The Animality of Man: This core idea has always been present in my research and work, and in a broad sense, the commonality between humans and animals and the animality of man is an important theme of research in a number of fields, including biology, philosophy, anthropology and psychology. This commonality can be explored from evolutionary, biological structural, behavioural and cultural perspectives. In terms of biological evolution, Charles Darwin proposed in The Origin of Species (1859) that all species, including humans, come from a common ancestor. This laid the foundation for the commonality of humans and animals in a biological sense Darwin, C. (1859). On the Origin of Species. by John Murray.Whereas the similarities between humans and animals are viewed through the lens of cognitive science and behaviour, animal behaviour does share similarities with human behaviour in some ways, as Konrad Lorenz examines animal behaviour in his book King Solomon's Rings, highlighting the similarities in emotions and behaviours between humans and animals, such as Group Collaboration and Maternal Behaviour Lorenz, K. (1952). King Solomon's Ring. methuen. cross-species nature of emotions - Scientist Frans de Waal studied animal emotions and social behaviour, suggesting that emotions are not just a human trait, but that many animals have similar emotions such as empathy, cooperation and conflict De Waal, F .(2009). The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. crown.
Animal Instincts
Beth Cavener (b.1972) American sculpture artist
Beth Cavener's sculptures focus on the theme of human psychology, where the body language presented by the animals is a metaphor for the human mindset, not only as a physical representation but as a psychological portrait. The contorted postures of the various mammals aim to depict the confusion, anger, love and struggle of human emotions. These framed wildnesses are the primal animal instincts of the human heart, predator and prey, love and hate, war and peace. The animal behaviour in a state of tension is really an expression of human fear and insecurity, indifference and desire. In Interview by filmmaker Bas Berkhout of Like Knows Like to Beth Cavener in her Montana studio 2017 she refers to her inner world, her search for self-definition. Much of her work is related to loneliness, which for her is a dark corner where she is unhappy but at the same time is also a comfort zone. She chooses to use animals to encapsulate certain human feelings, which are manifested in her sculptures, which have human collarbones, bellybuttons, genitals and their specific gestures and body language, which she says are very self-aware and self-reflective. In this interview she also refers to her depression, anxiety and self-doubt, as well as some thoughts about the tearing down of her ego, but that this tearing down is also a process of peace and reconciliation with her ego
‘Committed ’Year: 2015 Installation: H 78 x L 28 x D 26 in
H 21 x L 14 x D 19 in.Materials: Stoneware, paint, leather, steel chaine
Filmmaker Bas Berkhout of Like Knows Like interviewed Cavener in her Montana studio
Watching this interview with Beth Cavener I felt a connection with her, a common ground in her comfort zone of solitude and deeper analysis of herself. I was inspired by her ‘Committed’, two identical looking sheep chained together, which in combination with the name of the piece gave me the impression of loyalty in some form of shackle. The sculpture itself is beautiful, but also reveals the discomfort of being confined and crowded. Combined with my own confusion, I created the image of a goat-headed man with two heads and a connected body. I try to express my emotions through this animalisation of a human being. Sheep have soft fur and harmless faces, but the two-headed sheep in my picture also reveals the same discomfort. The crowded and rigid body language also expresses my inner world of writhing and loneliness, and the two opposite seasons in the background are also to distinguish the two different states of mind and personalities. The ears moulded around the frame express the desire to be heard.
Maman (Araignée）, 1999, Bronze, marbre et acier inoxydable, 927 x 891 x 1023 cm, Canada
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)
Art is the epitome of trauma, and she makes sculptures to heal childhood traumas from her family and as an elegy to her mother, for whom the spider is a symbol. Her mother worked in textile restoration, such as tapestry, and she remembers her mother as a spider, making webs with her silk every day. At the same time, her mother had a tough outer shell and a soft inner body that could protect and nourish her, hence the marble orb underneath the huge body. Zoologically, some female spiders carry egg sacs on their backs to lay their eggs, and when the egg sacs hatch, the young spiders climb onto the mother's back or abdomen to form a mobile group that disperses in the event of danger, thus protecting the young from their mother.
Louise Bourgeois' use of spiders to symbolise her wooden mother made me reflect on my own experience, and in knowing the meaning of this symbolism I also felt the confinement and bondage, and the strong and inextricable symbiotic bond with my mother. In contrast I chose to animalise myself, in terms of bondage and obedience I chose a pet dog as my: ‘avatar’, it is worth noting here that the research and concepts that have been referred to in the previous section have been unidirectional, i.e. how to show that there is an animal in the human being, and there has been no discussion of whether animals have a human nature or not. So I pondered whether animals could be humanised as well. In Frence Flatz's article it is mentioned that Husserl's theory of humanisation intersects with the question of pets, and that in Husserl's view animals in general, and pets in particular, are surely not just the subject of a process parallel to that of human beings-i.e., animation, the constitution of the animal world; they are themselves objects of humanisation. In several of his later research manuscripts, pets are more explicitly described as ‘humanised animals’ (vermenschlichte Tiere) (1993:304), or even ‘human analogues’ ( Analoga von Menschen) (1973:185). Particular reference is made to the relationship between the dog and the human being, where the pet accompanies the human being and is closely adapted to the processes and rhythms of human activity, while at the same time the human being needs to incorporate the animal's needs and activities into their daily routines, and this implicit, physical adaptation can be accomplished with the exchange of special commands and commands after domestication Ferencz-Flatz, C. Humanising the Animal, Animalising the Animal, and the Animalisation of the Animal (1973). Humanising the Animal, Animalising the Human: Husserl on Pets. Hum Stud 40, 217-232 (2017). In Duan Yifu's book Making Pets - Domination and Emotion, it is mentioned that during hunting civilisations or in some tribes, animals were often seen as a source of food and had no other function. In today's advanced civilisations, where the basics of food and drink can be secured, animals are bred to become playthings and aesthetic objects. It is enumerated how two animals, goldfish and dogs, are transformed into ornamental objects and pets. Breeding was used to control the appearance of the goldfish to eventually become a favoured look. The dog was the first animal to be domesticated, and the breed became complex through long term interaction with people. The so-called domestication is not only the intervention of artificial reproduction to biologically alter the animal's original wildness and bestiality, but also the use of means to make it obedient. Dogs uniquely display a set of relationships that we wish to explore: dominance and affection, love and abuse, cruelty and kindness. The dog evokes, on the one hand, the best qualities within a person's power - a self-sacrificing devotion to weak and dependent beings - and on the other hand, the exercise of power in a capricious and arbitrary, even perverse, manner. The two traits may coexist in one person Tuan, Y.-F. (2006) Dominance and Affection: The Making of Pets. Beijing: Commercial Press. I think this is similar to my situation in my family, where the bond of kinship between my mother and I turned us into a symbiosis, and the My mother's role in the family has always been that of a superior, superior figure who can either selflessly raise me or unconditionally dominate me. I naturally became a subordinate in this situation. Growing up, I was constantly ‘domesticated’ to wear down some of my personality and edges, and was expected and taught to be the perfect child in the eyes of my elders. These expectations are represented by emoji symbols on the leash: loud reprimand, first place, high education, decent job, as if my whole life is confined by these four things.
Regarding the treatment of the background of the painting, a phrase called ‘dream core’ appears in a search for related content. Dreamcore is a surrealist aesthetic that uses themes related to dreams, daydreams, or nightmares, often depicted in images, videos, and music that utilise different ‘base images’ such as restricted spaces, unrealistic terrains and structures (ps-processed hills, floating buildings, etc.), and even fantasy lands. ), and even fantasy lands, which lend a dreamlike quality to the visuals. Dreamcore visuals are usually lighter in tone, softer in colour or brighter and more vivid, and are then overlaid with different elements, usually text or characters. I chose a computer desktop background for Windows 7, from my childhood memories, but at the same time showing the feeling of a familiar scene that doesn't really exist, and making me think about whether home is a safe place for me to exist or a place I need to escape from.
All the references in my work are mostly to myself, and almost all of the human body has a distinctly female character, which at first did not bother me, it all happened naturally. It came to me in the process of reviewing and searching for identity, that ‘I’ exist first as a human being, then as a woman, and then as something else, for example, my work explores ‘my’ own bipolar inner world, ‘My work explores, for example, my own polarised inner world, my identity in the family, and ultimately the fact that I exist as a woman. Based on my own childhood experience, my parents divorced when I was very young and I was raised primarily by my mother, John Bowlby in Attachment and Loss VOLUME III LOSS SADNESS AND DEPRESSION mentions the effects of prolonged absence of a father on a child's mental health, especially in terms of emotional stability and self-perception. particularly in terms of emotional stability and self-perception formation.
My father's long absence and my mother's dedication and patience in the family, as well as the failure of my marriage, made me resistant to marriage and family formation from a very early age. So I began to think about the dialectic of marriage from my female identity. As a social animal, human beings live in groups, and marriage is a social structure from a variety of perspectives. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's introduction to social contract theory influenced the view of marriage, which he saw as a pact between the individual and the community, with the responsibility of maintaining the social order Rousseau, J.-J. (1762) The Social Contract. Translated by G. D. H. Cole. London: Everyman's Library. But this is to emphasise the role or contribution of marriage to human society as a whole in a broader sense, while thinking of marriage in terms of private relationships, due to the far-reaching influence of the patriarchal social system, women are often in an unfair position in terms of gender and rights. fair position, especially when marriage, as an institution, is an important tool for entrenching the division of gender roles, with all its social responsibilities, is an injustice to women Friedan, B. (1963) The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.In relation to my personal experience and the subject matter I think of the praying mantis. I think that the mantis is one of the most dramatic examples of a biological mechanism for the relationship between the sexes and the reproduction of offspring. The females eat the males after mating for the sake of their offspring, especially when food is scarce or the males are small, to provide extra nutrition and thus better nurture their offspring, and on the other hand the self-sacrificing sacrifice of the males greatly increases the number of their offspring from a chemical point of view. chemical perspective greatly increases the genetic survival of their offspring. In terms of marriage and the female perspective, this shows a kind of rebellion of women in marriage and personal emotions, as well as the mutual checks and balances and equality of the two sexes in marriage.The velvet sofa in the background and the coffin in the border are meant to echo the theme that both marriage and love seem to be gorgeous but superficial, and behind that superficiality lies the stoicism and unequal treatment of women.
Amy Coleslaw is a British mixed-media artist who uses felting techniques and repurposes old dolls to create astonishing Art Toys.
Amy Coleslaw explores identity, memory and the experience of identity in her multimedia creations. She emphasises the interaction of materials and ideas by incorporating waste, mostly discarded dolls and fabrics.
In her work I sense the use of the body as a metaphor for identity and the exploration of how individuals find a sense of belonging within social structures. These dolls are rooted in her vivid childhood memories of the 1990s.
Based on the fact that the dolls are also part of my childhood memories and representations, and that these dolls can also represent myself, I reuse unwanted toys.
‘Symbiosis’ is a collection of two dolls cut and sewn together, which I see as a symbol of tearing and restructuring myself, combining the animalistic nature of human beings with the animalistic characteristics I give to the dolls by sewing them together with plush fabrics. ‘The ‘Dog Woman’ is made in the same way, by gluing plush fabric to the Barbie doll's body and posing the doll in a crouching position to convey dog-like behaviour.
Taken together, I believe that animalisation is an expression of scars for me, and that the search for similarities with specific breeds of animals is also a process of self-definition and identity search, or that the animal's qualities are part of me, and that the creation of artwork after the establishment of the link is also a healing process for myself, and that the process of telling and creating artwork is a way of transforming the scars of the wounds and the pains into strength, and of showing a vision of the continuous search for happiness and joy.
Reference
Ferencz-Flatz, C. (2017) ‘Humanizing the Animal, Animalizing the Human: Husserl on Pets’, Human Studies, 40(4), pp. 217-232.
Agamben, G. (2004) The Open: Man and Animal. Translated by K. Attell. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss. New York: Basic Books.
hooks, b. (2000) All About Love: New Visions. New York: Harper Perennial.
Tuan, Y.-F. (2006) Making Pets: The Ability to Dominate and Love. Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company.
Sen, A. (1990) ‘More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing’, The New York Review of Books, 37(20), pp. 61–66.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1762) The Social Contract. Translated by G. D. H. Cole. London: Everyman's Library.
Friedan, B. (1963) The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Green, P. L., & Neff, D. L. (2009). "Mating behavior and the evolution of sexual cannibalism in the praying mantis: The role of sexual conflict and nutrition." Behavioral Ecology, 20(4), 735-742.