Animal Influence II
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AntennaeIssue 22 - Autumn 2012 ISSN 1756-9575 Animal Influence II Merritt Johnson – This Was Never a Knife Fight / Marten Sims – Seal Sees the Sea / Giovanni Aloi – Animal-Human-Machine-Plant / Sandra Semchuck – Bison Crossing / Deke Weaver interviewed by Maria Lux – The Unreliable Bestiary / Karolle Wall – Mollusks / G.A. Bradshaw – Pas De Deux / Myron Campbell – Distant Air / Carol Gigliotti and Marc Bekoff – In Conversation / Paolo Pennuti – Rubbernecking / Julie O’Neill – A Compassionate 2012 Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture Editor in Chief Giovanni Aloi Academic Board Steve Baker Ron Broglio Matthew Brower Eric Brown Carol Gigliotti Donna Haraway Linda Kalof Susan McHugh Rachel Poliquin Annie Potts Ken Rinaldo Jessica Ullrich Advisory Board Bergit Arends Rod Bennison Helen Bullard Claude d’Anthenaise Petra Lange-Berndt Lisa Brown Rikke Hansen Chris Hunter Karen Knorr Rosemarie McGoldrick Susan Nance Andrea Roe David Rothenberg Nigel Rothfels Angela Singer Mark Wilson & Bryndís Snaebjornsdottir Global Contributors Sonja Britz Tim Chamberlain Concepción Cortes Lucy Davis Amy Fletcher Katja Kynast Christine Marran Carolina Parra Zoe Peled Julien Salaud Paul Thomas Sabrina Tonutti Johanna Willenfelt Copy Editor Maia Wentrup Front Cover Image: Julie Andreyev,2 Tom and Sugi Julie Andreyev EDITORIAL ANTENNAE ISSUE 22 This issue of Antennae is the second instalment dedicated to Animal Influence, the theme of Interactive Futures (IF)'11, held November 17-19, 2011 in Vancouver, B.C. Canada at Intersection Digital Studios (IDS) at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD). Funded by Canada’s SSHRC (The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council), the BCAC (British Columbia Arts Council), and Consulat Général de France à Vancouver, this public outreach weekend of events included an exhibition in the ECUAD’s Concourse and Media galleries, a second exhibition at Vancouver’s Gallery Gachet, presentations, screenings, performances, live streaming of many of the presentations, and partnering with Antennae to produce this particular issue reflecting on and documenting this seminal project. Since 2002, IF has been recognized as an important international venue for new media artists and thinkers. The resulting series of events, Animal Influence, engaged with the work and thinking of digital media artists whose work has been influenced by the growing wealth of knowledge on animal agency, cognition, creativity and consciousness emerging from such fields as ecology, cognitive ethology (the study of animal thinking, consciousness and mind), psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy, zoology, and others. The workshop offered in- depth conversations and discussions between invited cognitive ethologists, biologists, psychologists, philosophers, artists and public policy makers. This second issue is a continuation of the diverse and compelling essays from participants in these fields, and the work of artists involved in the workshop, exhibits, screenings and performances. Carol Gigliotti’s more detailed introduction to the event can be found in the first issue, and we urge you to peruse both issues for a full picture of the Animal Influence Project. These innovative undertakings allowed us to see how crucial it is for us to open up our minds and hearts to animal influence. We hope you enjoy this issue of Antennae and the preceding one, and take from it inspiration for your own shifts in consciousness, compassion and creativity. Carol Gigliotti Guest Curator, Interactive Futures’11: Animal Influence Giovanni Aloi Editor in Chief of Antennae Project 3 CONTENTS ANTENNAE ISSUE 22 5 This Was Never a Knife Fight Merritt Johnson earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003, and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2005. Her practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance; involving the pursuit of survival, camouflage, disguise, hybridity and monsters. Her work is influenced by her mixed ancestry, including Mohawk, Blackfoot and non-Indigenous. Based in New York, she exhibits and performs and in traditional and nontraditional venues throughout North America. The stories related in this paper are the cultural property of the Haudensaunee (Iroquois SIx Nation) Confederacy and it's people. Text by Merritt Johnson Artist’s Page: Marten Sims – Seals Sees the Sea 27 Animal-Human-Machine-Plant Through the disentangling of the dichotomic opposition of nature and culture proposed by Donna Haraway, the vision of boundary-breakdown between animals, human and machines is surprisingly guilty of a conspicuous omission: plants. Frequently studied for their medical properties and consistently exploited for their aesthetic, edible and malleable qualities, plants have played a defining role in the historical and cultural development of humankind. Why have plants then been ignored in the outlining of the cyborgian reconfiguration? To this point, plants have been silent witnesses of the animal revolution in the humanities and the arts. However, through the subjects of hybridity and interspecies communication they have come to occupy a more prominent place in the posthumanist discourse. Recent advances in plant molecular biology, cellular biology, electrophysiology and ecology, have revealed plants as sensory and communicative organisms, characterized by active, problem-solving behavior. Text by Giovanni Aloi Artist’s Page: Sandra Semchuk – Bison Crossing 55 The Unreliable Bestiary Deke Weaver is an artist whose work is often realized as multi-media performances. Driven by narrative, the pieces employ strange and surprising fiction, and sometimes even more surprising facts, intertwined through Deke’s presence as an actor and storyteller. Using everything from video projections, retro TV footage, and claymation, to puppets, costumes, and sound, he creates unexpected relationships that are often described by audience members as both “disturbing” and “hilarious.” While his work touches on a surprising variety of topics, animals are central. Interview Questions by Maria Lux Artist’s Page: Karolle Wall – Mollusks 59 Pas the Deux Art is considered a defining feature of the human psyche, a humanness that distinguishes us from all other creatures. Scientists regard art – communication in word, paint, sound, and motion – fruit of the human brain’s sophistication. The desire to revel in self-awareness and connection with the world inspires us to communicate these experiences. This impetus to create has blossomed through the ages. Humanity knows itself through its traces of the muse. Text by G. A. Bradshaw Artist’s Page: Myron Campbell – Distant Air 72 Carol Gigliotti in Conversation with Marc Bekoff Carol Gigliotti, writer, artist and scholar whose work focuses on the impact of new technologies on human relationships with animals and on the lives of animals themselves ‘rewilding’ with former professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado and widely published author Marc Bekoff. Text by Carol Gigliotti and Marc Bekoff Artist’s Page: Paolo Pennuti - Rubbernecking 80 A Compassionate 2012 The power of photography has always excited me. I am mesmerized by a camera's ability to capture a moment, a mood, or a beautiful light. Images have a limitless capability to inspire, frighten, educate and warm hearts. For me, photography is a tool to inspire change and awaken compassion within others. After obtaining a degree in Film Studies and English Literature, I decided to pursue my passion for photography. I then attended the Applied Photography program at Sheridan College. Upon completion I was on my way to becoming a "professional photographer". However, I decided to take my camera on the road before beginning a career as a commercial photographer. Since heading out over 8 years ago, I am still "on the road". I have now travelled to over 50 countries with my camera. Text by Julie O’Neill 4 Perception 5 THIS WAS NEVER A KNIF E FIGHT Merritt Johnson earned her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003, and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 2005. Her practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance; involving the pursuit of survival, camouflage, disguise, hybridity and monsters. Her work is influenced by her mixed ancestry, including Mohawk, Blackfoot and non-Indigenous. Based in New York, she exhibits and performs and in traditional and nontraditional venues throughout North America. The stories related in this paper are the cultural property of the Haudensaunee (Iroquois SIx Nation) Confederacy and it's people. Text by Merritt Johnson When the animals talked to people, and people through the hole, or she fell, I’ve heard it told both could understand- is the way we begin some of ways; and on her way down she grabbed at the our old Kaniekehaka stories. Inherent in this roots of the tree, taking some of them with her as statement is the acknowledgement that in the she fell. passage of time, the other animals have Because the world down here was all blue stopped talking to us, and that for our part we at that time, and there was no ohontsya (earth), have stopped listening (with rare exceptions in the water birds flew up to help her. This first both cases). woman was very pregnant and the animals living Our stories have been told for a very long here saw she couldn’t live in the water, so time, longer than some people say we’ve been A’nowara, a turtle, agreed to let her sit his back. on Turtle Island. When I spoke at the Interactive The woman told the animals that if they could find Futures conference last fall, I told some stories, some earth she could plant the roots of the tree and while writing them here is not the same as and something would grow. telling, the following is an attempt to relate the So the animals went deep below the important information. The stories I want to share water, they took turns going down to bring some position people as helpless, or hapless, up. Some floated back lifeless, until Anookyen, a dependents on the non-human world. They are muskrat, returned with small bits of mud clutched old stories, and because they are so old, they in his hands.