy of Things. Pre-written texts and objects from sites of fieldwork and origin formed the starting point for this collective experimentation. As the limited time set aside for the experiment had passed, Comedy of Things had gained a textual and material form, which we present on this site. Feel free to explore our efforts to experiment with anthropological knowledge making through five ‘machines’ – ludic encounters between people, texts and objects that allowed for, constrained and deferred forms of agency. Each machine reworked the original texts and objects; each development gave rise to new questions, and new machines. It turned out that all machines were short-lived. All of them broke down after intensive use, and opened up new variants of ‘doing’ texts, bodies and objects together. What did the machines produce? Poke inside them, meet a few ghosts, and allow yourself to puzzle about the comedy in the knowledge making ambitions of these machines.

 

Benjamin Alberti

Matei Candea

Anne Line Dalsgård

Morten Axel Pedersen

Brit Ross Winthereik