Books: Art Made Together with Non-Human Animals
The Beluga Cafe
Jim Nollman
Related animal: Beluga
Related Website: Interspecies.com

Nollman describes his journey to the Arctic to play music with beluga whales. "The book tracks the entire excursion from Nollman's efforts to get funds for the trip, believing that his desire to play underwater music is as deserving of a grant as other scientific methods"

Submitted by LisaJ [Write Review]

Review by britt (04/11/06 15:39:22):
Some of the challenges addressed in this book about doing interspecies collaboration...
The animal might not respond to your approach to collaborating.
The animal could respond in a negative way to your approach.
You might not like the way the animal approaches you.
You might respond in a negative way to the animal's approach.

Trouble-shooting...
Be aware of the environment in which you are moving. If this is not your stomping grounds, then you need to be sensitive to the habits of the ones who live there.

If the animal responds negatively to you, withdraw your efforts and reconsider your approach. Are you trying to incite a specific reaction from this animal or are you allowing them to act creatively and with freedom. If you approach the animal with an agenda, most likely you will come away unsatisfied with the results.

If the animal approaches you in a way that is not satisfying to the piece in which you are aspiring to collaborate on, allow this to be an opportunity to learn and to be inspired. What can you take away from this experience? What reaction were they trying to incite from you? How can you use this in your future collaboration?

In your collaborative process, you could find the manner of the animal negative or intimidating towards you. This is not a beneficial situation and the best thing to do would be to withdraw. If you try to collaborate with anyone who has negative intentions, this will adversely affect your piece (unless, however, your art is based on an underlying theme of tension and struggle, then by all means, have a go at it).
Related Website: Interspecies.com