Musical Instruments as Subject of Knowledge: Body and Animality

Abstract

Can musical instruments be subjects of knowledge? This dissertation explores the materiality and cultural meaning of two wind instruments, which emerged from differing cultural and temporal contexts but are currently held in separate collections within the Neue Burg, the neo-Baroque section of the former imperial palace in Vienna. The first instrument, the Serpent, from late-sixteenth-century Europe, is part of the Collection of Historic Musical Instruments at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The second, the Yurupari, is an indigenous instrument from northwestern Amazonia, held by the Weltmuseum Wien since 1973. Each artifact offers a possibility for reflection, revealing themselves as active participants in knowledge production, blurring the distinctions between object and subject, human and animal. Employing a methodology informed by scientific and philosophical approaches, this doctoral project uncovers how these instruments embody history, sensory experience, and epistemological entanglements. Its aims are to uncover how these instruments arrived at these two Viennese institutions, explore their characteristics—including their potential animality—and interrogate what they reveal about the period of European colonial domination. Rather than merely serving as static objects from museological collections, the Serpent and Jurupari are analyzed as dynamic bodies that perceive and challenge understandings of objectivity and the relationship between nature, culture, and sound.

Short biography

Camila Sposati is a visual artist and researcher born in São Paulo (Brazil). She holds a Master's degree in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College, London. She published by Revolver (Berlin) the book Stone Theatre (2016). Since 2020, She is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy candidate at the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies at Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien.