I show how different formal characteristics of the composition of the images constitute techniques for the focalizationof the gaze, whose kinesthetic effect consists in projecting the onlooker into the graphic space, causing the opacity of the surface to disappear and producing movement and profundity in the perceptive space. I argue that in the case of Amerindian design systems we are dealing with extremely minimalistic images, which suppose a real engagement of the act of seeing with the image. I use chimera in the sense given to the term by Severi, calling attention to the tension between what is shown and what is hidden in an image. I also consider the possibility of baptizing these design systems as “abstract chimeras”. This article explores how different formal techniques used by the Cashinahua and other “people with design” can be considered as “perspectival techniques”, meaning techniques enabling the onlooker to change point of view. Keywords: shamanism ayahuasca Amerindian relational aesthetics song. The ritual technique of almost becoming consists of alternatingly producing and undoing temporary transformations through song. In this context the expression “you are what you eat” has specific implications for one’s health and for the acquisition of agentive and perceptive capabilities of other beings. This other-becoming is a becoming in a deleuzian sense, which means that the lived experience is situated in-between the space of self and other. The experience entails a process of other-becoming where to know means to see through the eyes of Other to be covered with the skin/ornaments of those beings one has consumed and to sing through their voice. The songs unveil the workings of embodied perception and synesthesia, that is, the transductions of bodily sensations and perceptions in vision, rhythm, song and sound. The argument is sustained by a short presentation of Huni Kuin (Cashinahua) aesthetics as re- vealed in huni meka, ayahuasca song.Īfter depicting the contemporary scene of Huni Kuin ayahuasca shamanism and artistic agency, I analyze a selection of image-songs from this ritual. To understand the mul- tiple versions of Amerindian relational ontologies we have to be able to perceive the relational character of the aes- thetics they reveal. In conclusion, I argue for a return to aesthetics and poetics as the quintessential domains for exploring how different ontologies can teach us to look at the world differently. Secondly, I undertake an archaeology of the concept of perspectivism as a central stage of the ontological turn, showing how the sub-discipline of Amerindian ethnology has always had a vocation for Copernican turnings, from the time of Montaigne until today. First, I situate the academic success of Amerindian on- tologies in the context of recent debates on the urgency of addressing the political consequences of the anthropocene. In this article I explore the ontological turn in anthropo- logical theory through three interconnected approaches.
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