‘Trying to Hear with the Eyes’: Slow Looking and Ontological Difference in Archaeological Object Analysis

This article presents an alternative to archaeological object observation through an exercise in alterity and slow looking. It is inspired by the movement of Slow Archaeology, and based on the art of slow looking, perspectivism, and 16th century Japanese object aesthetics in the context of the Japanese tea ceremony. The exercise experiments with different vantage points, embodiment, and empathy related to theories of the ontological turn and non-discursive knowledge. Stimulating ourselves to employ different ways of looking can be a helpful tool in starting to think about difference and alterity, but can also possibly reach new insights on ancient object-use, performance, and perception. It can therefore form an additional instrument to formal object analyses already practiced in archaeology, as well as be a form of emancipation in education as it draws on other, non-discursive, forms of knowledge.