Widok Limits of the nonhuman in contemporary art PK XIV/2 2012
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(2) 2. Anna Małecka. a “transhuman attitude”3. In this, he very strongly criticises the current, modern point of view, regarding it as “deeply anthropocentric” and perfectly articulated by Denis Diderot, who in 1755 wrote, “man is this unique notion from which we must start and to which we must refer everything anew”4. For Welsch, and not only for him, among all areas of human intellectual activity art has the longest tradition and is the most advanced in transgressing the boundaries set by philosophical, scientific and religious anthropocentrism. The philosopher observes that “art [...] keeps trying to break free from the cage of human self-reference. It resists the modern closure of the human mind”5. Animals have been present in art for ever – beginning from prehistoric cave paintings, through symbolic representations of deities, still life drawings, genre painting and ornaments etc. There are even examples of the so-called canine plays, very popular in 19th century Europe, in which dogs were given lead roles6. However, every time the animal was treated as a means to an end – it served a dramatic, emblematic-symbolic or decorative function, it constituted a motif, material or metaphor. Jessica Ullrich, a curator of three Berlin exhibitions devoted to animals (Tier-Werden, MenschWerden and Tierperspektiven), clearly stresses this instrumental character: [Animals] were rarely regarded as representing themselves. They were used and are still used as vehicles of meanings and representatives of purely human desires, fears, drives, as objects of projection of all kinds of human content. Individual animals were seen as representatives of species or even symbols of nature. Individuality of animals as well as their rights were disregarded or denied. Sometimes an animal simply had to die in order for a human to be able to draw it, to transform it into a sculpture or use part of its body to produce painting agents or simply to use it in order to illustrate specific ideas – and this happens to this day7.. At the same time Urlich believes that more or less since Joseph Beuys’ famous performance with the coyote in the 1970s we have seen thorough changes in the thinking about our relations with animals. The increase in the interest in the problem of animals in modern art is so significant that it allows us to speak of an animal turn8. As part of this turn artists seek anti-species treatment of non-human animals and “respond to social changes or even take part in them”9. A crucial change is that in works of art animals achieve the status of subjects – this is undoubtedly 3 W.. Welsch, “Transludzkie wymiary estetyki”, Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Estetycznego 2004, no. 4, p. 1; also idem, Grenzgänge der Ästhetik, Polish translation by K. Guczalska, Kraków 2005, p. 153 nn. 4 D. Diderot, quoted after W. Welsch, “Transludzkie wymiary...”., p. 1. 5 W. Welsch, Grenzgänge der Ästhetik, p. 155. 6 E. Fischer-Lichte, op. cit., pp. 164-165. 7 D. Łagodzka, J. Ullrich, Zezwierzęcanie, uczłowieczanie, http://www.obieg.pl/artmix/16547 (access: 27 December 2011). 8 Ibidem. 9 Ibidem.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 2. 2014-06-26 09:08:30.
(3) Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 3. associated with the development of animal rights movements and academic animal studies. Urlich’s reference to J. Beuys is important, because this artist indeed proposed an entirely different approach to animals in his projects. During I like America and America likes me ( Rene Block Gallery, New York 1974) he stayed in a locked room with a wild coyote for three days, separated from the audience by a metal net. In her analysis of this performance, Erika Fischer-Lichte notes that Beuys treated the animal like an equal partner whom he did not try to subjugate. The relation between the man and the animal was not hierarchic as it is when animals are used in circus shows, but was regulated “through mutual exchange”10. At the same time she points out that this impossibility of subjugating the animal, this equality between it and the man may have been very irritating to many spectators: The live animal body, however, remains elusive. Similar to the human body, it attains the status of an event rather than a finished work of art. It must be assumed, however, that such an erasure of the difference between man and beast did not leave the audience cold [...]. It is a matter of speculation whether the audience’s insights into the similarities between animal and man extended beyond the comparability of living organisms and also triggered immediate physiological, affective and energetic reactions in them. It is uncertain whether the direct confrontation with the animal’s living organism resulted in the spectators’ “becoming-animal”, a claim made by Deleuze and Guattari, or whether the spectators became aware and responded physically to their own inherent animalism11.. In this article I would like to take a closer look at four selected examples of how artists try to make the animals’ perspective more accessible. The works presented may be radical, but they refuse to treat representations of animals like a “screen upon which to project all manner of human issues” – they try to “accord animals their own point of view”12. At the same time they ask questions about the boundary between man and animal or, perhaps, between man and other animals.. Man and a “naked” animal Works by the Brussels-born artist Carsten Höller are often sophisticated visual experiments with which he tries to investigate the limits of human perception. The artist uses organic forms (plants, mushrooms), creates multi-coloured sculptures of animals (e.g. of a bright yellow walrus, blue orangutan, pink rhinoceros), placing them during exhibitions on the gallery floor, where they seem to be sleeping or crawling (like the life-size brown crocodile, for 10 . E. Fischer-Lichte, op. cit., pp. 171. Ibidem, p. 172. 12 J. Ullrich, Methods to encounter animal agents in art, humanimal.cz/CAS/call.html (access: 27 December 2011). 11 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 3. 2014-06-26 09:08:30.
(4) 4. Anna Małecka. example)13. Among these works we will find an extraordinary, hyperrealistic sculpture Orang-outan (2000-2001), depicting a hairless orangutan in the foetal position. Undoubtedly it can become a starting point for an analysis of the complex relation, bond and similarity between man and animal. In this case the similarity is very suggestive, because the artist used the image of an animal closely related to people. It must be noted that this kinship is not acceptable to everyone – “we like to think of ourselves as the darlings of the universe. We do not like to think about ourselves as a species of animal”14. We do not see either, as Peter Singer notes, that, in fact, there is “no unbridgeable gulf” between us and other animals15. Höller’s sculpture confronts us very emphatically with how little separates the Homo sapiens from primates, a fact that provokes further reflections: According to geneticists, the difference between people and primates can come down to just a few percent of genes [...] Which gene is responsible for consciousness, personality, humanity? From what percentage of concordance with the genetic ideal (how to establish it anyway?) can a human being be regarded as a human being?16. As Giorgio Agamben writes in his essay “Taxonomies” from The Open. Men and Animal: The first description of an orangutan by the doctor Nicolas Tulp in 1641 emphasizes the human aspects of this Homo sylvestris (which is the meaning of the Malay expression orang-utan); [...] [In his writing entitled Menniskans Cousiner Linnaeus] explains how difficult it is to identify the specific difference between the anthropoid apes and man from the point of view of natural science. [...] In a letter to a critic, Johann Georg Gmelin, Linnaeus responds: [...] “Yet I ask you and the entire world to show me a generic difference between ape and man which is consistent with the principles of natural history. I most certainly do not know of any”17.. Incidentally, Carolus Linnaeus also says that man is constituted only by recognition in a non-human Other; in “Linnaeus’s optical machine, whoever refuses to recognise himself in the ape, becomes one: to paraphrase Pascal, qui fait l’homme, fait le signe [he who acts the man, acts the ape]”18. The orangutan’s striking physical resemblance to a human figure is in Höller’s work intensified by the fact that it is deprived of its “animal” hair, separating it from a human being (called, after all, a “naked ape”19). Now this distinction has ceased to matter – when we look 13 . http://www.airdeparis.com/holler.htm (access: 27 December 2011). P. Singer, Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics, St. Martin’s Griffin 1996, p. 202. 15 Ibidem. 16 A. Czarnacka, “Pornowegeterianizm”, Krytyka Polityczna 2008, no. 15, pp. 90-91. 17 See G. Agamben, The Open. Men and Animal, Stanford 2004, pp. 23-27. 18 Ibidem, p. 27. 19 This “nakedness of man” acquires a deeper meaning in Linnaeus’ reflections, as he stresses that “at the moment of birth, nature has thrown man ‘bare upon the bare earth’, unable to know, 14 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 4. 2014-06-26 09:08:30.
(5) . Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 5. at the sculpture, we have an ambivalent feeling of fascination and, at the same time, anxiety. This anxiety may emerge as we realise that in fact the category of “man” is just hypostasis (just like “animal”), and that the “Homo sapiens, then, is neither a clearly defined species nor a substance; it is, rather, a machine or device for producing the recognition of the human”20. Recognition shaped by the anthropological machine, which maintains a sharp boundary between what is human and non-human. Significantly, only concentration on similarities (especially visual similarities) between man and animals can encourage reflection on the artificial nature of this division21.. Humanising – animals like (as) humans One of the most emphatic pieces of evidence showing that biologically humans do not differ considerably from other mammal species is the possibility of creating transgenic animals – with human DNA or even organs. Transgenic hybrids, as liminal creatures, suspended between not-being-only-an-animal-anymore and not-being-human-yet, very often inspire artists. In 1997 the above mentioned Patricia Piccinini created an installation entitled Protein Lattice and comprising a series of photographs complemented by video projection. The photographs show models holding hairless rats with a human ear on their back22. Piccinini’s oeuvre was one of the first artistic responses to the appearance of transgenic animals; at the same time it also raised the issue of artificial creation of perfect images of the human body23. However, in this article I want to focus on a work that was created nearly ten years after Protein Lattice – an installation by the American artist Kathy High entitled Embracing Animal 24. The central object in Embracing Animal is a set of “luxurious”, spacious cages in which three transgenic rats – Matilda Barbie, Star Barbie and Tara Barbie – are speak, walk or feed himself, unless all this is taught to him [Nudus in nuda terra [...] cui scire nihil sine doctrina; non fari, non ingredi, non vesci, non aliud naturae sponte]. He becomes himself only if he raises himself above man [o quam contempta res est homo; nisi supra humana se erexerit]”, ibidem, p. 26. 20 Ibidem. 21 That is why, for example, the sculptures of transgenic creatures from Patricia Piccinini’s The Young Family cycle have so strongly emphasised human features. See A. Pera, Między człowiekiem a szczurem, czyli o zacieraniu międzygatunkowych granic w twórczości Patricii Piccinini, http:// www. obieg.pl/artmix/16506 (access: 27 December 2011). 22 www.patriciapiccinini.net/pp/pl.htm (access: 27 December 2011). 23 Ibidem. 24 The installation was presented for the first time as part of the exhibition Becoming Animal: Art in the Animal Kingdom at the MASS MoCA (curated by Nato Thomson), http://www.massmoca. org/ event_details.php?id=310 (access: 27 December 2011).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 5. 2014-06-26 09:08:30.
(6) 6. Anna Małecka. Phot. 1-2. Kathy High, Embracing Animal, multimedia installation with transgenic rats, 2005-2006 (photographs courtesy of the artist). placed. Next to them are placed four test tubes, which in fact are video sculptures (each three feet tall). Inside, at the bottom, there are tiny LCD screens with looped videos showing animal-human transgression, situations of “trans-animals”. Among various images of the beast (vampire, Lon Chaney undergoing transformation into a werewolf, The Fly, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) we can see “the artist herself, partly naked and wearing a pig mask, in close encounters with a dog”25. The rats were born in a laboratory with a gene responsible in humans for autoimmune diseases, which is why they are used to give birth to more rats with the faulty gene26. After they became “useless”, the artist bought them, “invited them to share her home, her life, and their common experiences (rats and High) in living with chronic disease”27. The artist gave the rats names – it was a gesture of making them individuals, granting subjectivity to creatures that are usually given just numbers (the so-called laboratory animal model), defining their “function”. In order to improve and prolong their life as long as possible, High treats them using 25 G. Glueck, The line between species shifts, and a show explores the move, http://travel.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/arts/design/26glue.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all (access: 27 December 2011). 26 For more about the “creation” of transgenic rats, see K. High, How did Matilda, Tara and Star Barbie become Transgenic Rats?, http://www.embracinganimal.com/transrats.html (access: 27 December 2011). 27 J. Willet, Embracing Animal, by Kathy HIGH (United States), http://magazine.ciac.ca/archives/no_23/en/oeuvre3.htm (access: 27 December 2011).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 6. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(7) Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 7. alternative medicine (she gives them homeopathic medications she herself takes), makes sure they live in a varied environment, have good food and are entertained. She sees such actions as a duty to creatures sacrificed for humans: Rats are delicate creatures. They need lots of attention and care. They are very intelligent animals. Their metabolism is very close to humans – which is why they are used in laboratory testing. The rats in the MASS MOCA exhibition are transgenic rats, meaning they have human DNA mixed with their own. So they are kind of our cousins. [...] Please do not consider the rats just pets, but a creature that co-exists with us. In other words, please treat them with a lot of respect28.. In The Politics of Empathy the artist describes the very deep bond between herself and her rats: Stress is one of the triggers for their conditions. I know because I, too, have autoimmune problems (in the form of Crohn’s disease and Sarcoidosis). Thus, I identify with the rats and feel as though we are mirroring each other. I feel a great kinship with them. [...] They are not pets [...], and still they are the forgotten workers29.. By showing the rats at the exhibition, the artist wants to present their fate, but also reveal to society the existence of such research conducted on animals, she wants to “make all this public”. Embracing Animal very clearly allows us to notice the fluidity of the boundary separating the human and the animal, it also draws our attention to the fate of animals treated more like laboratory “equipment” than living, feeling creatures. What is worth emphasising is the call for becoming responsible for the fate of creatures sacrificed in the interest of humans. The artist notes that these rats deserve special treatment, because they have human DNA in them, because they “are extensions, transformers, transitional combined beings that resonate with us in ways that other animals cannot”30. This human dimension is further emphasised by the fact that they suffer from the same diseases – this makes human empathy with the rat possible, a human being can learn how it feels to be a rat (at least in this fragment of experience). Sometimes it may seem that Kathy High tries to anthropomorphise the animals too much (e.g. by giving them names, talking to the rats by means of the interspecies animal communicator31 or regarding them as oppressed, forgotten “workers”32). The charge of anthropomorphism can be refuted, however, if we look at it as Giorgio Agamben, who claims that when the “total humanization of the animal coincides with a total animalization of man”33, this process suggests that the “anthropological machine” is jammed (usually temporarily). 28 . http://www.embracinganimal.com/ratcare.html (access: 27 December 2011). K. High, The Politics of Empathy, http://www.embracinganimal.com/ratlove.html (access: 27 December 2011). 30 Ibidem. 31 http://www.embracinganimal.com (access: 27 December 2011). 32 Ibidem. 33 G. Agamben, op. cit., p. 77. 29 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 7. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(8) 8. Anna Małecka. Animalisation – what is it like to be an animal? In his now classic paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, Thomas Nagel argued that man would never be able to come close to an experience that was not his own34. At best we will only find out what for us would be “to behave as a bat behaves” and will try to attribute some types of sensations on the basis of the structure and behaviour of this animal35. However, it will still remain a mystery to us “what it is like for a bat to be a bat”: Yet if I try to imagine this, I am restricted to the resources of my own mind, and those are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present experience, or by imagining segments gradually subtracted from it, or by imagining some combination of additions, substractions and modifications. To the extent that I could look and behave like a wasp or a bat without changing my fundamental structure, my experiences would not be anything like the experiences of those animals [...]. Even if I could by gradual degrees be transformed into a bat, nothing in my present constitution enables me to imagine what the experiences of such a future stage of myself thus metamorphosed would be like. The best evidence would come from the experiences of bats, if we only knew what they were like36.. Nagel’s firm conviction that the experience of another species (or even another human being using the senses differently because of blindness, for example) is inaccessible did not discourage the French group Art Orienté objet from exploring trans-species relations between humans and animals. Art Orienté objet, i.e. the duo of Marion Laval-Jeantet and Benoît Mangin, active since 1991, often raises the problem of ecology, wonders about the biological status of hybrids, and asks important questions concerning the relations between aesthetics and ethics as well as correlation between art and science. Such topics stem from the artists’ interest in sociobiology, psychology and behavioural science. The non-verbal language of art is for AOo a perfect tool for exploring new issues again and again37. These reflections lead to intriguing, often controversial works. Their provocative character is fully in accordance with the idea of the artists, who try to produce “objects embedded with a fundamental antagonism: repulsion and fascination”38 . In one of the recent actions, Que le cheval vive en moi (May the horse live in me), which took place on 22 February 2011 at the Kapelica gallery in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the founder of AOo Marion Laval-Jeantet tried to find out how animal 34 See T. Nagel, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, Polish translation by A. Romaniuk, [in:] idem, Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press 2012, pp. 165-181. 35 Ibidem, p. 169. 36 Ibidem. 37 www.artorienteobjet.free.fr (access: 27 December 2011). 38 Interview with Art Orienté objet, we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2007/01/aoo-wasformed.php (access: 27 December 2011).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 8. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(9) Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 9. immunoglobulins affect the human mind and body39. In order to test that during the performance she allowed herself to be injected with horse blood plasma. This scientific-artistic project was preceded by several months of preparations that were to enable a human being to receive animal blood without side effects. Throughout that time the artist regularly received horse antibodies in increasingly large doses – as a result she was able to develop resistance to the alien substance and avoid anaphylactic shock. During the performance Laval-Jeantet put on stilts with hooves and walked with the donor horse in a “ritual of communication”; then her hybrid blood was taken, extracted and lyophilized40. These actions were to produce a “hybrid man-animal existence” questioning barriers between species41. The experiment was successful – in various interviews and her own articles the artist talks about changes caused by having horse plasma injected into her own circulation: “I had the feeling of being extra-human. I was not in my usual body. I was hyper-powerful, hyper-sensitive, hyper-nervous and very diffident. The emotionalism of an herbivore. I could not sleep. I probably felt a bit like a horse”42. She also mentions that her entire nervous system was transformed – she had “slightly aggressive reactions to stimuli”, she felt everything more strongly, for example, when someone touched her, she “would jump with shock”: A specialist in horse immunity explained that all the sensations I was feeling weren’t human at all, but were those of a horse. My body was reacting in a way that was no longer human, which explained how I was sleeping for about an hour at time in interrupted bursts. That’s the way horses sleep. To my insides, I was becoming non-human43.. What is striking in the Art Orienté objet performance is the extremity of measures that are to enable the artist to remove the inter-species boundary – we may have some objections whether the reduction of physical differences through such drastic and biologically dangerous interventions is really necessary44. At the same time, Que le cheval vive en moi is undoubtedly an interesting continuation of the centaur myth, which through an integral and harmonious merger of man and ani39 K. Austen, Ars electronica celebrates subversion, http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/09/ars-electronica-celebrates-subversion.html (access: 27 December 2011). 40 Que le cheval vive en moi (May the horse live in me), www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ archives/2011/08/que-le-cheval-vive-en-moi-may.php (access: 27 December 2011). 41 M. Laval-Jeantet, Self-animality, www.art-science.univ-paris1.fr/document.php?id=559 (access: 27 December 2011). 42 Que le cheval... 43 T. Mokoena, May the horse live in Me, www.dontpaniconline.de/p/posts/art/horse-power (access: 27 December 2011). 44 As an alternative, we can refer, for example, to formally very simple work by Jo Longhurst, Sighthound, in which the confrontation with the perspective of a dog takes place as a result of small holes, through which stereometric images can be seen, being placed at the height of an adult’s breast The enforced change of position from straightened to bowed makes the spectators loose their privileged vertical position and acquire an “animal point of view”, http://www.jolonghurst.com/ docs/ projects_images.php?id=1:152:3461:0 (access: 27 December 2011).. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 9. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(10) 10. Anna Małecka. mal in one body eliminates the possibility of one species dominating the other (as is the case, for example, with a rider on horseback)45.. Inter-species art In contemporary artistic practices we can find many examples of live animals more or less actively participating in the creation of a work of art. Every time a question arises about the role played by these animals in the various projects. Referring just to the projects described in the present article, we can observe significant differences – the coyote from Beuys’ action had relatively more freedom in (co-)creating the work than the transgenic rats from K. High’s installation. At the point the most important question arises – what conditions have to be met for us to be able to speak of inter-species art? Is the animal’s participation sufficient? Is having to face the “animal perspective” more important than physical presence? Perhaps it is necessary to have specific action on the part of the animals? A thorough analysis, supported by examples, of these issues is not possible in such a short article. There is no doubt, however, that the term “inter-species art” raises fewer objections than the so-called animal art46. When we talk about “animal art”, it is usually about an animal performing tasks that cannot be described as its natural behaviour47. This is one of the reasons why Congo the chimpanzee, encouraged by Desmond Morris, an ethologist and artist, painted (?) about 380 paintings over the course of two years. The art historian Thierry Lenain considers ape art to be a “human invention”, emphasising strongly that “although at some point in the history of Western art pictures produced by humans and non-humans indeed looked very nearly identical, they were never and never could be the same thing”48. These words can also be referred to the so-called elephant art and probably also to ready-made objects transformed by the dog Pimpek. Pimpek’s case is different only in that the dog, instead of drawing, simply does what it “sincerely enjoys”, biting various objects, tearing them with “compulsive precision”49. People can – quite understandably – object to all these products being called art. However, it turns out that sometimes animals can be interesting partners in artistic projects (without the need of describing the effect of such collaboration with the controversial term of “animal art”). The most interesting examples of 45 . Cf. Que le cheval... an example of a trans-species work Monika Bakke (Bio-transfiguracje. Sztuka i estetyka posthumanizmu, Poznań 2010, p. 222) cites a project entitled When Elephants Paint created by Vitaly Komar and Alexandr Melamid. 47 Ibidem, p. 218. 48 Ibidem, p. 220. 49 Czy zwierzę może być artystą, www.e-teatr.pl/pl/artykuly/109782.html (access: 27 December 2011). 46 As. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 10. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(11) . Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 11. inter-species cooperation include the fascinating Bee Project by Bärbel Rothhaar. Since 1999 this German artist has been cooperating with bees, creating inter-species sculptures, videos and interactive installations. Her interest in bees began with the encaustic technique – a painting technique known already in ancient Greece, consisting in applying hot pigments mixed with beeswax. Another impulse came from the look of honey- and wax-covered tools taken out from a hive. For the purposes of the exhibition special glass beehives or ones with windows were constructed, thanks to which visitors can see how bees destroy, rebuild and transform objects, drawings and bones placed in the hives. Sometimes, as in the Sleeping in a Beehive installation (2004), the material undergoing transformation is a head cast (in this case head of the sleeping artist). In Talking Heads, on the other hand, bees got one floor with wax busts and a piece of paper with lecture notes –. Phot. 3. Bärbel Rothhaar, Talking Heads, 2008/2009 (photograph courtesy of the artist). Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 11. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(12) 12. Anna Małecka. the paper was partly eaten and replaced with honeycombs. With bees, Rothhaar creates intertextual and mutliple-thread works with rich narratives, requiring thorough interpretation. Such equivocal works include the installation Aphrodite (2003), in which insects transform twenty-five wax casts of details from the sculpture Crouching Aphrodite. Thus an “image made by ancient Greeks – embodiment of harmony – was mixed with a wax structure built by bees (also well-proportioned and harmonious but in a completely different way)”50. In addition, we are dealing here with the intriguing, rich symbolism of bees. From Antiquity bees were associated with immortality; in order to protect the body from decomposition and ensure resurrection, the dead were smeared with honey. Greek folk tales are even more interesting; according to them, after death the soul flies away in the form of a bee, sometimes visiting the flowers on its own grave51. This combination of the moment of death of a human being and the birth of bees also appears in Greek mythology. In one of the tales, Melissa, a priestess of Demeter, is torn apart by her companions, because she did not betray the secret of her goddess’ mysteries. Demeter transformed the priestess’ dismembered body into a swarm of bees. Rothhaar herself recalls that she draws primarily on the notion of melissas (Greek Μελισσας), denoting bees but also priestesses in the temple of Aphrodite52. Bärbel Rothhaar’s oeuvre is an interesting example of the suspension of the boundary between the human and non-human. A dialogue between art and nature leads to “symbiotic works of art, in which the artistic idea and natural process become merged”53. Completed sculptures during this work in progress undergo transformation, loose their integrity – the final effect of the transformation is all the more surprising given the fact that the bee community itself builds honeycombs differently every time, depending on the climate, flora, flowering period of plants etc.54 The process-like nature of the work, the possibility of looking inside the beehive and seeing what is usually inaccessible reduce the distance between the bees and the humans. Moreover, these works teach us to be sensitive and open to partially non-human “aesthetics”.. *** Modern art has undoubtedly been showing a growing interest in animals, the position of human beings and their struggle with their own identity as a species. 50 . http://www.baerbel-rothhaar.de (access: 27 December 2011). See W. Kopaliński, Słownik symboli, Warsaw 1990. 52 http://www.baerbel-rothhaar.de (access: 27 December 2011). Melissas was a term referring not only to priestesses of Demeter and Aphrodite – it also described priestesses from the temple of Artemis in Ephesus. This similarity of names resulted from the fact that the bee was associated with the Moon and all three goddesses were lunar deities. 53 Ibidem. 54 Ibidem. 51 . Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 12. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(13) Limits of the (non)human in modern art. 13. Art works constitute a significant and critical contribution to this discussion, held, among others, by philosophers and biologists. Often the artists are also inclined to collaborate more closely with the animals. Yet, despite many positive changes, we need to be vigilant and constantly shape our ethical sensibility, especially when a living animal takes part in a work. Steve Baker, author of many books devoted to the ethical and artistic aspects of representations of animals in art55, warns against a too “naive” approach to modern art, which not always has more to offer to animals than the anthropocentric traditional art56. These fears are to some extent shared by the artists themselves, who note that even their good intentions are sometimes not enough to break with the instrumental treatment of animals. This was very emphatically expressed by Kathy High, when she wrote about her multimedia installation Embracing Animal: The rats were no longer lab products, but became art products, again on display, again used as research. Does this shift or change their status in the world? They were still workers and products for sale. But, while the rats were considered “art objects” instead of “lab products,” their very presence in the exhibition made us come face-to-face with the reality and fragility of these small man-made creatures57.. We can clearly see that although the artist is aware of how important a role her work plays – on the one hand, it reveals the fate of laboratory animals, and on the other it ensures comprehensive care for the rats – she cannot be rid of doubts that to some extent she does participate in the exploitation of these vulnerable, “fragile” creatures. However, despite all reservations and concerns, we cannot give up trans-species encounters in art, because they often lead to important conclusions and redefinitions. According to Urllich, artistic actions contribute to the reformulation of human and animal identity: Being human loses its clear outline, it becomes blurred and mergers with animality in some places. Being human is not something obvious, but a performative act, something continuous in becoming, never something static; it is a question that must again and again be asked anew. Perhaps humans will become fully human when they remember their own animality58.. So far, as Monika Bakke rightly points out, in our culture the physical and mental similarity between humans and animals has not been a reason for reducing the distance to other species; on the contrary, it has been felt to be a threat to the human identity – separated from that of the other animals. Consequently, this has led to an 55 For example, S. Baker, The Postmodern Animal, London 2000; idem, Picturing the Beast: Animals, Identity and Representation, Chicago 2001; Killing Animals, ed. S. Baker, Champaign 2006. 56 S. Baker, The animal in contemporary art, http://www.fathom.com/feature/122562/index. html (access: 27 December 2011). 57 K. High, I offer my power in the service of Love, http://becoming-animal-becoming-human. animal-studies.org/img/EmbracingAnimal.pdf (access: 27 December 2011). 58 D. Łagodzka, J. Ullrich, op. cit.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 13. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
(14) 14. Anna Małecka. increase of the dichotomy through the need to create a distance necessary to feel one’s superiority over animals59.. Today the situation is beginning to change and even Anna Tsing’s conclusion that “human nature is an inter-species relationship”60, no longer arouses such vehement opposition. Instead of a boundary, we increasingly notice a continuum between the human and the non-human. 59 . M. Bakke, op. cit., p. 119.. 60 A. Tsing, Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species, unpublished manuscript. Quoted. after D. Haraway, When Species Meet, Minneapolis 2008, p. 19.. Prace Kulturoznawcze XIV/2, 2012 © for this edition by CNS. P_K-Malecka eng-korekta.indd 14. 2014-06-26 09:08:32.
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