Interspecies Art
How is it different from interspecies design?
How is it different from making art with animals?
Definition
Interspecies art consist of aesthetic practices that 1) involve subjective judgements of multiple species and 2) are used by more than one species.
The Need for a Definition (Innovative Characteristics)
- Often humans co-opt animals to perform actions that humans frame as art and are meaningless to animals. In those situations animals can be the subjects of exploitation, not compensated for their time, labour, skills, etc.
Kosut, Mary, and Lisa Jean Moore. ‘Bees Making Art: Insect Aesthetics and the Ecological Moment’. Humanimalia 5, no. 2 (2014): 1–25. https://doi.org/10/gmcdf4.
- Human artist increasingly comment on the nonhuman issues. However, they do it by using human concept and import the results to become meaningful within human art worlds.
Ballard, Susan. ‘New Ecological Sympathies: Thinking about Contemporary Art in the Age of Extinction’. Environmental Humanities 9, no. 2 (n.d.): 255–79. https://doi.org/10/gmcdgk.
This can be true even if the motivation for the humans is to help the nonhumans or to attend to the intricacies of nonhuman worlds with greater attention.
McCarthy, Adele. ‘Sound Art: Challenging Anthropocentrism and the Objectification of Nature’. Philosophy Activism Nature, no. 4 (2007): 14–20.
The test case is often whether art can exist between species without humans. The implication of in the common usage of the term 'interspecies art' is that humans are involved and in fact play the controlling roles.
Fischer, Dorothee. ‘Art Between Species: Two Case Studies of Animals’ Agency in Interspecies Art’. Journal of LUCAS Graduate Conference, no. 8 (2020): 67–92.
Key Issues
- Redefine art in evolutionary terms
- Distinguish art produced by animals for human consumption from art co-produced for human/nonhuman consumption and for nonhuman consumption
- Establish art as lived aesthetics
- Establish aesthetics as a form/aspect of subjectivity Aesthetics
- Extend beyond animals
- Link art to design via such concepts as 'useful art', 'performance art', etc.
Art about or Exploiting Animals
There is a substantial amount of practice and literature that link animals in art without reconsidering 'art' in nonhuman terms, instead including animals into the sphere of human art.
Broglio, Ron. Surface Encounters: Thinking with Animals and Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Precedents
Interspecies art was established as a technical term in recognition of the new approaches taken in art by at least five exhibitions taking place roughly around the same time in 2009.
- U.S., Intelligent Design: Interspecies Art Exhibition
- UK, Interspecies
- Canada, Animal House: Works of Art Made by Animals
- Germany
- Tier-Werden Mensch-Werden [Becoming-Animal Becoming- Human]
- Tier-Perspektiven [Animal Perspectives]
Also, Jim Nollman and interspecies music, for example:
Ullrich, Jessica. ‘Animal Artistic Agency in Performative Interspecies Art in the Twenty-First Century’. Boletín de Arte, no. 40 (2019): 69–83. https://doi.org/10/gp4j.
Between species: animal-human collaboration in contemporary art
Work by Lisa Jevbrat, Interspecies Collaboration – Making Art Together with Nonhuman Animals field guide
References
Baker, Steve. Artist/Animal. 25. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
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