Death at the Nonhuman Turn Conference: Exploring the Usefulness of Death

The session I attended at the Nonhuman Turn Conference was focuses around death, from aspects about modern video games to corpses to the meat industry.  While much of the talk was highly theoretical and I was definitely found myself getting lost in the jumble of names of philosophers and theories, I still walked away with some interesting points.

My favorite lecture was the second of the series, titled "The Corpse and Other Posthuman Non-Objects" given by Sarah Juliet Lauro.  She focuses on the theories of objects and broken objects, relating it to the way we see and give meaning to corpses.  She talked about both Graham Harman's and Martin Heidegger 's ideas about broken objects, Harman saying that all beings are broken equipment whereas Heidegger outlines what makes an object broken or unhandy.  Next she tied this into Bill Brown's theory that objects comes to represent human-subject relationships therefore when an object is broken, it proceeds to change that relationship.

By making sure to outline the difference being the corpse as object and the being of the corpse, Lauro emphasized the way which we must view the physical body as simple as object, and not a representation of the death of that person.  This ultimately led up to her final point, and the one that really stuck with me; the fact that the living viewer makes the corpse, something inherently unhandy, handy again through its subject-human relationship.  She justified this by showing up paintings, mummies, and other representations of death in which humans represent the corpse in symbolic or meaningful ways.  Therefore, she concluded that the corpse is only unhandy when out of the reach of human eyes because we constantly are finding ways to make death and the corpse meaningful, finding ways to make it useful again.

Her final point really stuck with me in light of my research on taxidermy because I've been really interested in the relationship humans have with the death of animals and the reasons that the recreation and representation of animals comes to hold so much meaning.  I was also thinking about the way in which taxidermy becomes uncanny, presenting something that is familiar to us, but at the same time it is never quite right.  I think that taxidermy definitely draws upon Lauro's point that humans always find a way to make the corpse handy because through the taxidermic process, we are giving meaning to animal bodies and using them as a tool to understand something about not only the animal, but our own human nature.

Truthfully, I found Jakob Von Uexküll’s study and philosophy of animals a bit peculiar and I was struggling to grasp certain aspects.  Yet this being said, it was definitely interesting to take a sort of assume the roles of his different animal examples and try to understand their world.  One aspect of animal perception that I was happily able to grasp and also found pretty insightful was “the problem of form.”  In his example, Von Uexküll discusses a bumble bee flying to large, open flowers because it prefers “stars and crosses” rather than closed buds which are shaped like “squares and circles.” 

He also goes on to discuss the goals and plans of animals, which was a bit hazier of a concept to me but I will take a shot.  From what I understand, he is arguing for Nature’s plan instead of a goal orientated animal.  For example, the chicken that rescues a peeping chick but cannot notice the same chick when placed under a bell jar, this occurs because of the perception mark of the peep and not because of the goal of the mother hen. 

Well I will take a shot at utilizing Von Uexküll’s philosophies to understand a particular animal, the lovely Wisconsin bird, the robin.  I don’t have much knowledge about these birds but I feel that after seeing them every spring I should know a thing or two.  Thinking about the problem of form with the robin, or any other bird for that matter, would consist of mainly separating obstacles from the open sky and grass.  I would argue that the robin is attracted to open spaces or thin lines, like branches, instead of large masses and buildings. 

This also relates to the way in which Von Uexküll discusses an animal’s space and the effect tones in it.  For example, the robin would likely see maybe two or three effect tones, food or eating, landing and flying.  The robin would see trees or the ground as having the same effect tone, places where they can find worms as having another tone and the sky would have a flying effect tone. 

Lastly, I will briefly explain the robin’s behavior in terms of goal and plan.  One example I can think of, would be interaction with their young.  I would argue that it is similar to the example of the chicken and that a mother robin knows when to feed her young by the perception mark of their cries.  Since the babies’ hunger is marked by noise, the mother knows to feed them as a response. 

Overall, despite the fact that I found Von Uexküll’s analysis of the natural world somewhat difficult, applying it to a specific animal helped me understand his terms further.  While seemingly abstract, his methods do successfully explain and develop sound theories about the animals he observes.  

Think Twice About Your Food

As a recent, ex-vegetarian and someone still critical of the food industry, the topics this past week have been particularly interesting to me. I have lately been considering going back to my vegetarian ways and all the texts we've read are starting to persuade me. However, after watching Food Inc I have realized that it's not only the meat industry that is severely corrupt. Even when it comes to grains, vegetables and fruits there is an extreme amount of waste and bizarre practices. I was particularly struck by the scene on Food Inc in which they discussed the end of seasons when it comes to produce, which I think we take very little time to think about.

Although, I am particularly inspired by farmers such as the one in the film who raised grass fed animals and did all his own slaughtering. While I was a vegetarian for over 5 years, I have never been against eating meat, I think it's a natural part of the food chain if executed properly. Pollen also touches on this in his essay when he discusses the farm in Virginia which allows animals to "essentially" be themselves. While these animals are still fated to end up on a plate, I can rest easily knowing that an animal was treated humanely, raised naturally and not processed on a factory line.

Speaking of factory lines, I was largely disturbed by the LeDuff article as well as the segment of Food Inc which discussed the same processing plant. To be honest, when I read the LeDuff article I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be fiction or an expose. This was because the information I was reading seemed far too extreme to be true, I didn't want to believe that human beings were being treating as poorly as the helpless animals they were killing, to treat both humans and animals as entirely expendable truly angers me. However, it was the visuals in the film which really hit hard, after seeing the demanding physical work and mental anguish of working in the factory I was straight up mad. Like I said, I have been thinking of going back to my meatless ways and this might be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Entertaining Fake Animals or Boring Live Ones?

The entire article on taxidermy by Desmond was interesting to me, I’ve always found taxidermy to be a peculiar subject and so I was happy to read a bit more about it. I also was intrigued by the prompt to relate this subject to contemporary zoos because that definitely wasn’t my first thought while reading. Desmond describes taxidermy as aiming to “capture and preserve the vitality and living energy of the animal” (160). It seems odd that we would use the death and even purposeful killing of an animal for the means of a lifelike display, especially in light of the fact that we do have zoos which also aim to present a natural animal vivacity. What’s more is that taxidermy tries to depict a “typical,” or rather what we perceive as typical, pose. Near the end of the essay Desmond talks about how our depiction of animals often lies not in natural fact, but in our imagined stereotype of some unseen wild animal. I found this connection to be the most interesting statement in the article because it seems to eradicate any trace of the actual animal in favor of how humans choose to identify the animal.

Animatronics and animal special effects are obviously an offshoot of taxidermist practices; however they relate more closely the modern zoo because they share a goal of entertainment. Curiously, animatronics aims to create realistic animals only to act our unrealistic, animal fictions. I would assume the goal in the strange recreation is to humanize the animal, yet it also seems to me that this practice distances us from the actuality qualities of the animal. Zoos on the other hand, do depict real animals however it is common for zoo spectators to taunt the animals in order for them to be more entertaining. When we see animals on screen or in other fictional displays, we suspend the disbelief that these creatures are somewhat humanized because in our everyday lives we mainly encounter fictionalized animals instead of real ones. Yet I think this is problematic for zoos because when we see animals in real life they are often sleeping or doing other mundane behavior. But humans want to see the animals act out, we are so entertained by these fake animals that we expect real animals to act the same. So the question I arrive at is will fictional representations of animals replace zoos in favor of entertainment? Do we need real animals if we can see convincing, life-like animatronic ones?

Concrete Jungle

About 4 years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I was in a play called "Words, Words, Words." It was a 3 person play in which our characters were chimpanzees whose personas were modeled after the authors, Milton, Swift and Kafka. (Which in and of itself seems like an interesting study in anthropomorphism, but on with the story) In order to act like more realistic chimps on stage, our director decided to take us to the Milwaukee County Zoo for an observation session. At the height of my vegetarian/animal rights phase I was already troubled by this, but I decided to go in as an optimist.

Zoos have always been a confusing place for me and even now, I am not really sure how I feel about them. When I was a kid, I had a really hard time looking in to the concrete elephant and hippo cages and not getting upset. Perhaps this ultimately factored into my PETA phase? But as we were walking around the zoo, I was beginning to feel a little better. I mean, the people that work here and care for these animals have to be compassionate right? Some of the exhibits looked better than I remembered and the animals seemed happy for the most part.

But then we got to the monkey house, specially the indoor bonobo exhibit. As soon as I looked into the cage I started to feel a bit uneasy. Something about the concrete trees and fake painted walls seemed disturbing to me. Everything in the the habitat just seemed so fake, so human. I have a really distinct memory of standing there with my cast-mates and simply feeling sad. The monkeys themselves didn't seem unhappy, but rather unamused, accustomed to our grins, points and stares. Climbing through their concrete jungle, never knowing what they are missing.

I've been back to the zoo since then and haven't had a such strong reaction but something sticks out to me about that day.

There was something about that particular exhibit that had such a strange effect on me. I felt sympathy and pity for them, I realized what a show all these animals lives often become. While they may blissfully swing through their man-made trees, its hard not to think of the real habitats they are modeled after and the wild monkeys swinging in them.

Violence and Morality in Animal Imagery

One theme that I’ve found really interesting so far in Burt’s book is the connection he makes between animals in the media and issues of morality. He brings up the tendency of early natural history films to enforce moral values which occurred in conjunction with an overall modernizing of the cinema. This makes sense in the early 20^th century, first because more and more people started going to movies and second because of the inherent draw of humans to animal subjects.

At the end of Chapter 2 he expands upon this by bringing up cruelty and violence in animal films. Obviously, animal films became more and more regulated so as to lessen the harm done to stunt animals. However, even after these heightened rules, cinema goers still had problems with seeing this violence, despite the fact that it was often staged. Burt explains this by saying that animal films have the power to “collapse the boundary of representation and reality” (141). He suggests that when we view animal violence, we are accessing some suppressed, uncivilized aspect of ourselves.

While I am not yet sure if I agree with this notion, he brings up a really valid point. It’s curious that we can sit and watch horror movies or war movies but as soon as an animal is harmed on screen we all cringe. What does this reveal about the way we represent cruelty and violence? The way I see it, animal images hit closer to home because we have a harder distinguishing between representation and reality. Why? I’m still sorting that out but perhaps I will have an answer in class on Tuesday.

Man and Nature

Unfortunately I am still waiting for Grizzly Man to arrive in my mailbox from Netflix but it should arrive today, however, I will connect what I know about the film from class to our recent readings.

First of all, I think the connection between the film and American transcendentalism seems really interesting. I was able to find a clip online of the moment when Treadwell interacts with the foxes which had traces of the tone in Thoreau’s journal. The way in which Treadwell talks to the animals reminds me of when Thoreau writes about the own hooting;

“Thus it comes to us an accredited and universal or melodious sound ; is more than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well. The owl only touches the stops, or rather wakes the reverberations. For all Nature is a musical instrument on which her creatures play, celebrating their joy or grief unconsciously often.”

They both have a certain reverent attitude towards wild creatures, personifying the animals but in conjunction with the environment. Yet I think fundamentally Thoreau and Treadwell differ in their motives. Thoreau existed in a time period where humans, animals and nature were still somewhat mutually dependent. And although it was the beginning on a modern era, Thoreau was still able to go to Walden and “live deliberately” with only “the essential facts of life” (Walden). But from what I understand of Treadwell’s mission, he sought to socialize the bears instead of admire from a distance. I think this gets greater questions in the class, such as the fading dualism that we see in Berger’s article as well as the way in which humans and animals mutually define each other.

Here is the clip I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rP5DHbyOwQ&feature=related

Angels and Insects

In Angels and Insects, we see natural science as a metaphor for human behavior, specifically throughout the parallel of the ant farm. It is obvious that the Alabaster family shows as a model for a sort of “natural hierarchy” in the sense that they believe themselves to be pure bred. Edgar especially makes many references to his belief that human hierarchical tendencies are simply a consequence of being “well bred.” Although this is clearly a complicated theme because this belief implies that humans contain some natural sense of superiority to each other.

Another interesting moment I found which exhibits natural science as a human metaphor is when Matty is describing why she adores the ants so much. She says that admires the insects because they have altruistic and socialist tendencies. This is interesting first of all, because she is anthropomorphizing the inherent qualities of the ants, she is imposing human sentiment on a creature that likely has no awareness of these qualities. And secondly, she is using the ants as an ideal model for human behavior. It’s interesting that a creature so simple and seemingly insignificant can have a perfect, idealistic society.

I think the movie simultaneously uses nature as a metaphor to show both the natural tendencies and hierarchical motives of human beings, but also to critique the flaws of these tendencies. For example, incest is obviously immoral and unnatural, which is presented as something that is so abhorred in not only the human world but the animal world.

Anthropomorphism

“Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities.” –Wikipedia Definition of Anthropomorphism

Obviously, our class thus far has largely focused on this concept of anthropomorphism and the projection of human traits onto animals. We first saw this in Painlevé’s documentaries, where he narrates the activities of the animals in human terms. Even the title, “The Love of the Octopus,” implies that there is something more to their mating process than simple biological urges. The idea that an octopus has a romantic sex life or is even capable of feeling an emotion, such as love, is definitely anthropomorphic.

Guest also portrays this possibility of animal emotion in “Best in Show.” What stuck out to me the most in the movie was when the dog owners acted like their pets had some strong desire to win the dog show. This is anthropomorphic in the respect that the dogs are consciously trying to win, that they feel a sense of competition. Although I think the most poignant example of anthropomorphism is the opening scene where the yuppie couple’s dog is in therapy. I found this the most absurd because the dog is literally being treated like their child in the sense that the pet has been “emotionally scarred.”

A last example, that we didn’t discuss in class but is an obvious example of anthropomorphism is Disney’s “The Lion King.” This was, hands down, my favorite movie as a kid and I think everyone is at least familiar with it. One anthropomorphic quality that I see present in this movie is that the lions essentially have a monarchy. If we reference back to the definition above, this would be an example of “governments.” And despite the fact that animals have natural hierarchies, the idea that they have an organized government system is merely an extension of this.

Finally, I think all these example show that anthropomorphism centers on the idea that animals are portrayed with more emotional capacity and agency than they do in real life. Although we respond to this in movies and books because it seems to be extensions of natural animals behavior which in turn causes us to identify with their behavior.

Cute or Anti-Cute?

To be honest I didn't really know what to expect from this reading based on the title, to read a chapter about "cuteness" seemed a little silly at first. However, the concepts of "cute" and "anti-cute" were a bit more complicated than one might think at first glance. The aesthetics, or maybe lack of aesthetics which render something as cute caught my interest right away. The idea that we are attracted to "the grotesque, the malformed" seems rather peculiar and bizarre (Harris, 3). But, in light of Harris' examples, especially of the dolls this started to make more sense. I decided to do a Google image search for one of these dolls, "So Shy Sherri," and she is everything Harris promises. Bizarre features and a dis-proportioned body make Sherri a tad bit creepy in my opinion.

This idea sparked me think of what I perceive as cute and I thought of a particular breed of dog which I've always found adorable, the Welsh Corgi. Its a tiny dog with a a huge snout, ears as big as its face and stubby legs.

Grotesque? I'd say yes. I found this animal to be cute because its physical appearance is a little bit odd and endearing. Harris states that we find this qualities cute because we have sympathy or pity for them, which is definitely true in this case.

I think that Harris best sums up the concepts of "cute" and "anti-cute" when he says that "Cuteness thus coexists in a dynamic relation with the perverse." He gives the example of the movie Child's Play as a manifestation of the anti-cute, but give "So Shy Sherri" a butcher knife and how different is she from Chuckie? The fact that the something perceived as cute can quickly become frightening sheds light on the relativity of these terms. We construct images which are viewed as cute and adorable although there is nothing inherently attractive about them. In the very last paragraph Harris describes the character of Gizmo from Gremlins as a "stylized representation of youth and innocence," which seems to raise the question of whether of adoration of the cute is a yearning back a simpler time. Do we project stereotypical images of cuteness on children because we want to preserve "cute" for as long as we can? God forbid we cross over into the realm of "anti-cute," just don't feed your Mogwai after midnight...