The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (incorporating Man)Expanded EthnographyNotes on the Dialectics between Convergence and Expansion of the EthnographicField in the production of Supereverything*

This paper offers a theoretical analysis of Supereverything *, a live cinematicperformance in the synthetic form of a musical gig and visual spectacle, produced byThe Light Surgeons and British Council of Malaysia between 2011-2017. By looking atethnography as a multi-sited and evolving field in the tradition of George Marcus andMichael Fischer, the paper returns to the cinematic concept of “expanded cinema”looking into current forms of expansion in audio-visual ethnographic representation (i.e.“expanded ethnography”). In doing so, it analyses the live cinematic performances ofSupereverything * in terms of convergences, correspondences, and intermedialstaging, all of which dialectically synthesize the expanded "field," as it emergesfrom within the world system (Marcus). In doing so, the paper discusses the aestheticaldialectics that produce the enlargement of the ethnographic field from a singularstage to a multiplicity of actors and stages ("fields") via staged interconnections madebetween intermedia technologies and social/bodily intersubjective relations, as theyemerged via exploratory practices on and beyond the limits of the stage for theproduction of Supereverything* .