Recorded between 1976 and 77, Juan Downey's video experiments with the Yanomami people have been widely celebrated as offering a critique of traditional anthropology through their use of feedback technology. This article argues, however, that close attention to the different feedback situations the artist constructs with the group reveal a more complex relationship between Downey and that discipline. In the enthusiasm he manifests for synchronous, closed-circuit video feedback in many of his statements about his Yanomami project, Downey in fact tacitly affirms some of the most problematic principles of traditional anthropology. In his emphasis on the real-time quality of this particular form of feedback, the artist puts forth a view of Yanomami society as itself synchronous, as a type of homeostatic, changeless system outside of historical time. As such he participates in a synchronic bias that anthropologists of his own time had begun to seriously critique. By focusing on one individual video from the Yanomami project, The Laughing Alligator of 1979, this essay argues that Downey's critical contribution to anthropological debates of his time does not come in the form of synchronous feedback, but rather through a different procedure unique to video technology based on temporal lag, delay, and spacing.

中文翻译：

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胡安·唐尼的民族志礼物

胡安·唐尼（Juan Downey）在1976年至77年之间录制的与亚诺玛米（Yanomami）人的视频实验被广泛赞誉为通过使用反馈技术对传统人类学进行了批判。但是本文认为，密切关注艺术家与小组建立的不同反馈情况，揭示了唐尼和该学科之间更为复杂的关系。在对亚诺玛米项目所做的许多陈述中，唐尼都表现出了对同步闭路视频反馈的热情，事实上，唐尼默契地肯定了传统人类学中一些最有问题的原则。在强调这种特定形式的反馈的实时质量时，艺术家提出了Yanomami社会​​作为一种同步的，自我平衡的，历史时间之外的不变系统。正因为如此，他参与了当时人类学家已经开始认真批评的共时偏见。本文着眼于Yanomami项目1979年的《笑的短吻鳄》中的单个视频，认为唐尼对他那个时代的人类学辩论的重要贡献不是以同步反馈的形式出现，而是通过视频技术独有的不同方法基于时间滞后，延迟和间隔。