انسان شناسی تصویری

The culture of every society is not constant over different periods, and it transforms being affected by various factors including the effect of other cultures. Also, art inevitably transforms over time being affected by the culture. Therefore, study of art as a phenomenon that is affected by culture can be a step towards identifying the human and culture. Visual anthropology is a major subcategory of cultural anthropology, and it investigates the culture by means of image. Also, it investigates the humans’ thoughts, relationships, and situations by studying their culture. This research is a descriptive analytical study in which, data collection has been done by library method. It aims to investigate the visual relationships in the contemporary Iranian Graphics. For this purpose, the research has been performed by using the global anthropological concepts and theories introduced by the Indian anthropologist, Arjun Appadurai. It is assumed that the today’s phenomenon of globalization can make significant changes in moving towards homogenization or heterogenization to the global culture. The research population includes the posters exhibited in Silver Cedar Exhibitions in 2017 and 2019. Regarding the content of the contemporary Iranian graphics, the artists have paid attention to the national visual identity and companionship of national and transnational identities. This attitude provides a new viewpoint and structure in association of two different identities.

The production of historical films and television series about a particular historical period does not just indicate the importance of that period to the film- and cultural policymakers of a society, but is generally a representation of the current or ideal state of that society. In fact, a historical period is used as an excuse for depicting what wants to be said about current circumstances. This paper tries to analyze the cinematic productions made about the Safavid era (three films produced before the Revolution and two television series made after) from the perspective of visual anthropology. This has been done through Levi Strauss and Barthes’ theories on mythology. The Safavid era is depicted as having been glorious and splendid, functioning as a “golden age” myth. This myth is used to resolve the incongruity between our current identity and the pride we feel in regard to our past.