Summary of Intent
I plan to produce a series of video works that use trained animals, instead of humans, to “act out” or represent various emotional states and scenarios. Continuing my previous investigations of the production and construction of intimacy, I will use existing structures in cinema and television, supported by scientific research to address the tension between the immateriality and material evidence of intimacy- as well as its innate ability to be repeated.
Goal
I intend to make two primary works, with three parts each. The first is a three channel video installation, each featuring an animal (dog, monkey, lion cub, etc) going through the emotions in a breakup simultaneously. With the help of an animal trainer, they will go through an “emotional choreography” including feelings such as shock, anger, sadness, apathy, depression and so on. In the second, three short scripted dramas will depict archetypal intimate scenes (the mistress and the wife, a breakup between lovers, a battle between spouses). The scenes will be treated professionally, with all the lighting, set design, and technical support of a typical film set. The scenes will be very clearly blocked, with a physical map of each animal’s movements and their “emotional” commands. Example for scene with mistress and wife:
Morning. Wide shot on an apartment. The sound of a shower running can be heard. The doorbell rings. The sound of the shower stops.
An interior door opens. In enters a wet dog. The dog stops and listens. The doorbell rings again.
These scenes will be modeled after personal experiences and anecdotes, but also influenced by patterns in famous films employing these scenarios- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Strindberg’s The Stronger, Kramer v Kramer, Scenes From A Marriage, are a few examples. The principle goal in the actual filming is to use as many specifics as possible physically to try and overcome the impossibility of animals as humans.
Professionally trained animals and their trainers will be used to create as “realistic” a scene as possible. The end result is unclear but I would like to work towards building an environment that is at once funny and alarming, familiar and strange. This liminal ground should allow the audience to tap into their own resource of saved codes and symbols of intimacy, the emotions they produce- whatever that may be. To provide a set of real circumstances in a context that is not real. I will also investigate the possibility of including either sound or subtitles. The subtitles would be non-sequitur inserts of generic dialogue (ex: How could you do that?), there could be a voice over of an actor describing how they prepare for a scene. Whether this element is included will determine if there is an “adding up” of the narrative for the viewer or if it remains abstract.
The animals themselves, much like human actors, will go through a set of very real objectives- following a scent, listening to a loud sound, playing sleepy- that will result in the aesthetic production of feelings, respectively for example, anxiously pacing, being shocked, feeling sad. These in turn will trigger reactions in the viewer, perpetuating a dialogue about the fine line between what is really felt and what is simply produced by the production.
The three-channel video with the “breakup choreography” will focus back in on how simple these structures of emotion and relation are. Stripped of any pop cultural or personifying dressings, I want to test the limits of production, repeatability, and relativity.
I am curious in watching how an object becomes whatever subject we may endow it with. How much the immaterial weight of the subject is clearly marked by the physical evidence of the object? Do we laugh at cat videos on the internet because they are animals behaving like humans or because as humans we are told to laugh at cats? What is real and what is projection?
A series of smaller works documenting the process and the script can also be produced. Possible research sources include: Nietzche’s principle of Eternal Return, Scandinavian cinema, YouTube videos of animals behaving as people, Raymond Carver, Harry Harlow’s study of rhesus monkeys, popular films, animal training programs.
Summary of Intent
I plan to produce a series of video works that use trained animals, instead of humans, to “act out” or represent various emotional states and scenarios. Continuing my previous investigations of the production and construction of intimacy, I will use existing structures in cinema and television, supported by scientific research to address the tension between the immateriality and material evidence of intimacy- as well as its innate ability to be repeated.
Goal
I intend to make two primary works, with three parts each. The first is a three channel video installation, each featuring an animal (dog, monkey, lion cub, etc) going through the emotions in a breakup simultaneously. With the help of an animal trainer, they will go through an “emotional choreography” including feelings such as shock, anger, sadness, apathy, depression and so on. In the second, three short scripted dramas will depict archetypal intimate scenes (the mistress and the wife, a breakup between lovers, a battle between spouses). The scenes will be treated professionally, with all the lighting, set design, and technical support of a typical film set. The scenes will be very clearly blocked, with a physical map of each animal’s movements and their “emotional” commands. Example for scene with mistress and wife:
Morning. Wide shot on an apartment. The sound of a shower running can be heard. The doorbell rings. The sound of the shower stops.
An interior door opens. In enters a wet dog. The dog stops and listens. The doorbell rings again.
These scenes will be modeled after personal experiences and anecdotes, but also influenced by patterns in famous films employing these scenarios- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Strindberg’s The Stronger, Kramer v Kramer, Scenes From A Marriage, are a few examples. The principle goal in the actual filming is to use as many specifics as possible physically to try and overcome the impossibility of animals as humans.
Professionally trained animals and their trainers will be used to create as “realistic” a scene as possible. The end result is unclear but I would like to work towards building an environment that is at once funny and alarming, familiar and strange. This liminal ground should allow the audience to tap into their own resource of saved codes and symbols of intimacy, the emotions they produce- whatever that may be. To provide a set of real circumstances in a context that is not real. I will also investigate the possibility of including either sound or subtitles. The subtitles would be non-sequitur inserts of generic dialogue (ex: How could you do that?), there could be a voice over of an actor describing how they prepare for a scene. Whether this element is included will determine if there is an “adding up” of the narrative for the viewer or if it remains abstract.
The animals themselves, much like human actors, will go through a set of very real objectives- following a scent, listening to a loud sound, playing sleepy- that will result in the aesthetic production of feelings, respectively for example, anxiously pacing, being shocked, feeling sad. These in turn will trigger reactions in the viewer, perpetuating a dialogue about the fine line between what is really felt and what is simply produced by the production.
The three-channel video with the “breakup choreography” will focus back in on how simple these structures of emotion and relation are. Stripped of any pop cultural or personifying dressings, I want to test the limits of production, repeatability, and relativity.
I am curious in watching how an object becomes whatever subject we may endow it with. How much the immaterial weight of the subject is clearly marked by the physical evidence of the object? Do we laugh at cat videos on the internet because they are animals behaving like humans or because as humans we are told to laugh at cats? What is real and what is projection?
A series of smaller works documenting the process and the script can also be produced. Possible research sources include: Nietzche’s principle of Eternal Return, Scandinavian cinema, YouTube videos of animals behaving as people, Raymond Carver, Harry Harlow’s study of rhesus monkeys, popular films, animal training programs.