In October 2010 I had the opportunity to participate to a research that the Leav – Ethnomusicology and Visual Anthropology Lab at the University of Milan was starting on the Mirkovic family. I flew to Serbia to help with the shooting of video and to photograph three generations of this family of amazing musicians. Later I wrote this essay, published in Audiovisual Media and Identity Issues in Southeastern Europe, edited by Eckehard Pistrick, Nicola Scaldaferri and Gretel Schwörer, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. I reflect on the brevity of such an experience and on the possibility of interpreting ethnography as a collaborative performance by the ethnographer and his subjects. The text deals with ethics and epistemology, proposing a link with the ideas of neuroscientist Francisco Varela.