Líneas: Una breve historia (Libertad y Cambio nº 132)

by Tim Ingold

¿En qué se parecen caminar, tejer, observar, narrar, cantar, dibujar y escribir? La repuesta es que, de uno u otro modo, todo lo anterior se lleva a cabo a través de líneas. Visto así, la Historia entera es una línea, compuesta por pequeñas líneas. En este libro Tim Ingold imagina un mundo en el que todos y todo se compone de líneas entrelazadas o in-terconectadas y sienta las bases de una nueva disciplina: la ar-queología antropológica de la línea. El argumento de Ingold nos lleva a través de la música de la antigua Grecia y del Japón contemporáneo, por laberintos de Siberia y vías ro-manas, por la caligrafía china y el alfabeto impreso, tejiendo un camino entre la antigüedad y el presente. Ingold revela cómo nuestra percepción de las líneas ha cambiado en el tiempo, con la modernidad antes de convertirse en recta, la línea es un conjunto de puntos, pero el mundo posmoderno la rompe y fragmenta para estudiarla mejor. Tim Ingold utiliza para su estudio muchas disciplinas, como la Arqueolo-gía, Estudios Clásicos, Historia del Arte, la Lingüística, la Psicología, la Musicología, la Filosofía y muchos otros. Este libro nos lleva por un viaje intelectual estimulante que va a cambiar la manera en que vemos el mundo y la forma en que vamos por el mismo.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Art, History, Theory, Design

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 8, 2007

About the author

Tim Ingold (born 1948) is a British social anthropologist, currently Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at Leighton Park School and Cambridge University. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His bibliography includes The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge, 2000, which is a collection of essays, some of which had been published earlier.

Reviews

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that initially I had some problems with Ingold's approach: this is obviously not a history of "the line" (as the subtitle suggests). And his approach is so fragmentary and loose that I got lost a bit in his detailed analyses of musical notation, the technique of writing and printing, and the design of genealogical family trees, etc. What also always bothers me in the work of anthropologists is the antagonism they at all costs want to prove between Western modernity and traditional cultures, with usually a very negative undertone regarding modernity. Also Ingold follows that line a bit; at times I even had the impression that I was reading a downright anti-modernist manifesto. He often puts straight lines (connecting points, moving from one point to another, displaying evolutionary developments in line structures, etc.) on 1 line (pun intended) with rationalistic reductionism (read: straightness), and confronts them with the looser forms of gesture-singing-wandering in traditional societies, and suggesting that is a much richer way of approaching reality. As befits an anthropologist, he obviously illustrates this with examples of traditional peoples, but he also cites evidence from Western antiquity and the Middle Ages, and that is strange. For example, handwriting is compared to printing and machine-/computer writing as a completely different mental process.

Mind you: of course, it is a different mental process, but it seems to me that the historical reality is a lot more nuanced (in our modernist approach, many traditionalistic elements are included). Moreover, this modernist-straight-line rationalistic approach is not by definition negative: she made possible a scientific-technological approach that has made our world a whole lot more livable (with of course also important reverse-sides).

Now don’t misunderstand me: this is a really interesting book. Ingold's musings about lines and their influence on the way we look at reality are indeed relevant. And he is honest enough to bring on some nuances. But he also refuses to draw conclusions, deliberately so : “Lines are open-ended, and it is this open-endedness – of lives, relationships, histories and processes of thought – that I have wanted to celebrate. I hope that, in doing so, I have left plentiful loose ends for others to follow and to take in any ways they wish. Far from seeking closure, my aim has been to prise an opening. ” This is an enticing invitation, but it left me a bit unsatisfied. Maybe I should also try his next works.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

useful if wondering about lines is your thing

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In `Lines' Tim Ingold retraces the contours of a momentous techno-cultural evolution by investigating the status and role of an element that is so pervasive in our lifeworld that it becomes invisible: lines and surfaces. This evolution can be described as a movement from a topian, circuitous `line of wayfaring' to the utopian, straight line of modernity to the dystopian, fragmented line of postmodernity (quoting K. Olwig). From this central premise, Ingold spins an argument that goes in different directions, connecting practices as diverse as writing, reading, singing, drawing, weaving, building, dwelling, mapping and travelling. His anthropological lens draws in examples from cultures and ethnicities around the world. Ingold observes, hypothesizes, connects. Although it is clear that the author deplores our dwindling capacity for establishing life-giving connections with places that give us sustenance - in favour of a more opportunistic, functional way of being in the world - he is careful not too take a too strong position. The purpose of the argument is not make a point, but to establish a contingent, evolving meshwork of ideas. Ingold: "Lines are open-ended, and it is this open-endedness - of lives, relationships, histories, and processes of thought - that I wanted to celebrate." Even so, Ingold's way of building an argument is careful, sober and scholarly. A more spiritual side to the discussion shines through in his accessible and humane style of writing. In the themes and concepts surveyed, particularly also in the pivotal role assigned to technology (the printing press, the typewriter, the computer), Ingold's `Lines' connects to the (arguably more polemic) work of media theorist Vilem Flusser. There are also obvious connections to the work of Deleuze and De Landa. This is a book that by its very nature could connect to a wide range of interdisciplinary research efforts. It is also recommended to a more casual reader in search of unusual and inspiring ideas.

[izzy scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is reaaaaally great. like i want what he was on.
tim is out here spitting pure facts and seamless line puns while he’s at it. not sure what more a girl could want. oh and pictures.
i can only dream to be this stoned one day. (he definitely never smokes and has 2 kids and lives in the suburbs which just makes it even better)

[Aïsha · Rating 3 out of 5]

J’aime trop la recherche parce que comment ça tu m’écris 339 pages sur les lignes, les fils et les traces ? J’ai pas tout compris mais merci Tim mon mémoire repose littéralement sur ton blabla. Des jeux de mots toutes les deux pages, allez tiens tes trois étoiles.

[Cathy Graham · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea of wayfaring is fine. There are some interesting moments, but for the most part, this book dragged. If he could use a page instead of a sentence, he did so. Too much time spent on his Lines and not enough getting to the point.

[João · Rating 5 out of 5]

I also feel we are all "wayfarers and not navigators".

Tim Ingold case for lines is quite strong and fascinating - what an entertaining rabbit hole to fall into. But so is the case for circles and ellipses by many others. It is however my belief that eventually, everybody will arrive to the conclusion that both are right - in the form of spirals.

I am also fascinated by some of his ideas regarding weaving, e.g. "threading, twisting and knotting of fibres were among the most ancient of human arts, from which all else was derived, including both building and textiles" this is very reminiscent of Sadie Plant's cyberfeminist theories. Ingold does in fact emphasize it in multiple passages e.g. "Line-making is exclusively the province of women". Territories and mapping, architectural sketching, or music notation all melt into an older form of magic ritual as knots create and cycles destroy... "whereas the shaman heals by dropping lines into the body, the Western surgeon proceeds in the opposite". Indeed.

As a gyre is inescapable, so is the shape of the Tao.

[Bill Brydon · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Thus the anatomical gaze, not unlike that of the shaman, resolves bodily surfaces into their constituent threads. But whereas the shaman heals by dropping lines into the body, the Western surgeon proceeds in the opposite direction, stitching up the lines he already finds within the body and whose ruptures are the cause of the malaise, so as to reconstitute the surfaces of the whole."

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read, Tim Ingold does as he states right at the beginning: the scope is so wide that he can only compile an overview. I wished sometimes to get more in-depth information on specific views and thematic.

[Michael Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book Tim Ingold examines line making in the fields of drawing, storytelling, weaving, observing and writing. Lines can be threads (in space) or traces (on a surface) and are the fundamental ingredient of the lived world to the extent that the study of peoples and things amounts to the study of lines.

The lines in question are emphatically not the abstracted straight lines of Euclidean geometry, the line seen on a map or the straight line as seen in much modernist art and architecture. It is the fluid, improvised gestural and felt line made by people and things as they live in the world. The logic of inversion uses lines to contain and separate, dictate what is in and what is out, define order and measure and each step in that procedure squeezes the life out of whatever it is attempting to study. A conventional map reduces a landscape to a surface over which one can be transported. It contains no people: no life.

Ingold wants to put the rhythm of life back into anthropology by taking on the style of the wayfarer rather than specimen collector. This involves seeing our contact with the landscape as valuable and real and one worth revisiting. Much Western travelling and knowledge is imbued with the notion of discovery. Finding something or somewhere for the first time and perhaps naming it, whereas in Ingold's version we are less destination-focussed and understand and feel ourselves to be an integral part of the journey and almost always travelling in the footsteps of others in whose stories we share.
Indeed the path itself is made by walking and is itself a trace gestured into the landscape by many pairs of feet.

We are often unconscious heirs of a separated way of thinking. Ingold examines instances of the inherent (pre-printing) parity of the visual and verbal. How pictures spoke to the 'readers' of medieval manuscripts and how the vellum was more like a landscape to walk in and experience rather than our printed page. He asks the very good questions ‘How is it the word became silent and how did music lose its verbal aspect, so indivisible in many cultures and times?’

Reminding us that many things we take to be separate are in fact intimately bound is a central part of Ingold's re-configuring of the way we see the world. He would not see this as the imposition of a way of thinking that 'explains' the world but rather an acknowledgement that this is how the world is.

Again, movement is seen as a primary element in perception and cognition so that we see along a path of perception rather than a single still point of view and our knowledge of our surroundings comes from our moving through them. In fact our movement and the lines we leave and follow are so bound up with us that the traveller and their lines can be said to be one and the same thing. The story of this journey does not tell of objects, or things discovered but rather different topics, which are in themselves further bundles and entanglements of lines. Just as we are equivalent to our lines so the story walks just like a human or animal.

Drawing is a sophisticated form of line making. One in which our mistakes are recorded in a workmanship of risk that is gestural and revealing. Even in conventional drawing the goal is not to produce a likeness of whatever we are drawing but to reproduce the rhythm and movements of the world of which it is part.

Another erudite, practical, clear and stimulating book from Tim Ingold. A really helpful and inspiring book for those who know that tick-boxes and bean counting should really not be running the world.

[Dolf Wagenaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mijn houding tegenover dit boek is nogal ambivalent. Zoals de meeste moderne antropologische werken die zich met meer abstracte concepten bezighouden, is ook dit boek op veel plaatsen vaag, springt van de hak op de tak en is het lastig uit te maken waar het heen wil. Dat laatste is de schrijver te vergeven omdat één van de 'problemen' van de modernistische rechte lijn volgens Ingold juist dat doelmatige is. Bij menig hoofdstuk twijfelde ik aan mijn eigen intelligentie (= ik snapte het niet), maar op andere plaatsen kwam Ingold met scherpe, nieuwe observaties en ideeën. En dan waren er nog observaties en ideeën die ik te ver gezocht (m.n. waar het analogieën betrof) of gewoon onjuist vond.
Ingold laat het in zijn conclusie aan de lezer wat deze met de losse eindjes in het boek moet, wat aan de ene kant wel erg makkelijk is, aan de andere kant past het in zijn betoog.
Een van de mooiste gedachten vond ik de goed uitgewerkte vergelijking van het modernisme met de rechte lijn (utopie), het postmodernisme met de onderbroken lijn (dystopie), en een wenselijke meer organisch 'topisch' denken. Jammer genoeg is deze notie niet van Ingold zelf, maar citeert hij hier de landschapsgeograaf Kenneth Olwig.
Het vergelijken van het denken in de pre-moderne tijd met het bewandelen van een pad ('wayfaring') zonder dat er echt een einde aan het pad is, is een toevoeging van Ingold - en het grootste deel van het boek gaat ook hierover - en het is wellicht zijn wens om dit weer terug te krijgen (zowel in het denken als het doen), als een 'topisch' denken van Olwig dus, en dat is m.i. de meerwaarde van het boek. Helaas zit er veel vaags en wat mij betreft onnodigs omheen gedrapeerd, waardoor deze boodschap teveel ondergesneeuwd raakt.
Hoe dan ook, het boek zet je zeker aan het denken - zowel in navolging van Ingold als om zijn vagere ideeën tegen te kunnen spreken of meer te concretiseren.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of lines that Tim Ingold introduces is interesting and does really deserve to be taken up and tested/applied by researchers in various fields also outside of anthropology. His concept doesn't build on the established 2- and 3-dimension treatise of texture and surfaces, but rather begins by itself and redefines all that it comes across to form a tentative, yet detailed, method of perspection (if I can call it that).
Tim Ingold is rather obsessed with lines, but he does bring some interesting points. Nevertheless, this work by itself remains conceptional and cannot be readily applied as an established method; it still needs to be tested and tried.

I had to read this in class as the course's readings and theory was all provided by this book. The goal of the class was to try and apply the theory to our own field of research (we are a very varied group of students). I found it fascinating how suddenly I was able to detect lines in many areas of my field, from the abstract to the practical.

[Eòghann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smaoineachail. A' toirt diofar rudan còmhla, gu soilleir. Ruig na h-argamaidean is co-dhùnaidhean orm, ged nach robh mi buileach ag aontachadh ris an-còmhnaidh.

rinn e sgaraidhean (loidhne free hand, wayfaring an aghaidh loidhne a' riochdachadh puingean air slighe...transport/graph, air neo sgaradh eadar sgriobhadh le pen no taipeadh le coimpiutair). Glè intinneach.

Freagarrach dhòmhsa an-drasta, oir bha mìrean dhan leabhar a' suathadh ris na sgaraidhean fuadain dichotomous a tha ri lorg ann an sgoilearachd: material is mind. Sheall e gun robh, m.e., am facal text a' tighinn bho facal (laideann?) airson clomh, weave -- text, textile. Is gur dòch gur e trioblaid a th' ann an sin dhuinn.

[Boyne Narongdej · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book. It never occurred to me that 'lines' are so ubiquitous. The author gives a profound account of what is constituted as 'lines' (thread, trace, crack, crevice and so on) including imaginary 'lines' we are continually creating but often blind to their existence. Also, how the stories of 'lines' are recounted in relation to writing, drawing, storytelling, plotting, to say the least, is so captivating. I wonder if the idea of 'lines' in other Asian societies would run in the same direction, although he gave an example of Chinese calligraphy. Whether there is a universal idea of 'lines' is worth giving a though to.

[Rodrigo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Las líneas representan una forma de concebir el movimiento como contenido de vida, de lo que parte Ingold para connotar a modo introductorio, sus consideraciones en torno a los nudos, los trazados, las mallas, etc. Valiéndose de análisis y descripciones etnográficas de algunos mundos periféricos al parámetro occidental, Ingold presenta la matriz cultural colonialista que equiparó la linea como movimiento con la noción de rectitud, "símbolo virtual" de la modernidad, de donde se desprenden interesantes cuestionamientos en torno a la tecnología, las artes, el dibujo, las notaciones, la escritura, etc.

[bfdez.nuria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sé que volveré a él, aunque solo sea por la cantidad de ejemplos interesantísimos que continuamente cita y explica, y estoy convencida de que es uno de esos libros en los que todo el mundo puede encontrar algo que le fascine por completo. Por esas dos razones se lo recomendaría (y lo haré) a cualquiera. Aún con todo, creo que a veces se aventura demasiado en sacar conclusiones y sus planteamientos me resultan un tanto caóticos, a pesar de lo mucho que intenta simplificarlos.



(PD: Aunque me haya llevado mi tiempecito terminarlo es todo culpa mía, el libro en sí es muy ameno de leer)

[Adri Humo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy recomendado para quien le guste la antropología y cierta mirada poética y estética hacia las imágenes del mundo.
Me encanta con qué originalidad coge la idea de línea y comienza a deambular y tejer toda una clasificación repleta de implicaciones. Hilos, escritos, viajes, grabados, arboles genealógicos, huellas... Todo acompañado de ejemplos concretos y una mirada antropológica. Qué líneas elegimos trazar, entrelazar o seguir; eso es lo que importa.

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this book, I don't think I'll ever see walking the same way again. Definitely an interesting read.

[Rahul Chodankar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very few books have the ability to affect us in a significant way. This book is one of them

[Sergio Mira Jordán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un ensayo magnífico.

[mattouaisouais · Rating 4 out of 5]

pas lu d’une traite, les chapitres marchent plutôt indépendamment et c’est pas toujours facile à suivre mais très très intéressant, ça m’a donné plein d’idées de lignes et je m’y référerai sûrement

[Liliana]

still reading, slowly, as i'm making so many notes and occasional drawings as i'm reading, a really good book

[Jackson Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

so sick

[Osman Tümay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mind opening book.

[Dimitris Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just realised I never reviewed this. Lines was suggested to me by my professor when I was back in university Despina Catapoti. Ingold has a way with innovative writing about anthropology, culture and human affairs and this was one of those books. I like it when writers look for ways to connect fields that had never been connected previously. Music, writing, threads (which are added, whereas tracks are subtracted), constellations, maps? Enjoyable and intelligent.

[morbidflight · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a text best read in conjunction with Carey's Communication as Culture, Revised Edition: Essays on Media and Society, but it's still an enjoyable read.

[marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great reading for architects

[mahatmanto · Rating 3 out of 5]

it might be called a comparative anthropology of the line...(p.1)
"traces, threads, surfaces" (p.39)