Animal Influence I - Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture

certain responsiveness to unpredictable
developments arising from the behavior of the
other party. In short, if a way cannot be found by
which to negotiate equal terms for the
collaboration – it is not collaboration – though it
may be a conversation and certainly may involve
levels of engagement and interaction.
What may not ultimately be easily grasped
or justified from this is the purpose of our interest in a
suggested parity, beyond its being generally a
good or tantalizingly desirable thing. It seems
“good” because it bucks an accepted behavioral
trope in relation to “the other,” and offers the
possibility of an ideological redrafting of relative
positions, values and objectives. It is “good”
because we may discover something which may
for a long time have been overlooked – a
consequence of staying within the bounds of
acceptable and respectable behavior, and of
being so sure of our separateness and
distinctiveness, when in fact, any natural
extrapolation of evolutionary theory seems easily to
unravel most claims for the specialness of our
(human) case. We believe that other species may
have much more commonality with us, and us with
them, than is recognized. We just do not or cannot
see this because the type of knowledge upon
which we have come to rely – providing us with and
supporting our world view – precludes it. Because
we share a world with other species, why would we
not be interested in the principals of
interconnectivity when an eschewal of such interest
for so long has left us adrift and unprepared for all
manner of detrimental environmental effects and
consequence?
So we ask: what if intellect alone is not
enough for us to understand our new and
challenged position in the world? Indeed, what if
the rationality of our approach obscures or limits the
possibilities of wider understanding? Ultimately the
video installation between you and me is not
solely concerned with our relationship to the seal,
but is a “landscape” work that simultaneously
acknowledges the integrity of landscape and its
constituents, whilst interrogating what the term has
come to represent. The back of the artist is turned
towards the lens of the camera, which is the eye
that we human-animals, in perceiving and
understanding the world, so easily and often
mistake as our own. It is an insertion between the
audience and the event, which it partially
occludes. All the readings already mentioned of
charm, absurdity, pathos, melancholy,
sentimentality, and vulnerability are indeed, to a
greater or lesser degree, embedded, and to be
found in the work. And yet, just as crucially, they
serve to fuel and extend another more
fundamental reading: “Landscape” or
105
“environment,” if they are to mean anything in the
future, must cease to be objectifying terms which
describe “something to be looked at” or used, whilst
simultaneously functioning as registers of our
detachment from them. Just as increasingly we
understand that other animals are specifically so in
relation to the constitution of their dwelling. We must
nurture a larger economy of thought and larger
sense of community, recognizing our own
interdependence with habitat. We must also
recognize the danger of sustaining our unfettered
and exploitative use of “resources,” including land
and “animal others.” By not doing so, we resolutely
keep our backs turned on the enlightening and
rewarding conversation we might otherwise have.
Notes
[1] Carol Freeman, Reconstructing the Animal catalogue essay
for the eponymous exhibition University of Hobart, 2011.
[2] Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of
Pollution and Taboo, London: Routledge, 1966.
Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson conduct their
collaborative practice from bases in the north of England,
Iceland and Gothenburg, Sweden. With a strong research
grounding, their socially engaged projects explore
contemporary relationships between human and non-human
animals in the contexts of history, culture and the environment.
The practice sets out to challenge anthro-pocentric systems
and the thinking that sanctions loss through representations of
‘the other’, proposing instead, alternative tropes including
‘parities in meeting’.
Previous projects include: “Uncertainty in the City”, Storey
Gallery, Lancaster, UK, 2010 “between you and me”, Podspace
Gallery, Newcastle, NSW, 2009 and Kalmar Konstmuseum,
Sweden, 2009 “(a)fly”, Reykjavík Arts Festival, Iceland,
2006 “nanoq: flat out and bluesome”, assorted venues
including Bristol, London, Oxford, Reykjavík, Copenhagen, Oslo,
Cambridge, Svalbard and Tromsø, 2004 – 2011 “Big Mouth”,
Tramway, Glasgow, 2004
Publications: Uncertainty in the City, The Green Box – Kunst
Editionen, Berlin, 2011 nanoq: flat out and bluesome, Black
Dog Publishing, London, 2006 (a)fly, National Museum of
Iceland, 2006 Big Mouth, Tramway, Glasgow, 2004 Work in
progress include “Matrix”, a project concerning arctic
maternity dens for which the artists undertook a research trip
to Svalbard in 2010 and Landfill, a new project for the 2011
Gothenburg Biennial, Sweden