Reflection: Art Made Together with Non-Human Animals
Interspecies Collaboration: A Reflection
By Erik Shalat (05/28/13 01:32:53)
I am currently working on both my final project and a poster for our classes upcoming exhibition and reflecting on how this class has changed my outlook on animals, if at all. I’m thinking about it as I am writing this you are about to witness an idea literally formed before your very eyes.
When I first entered the class my experience with animals had been relegated almost entirely to my dog and bird at home. Those are fairly standard animals being common house pets. I didn’t expect to be do anything with animals that didn’t happen at a distance, probably with a sketch pad. Oddly enough I have done almost no drawing for Interspecies Collaboration, though that could be because i’m also drawing for Animal Drawing class and i’m tired of it.
Seeing animals like horses and cows and pigs has always seemed like an intangible concept to me, like those animals only exist on television. Going up close to those animals changed something in me. I’ve been much more comfortable in animals of all kinds, I think. I am definitely more attentive to them. I listen to bird songs that used to be background noise. I have gone down to the park near my house to feed and pet horses with my girlfriend. I would have ignored those horses a few months ago, they have always just been “there”, in that place out of sight and mind.
I think the pigs in particular were just so radically different from what I expected that it really changed my perception. It was easy to lump animal traits together into similar ways, like all four-legged mammals just had generic “fur” and just wanted food. But even these pigs seemed to enjoy attention from people, and they had stiff bristles instead of fur.
If anything, i’ve started anthropomorphizing animals more than I did before despite the ways we’ve learned that “scientists” would prefer us not to. I found it interesting that scientists are lumped in together in much the same way animals tend to be lumped in together. “Horses”, “pigs”, “lions”; these are all categorized animals that people tend not to think of as individual creatures with autonomy.
A lot of the “art” i’ve tried working on didn’t go very far, the concept of making art with an animal is just so open ended that it was hard to ever come up with a decent project that wasn’t taken directly from someone we learned about. I ended up going with what was right in front of my nose the entire time, and compiling footage of my relationship with my bird. I guess in a way he is almost more of a co-star in my movie than just the subject. Something i’ve taken from this class is to try to be more inclusive to animals, in subtle ways so as to not take advantage of them. Obviously my bird cannot understand what a video is but thinking of him as something I have to respect rather than something I can take advantage of is just another facet of my interactions with animals now.
[Write Comment]
By Erik Shalat (05/28/13 01:32:53)
I am currently working on both my final project and a poster for our classes upcoming exhibition and reflecting on how this class has changed my outlook on animals, if at all. I’m thinking about it as I am writing this you are about to witness an idea literally formed before your very eyes.
When I first entered the class my experience with animals had been relegated almost entirely to my dog and bird at home. Those are fairly standard animals being common house pets. I didn’t expect to be do anything with animals that didn’t happen at a distance, probably with a sketch pad. Oddly enough I have done almost no drawing for Interspecies Collaboration, though that could be because i’m also drawing for Animal Drawing class and i’m tired of it.
Seeing animals like horses and cows and pigs has always seemed like an intangible concept to me, like those animals only exist on television. Going up close to those animals changed something in me. I’ve been much more comfortable in animals of all kinds, I think. I am definitely more attentive to them. I listen to bird songs that used to be background noise. I have gone down to the park near my house to feed and pet horses with my girlfriend. I would have ignored those horses a few months ago, they have always just been “there”, in that place out of sight and mind.
I think the pigs in particular were just so radically different from what I expected that it really changed my perception. It was easy to lump animal traits together into similar ways, like all four-legged mammals just had generic “fur” and just wanted food. But even these pigs seemed to enjoy attention from people, and they had stiff bristles instead of fur.
If anything, i’ve started anthropomorphizing animals more than I did before despite the ways we’ve learned that “scientists” would prefer us not to. I found it interesting that scientists are lumped in together in much the same way animals tend to be lumped in together. “Horses”, “pigs”, “lions”; these are all categorized animals that people tend not to think of as individual creatures with autonomy.
A lot of the “art” i’ve tried working on didn’t go very far, the concept of making art with an animal is just so open ended that it was hard to ever come up with a decent project that wasn’t taken directly from someone we learned about. I ended up going with what was right in front of my nose the entire time, and compiling footage of my relationship with my bird. I guess in a way he is almost more of a co-star in my movie than just the subject. Something i’ve taken from this class is to try to be more inclusive to animals, in subtle ways so as to not take advantage of them. Obviously my bird cannot understand what a video is but thinking of him as something I have to respect rather than something I can take advantage of is just another facet of my interactions with animals now.
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