**5. Pre-Inca Diaguita art: the agency of art and technologies of enchantment**

A detailed examination of pre-Inca Diaguita visual art [1] from the perspective of its motifs, formal logic, and symmetrical structure suggests that this representational universe does not seek to communicate specific concepts of any kind. Notably, the hyper-concentrated visual litanies of that period were crafted by artisans highly skilled in intricate, complex symmetrical operations. For us, it appears that their aim was more likely the creation of what Gell [22] has termed "technologies of enchantment."

In turn, the same author considers decorative art a special form of technology. Gell comments [23],"the decoration of objects is a component of a social technology, which I have elsewhere called the technology of enchantment" [22], and continues, "this psychological technology encourages and maintains the motivations 6necessitated by social life. The world is filled with decorated objects because decoration is often essential to the psychological functionality of artifacts, which cannot be dissociated from the other types of functionality they possess, notably their practical or social functionality" ([23], p. 74).

As Gell explains, work of art captivate the viewer with the difficultly of their conception and execution. Their uniqueness and beauty transform them into active agents in the social sphere. In particular, abstract art exploits our perception of internal agency because

*"Patterns, by their multiplicity and the difficulty we have in grasping their mathematical or geometrical basis by mere visual inspection, generate relationships over time between persons and things, because what they present to the mind is, cognitively speaking, always "unfinished business" ([23], p.23)*

The author goes on to argue that this "sets up a biographical relation – an unfinished exchange – between the decorated index and the recipient" ([23], p. 81), and thus attributes this "cognitive stickiness" of abstract patterns "to this blockage in the cognitive process of reconstructing the intentionality embodied in artefacts."

Thus, by employing these visual strategies, the abstract patterns acquire properties, such as the illusion of movement and vibration, that help to captivate the viewer and enhance the agency of the pattern. In the words of Gell ([23], p. 77), "nothing could be more animated than the tessellations (tiling patterns) devised by Islamic decorative artisans…it seems, to inspire ever more effective inducements to captivation by visual artifice, the non-mimetic appearance of animation".

In this regard, Taylor [16] notes that in the Amazonian representational universe, figurative representations of the entities of the cosmovision are virtually absent, while abstract and geometrical representations abound. The author concludes, "*any surface with geometric motifs can evoke subjectivity or personality. Even* 

*Ecosystem and Biodiversity of Amazonia*

*Four-legged anthropomorphic-zoomorphic vessel. Grave 186, El Olivar site.*

*Evolution of Wave A pattern over time: (a) Mojocoya trichromatic design (Lathrap 1970, p.143); (b) Sherd of the Wave A pattern, Early Diaguita period, El Olivar site; (c) Wave A pattern in trichromatic cup, Diaguita pre- Inca period, Grave 149, El Olivar site; (d) Wave A1 pattern in felinomorphic bowl, Diaguita-Inca period,* 

**122**

**Figure 18.**

*Grave 59, El Olivar site.*

**Figure 17.**

*paintings themselves can be treated as persons. For example, the Jíbaro people have ritual songs that are sung directly to body paintings to ask them for a certain type of intervention"* [14 p. 6]. The author therefore proposes that the abstract body painting of Amazonian groups was intended to *"represent complete beings as "incarnations."* This suggests that this geometric, non-figurative Amazonian art was not "iconophobic," but rather played a major role "*in the perpetuation of this tradition of figuratively imagining supernatural beings"* ([16], p. 13).
