The Field : An Experiment in Levinasian Ethics

Abstract

Written with Juliette Brown. This article is written in the context of social anthropology and so self-consciously navigates the different knowledges assumed in its readership. It is an attempt at describing the history and raison d'etre of an ongoing and durational artwork called The Field located in the county of Essex near London, UK, and within a wider history of such art 'experiments'. The text attempts to describe Levinas's ideas of ethical engagements of the other as Other from within an art practice and describes how The Field experiment can be described as trying to enact this type of ethical engagement with both human and non-human others. The text does not an attempt at locating Levinas's 'metaethics' within philosophy. Further, we chart where this experiment differs from Levinas's own ideas.