viz. - animals

Pet Costumes & Staging Human-Animal Relations

Emily Lederman — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 02:53:18 +0000

from buzzfeed.com

In his 2010 text, Developing Animals: Wildlife and Early American Photography, Matthew Brower considers the constructed nature of wildlife photography and what it tells us about historical understandings of human-animal relations. Brower is the curator of the University of Toronto Art Centre and a lecturer in museum studies in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Beginning with an analysis of early American photographs of taxidermy, his text examines the practice of “camera hunting” in the nineteenth century, the invention of the photographic blind and Abbott Thayer’s use of photographs to make arguments about animal coloration and camouflage. Brower argues that examining these photographic practices illustrates how they construct a particular narrative of the relationship between animals and humans. Brower suggests that photos of perceived “wild animals” are staged to tell a particular story about the historical constitution of the animal and human-animal interaction.

photo credit: Blanton Musuem of Art: Takahashi Hiroaki (Shotei), Published by Fusui Gabo
Cat Prowling Around a Staked Tomato Plant, 1931

The Blanton Museum of Art’s recent exhibit “In the Company of Cats and Dogs” (June-September 2014) presented similar conclusions about the historical and contemporary presence of canines and felines in art. The exhibit illustrated how representations of domestic animals tell stories about how humans perceive themselves and their environments. One of my favorite sections was a grouping of paintings that pictured cats as causing and representing social deviance among their human companions, and spoke to a fear of female pleasure and independence.

from tonsofcats.com

One of the more popular pieces seemed to be a flat-screen television mounted on the wall playing a circuit of images of the Japanese, internet-famous cat Shironeko (“White Cat”), also known as “Basket Cat” or “Zen Cat.” This cat (sometimes along with other cats) is pictured in a relaxed-state with various kinds of vegetables and baskets balanced on his head and body. Shironeko is costumed, but not to represent anything other than the work of art that he himself has become. The use of organic materials in these photographs allows the scene to seem wild, or of nature, despite the obvious and heavy-handed human intervention. These photographs also emphasize the cat’s “natural” relaxed state, while simultaneously underscoring a human presence by juxtaposing the cat’s body with something unexpected and disruptive.

The photography of costumed pet stages a particular story of anthropomorphism, providing a narrative of human-animal, or child-animal, proximity and cohabitation. Now that access to photography and sharing images is open to most people, some of the seemingly most popular photos shared are of domestic animals. This becomes particularly obvious around Halloween when photos of clothed pets proliferate, as many pop culture media outlets are posting lists of the “silliest,” “greatest EVER,” or “funniest” photos of pets in costume. They seem more popular than photos of costumed kids (at least my internet bubble). What do the photographs of these costumed pets say about our staged relationship with domesticated animals?

Mother/Daughter, 1994/2009 from panopticangallery.com

One of the more well-known contemporary animal photographers, William Wegman, takes series of photos of Weimaraners, often wearing human clothing or interacting with objects. While not much art criticism exists on his work [the art critic Eric Banks wrote in ArtForum that Wegman has “marketed himself and his canine celebrities so well (and so outside the precincts of contemporary art) that it’s hard to formulate a critical take,”] Wegman’s photographs have been lauded in popular media and are so popular that his dog Man Ray was named “Man of the Year” by The Village Voice in 1982. In a 2011 article in the Smithsonian Magazine David Schonauer suggests that Wegman’s use of these dogs allows him to point out the absurdity of human ambition; he writes that Wegman “punctures [the dogs’] regal bearing by surrounding the animals with absurd artifacts from everyday human life,” that allows him to make fun of “our shaky human ambitions…not the dogs.” I agree and add that his photos of the dogs’ stable, blank stares directly address, and attempt to render absurd, our tendencies to try to read human emotions on our domestic pets.

Dog Walker, 1990 from wegmanworld.typepad.com

How does amateur photography of pets in costume compare to Wegman’s work? It seems that there are those that follow Wegman’s lead and point out the very absurdity present in dressing pets. What’s funny about these types of costumed pet photos is the very fact that we’re looking at a costumed pet.

from Buzzfeed

On the other hand, there are costumes that attempt to humanize the animal with a bit less irony. The best ones of these often picture the human companion right alongside the pet, drawing attention to a relationship of equity and proximity—we’re all trying to be someone else.

from Buzzfeed

There are also lots of debates out on the internet about the ethics of costuming pets. [For example, a costumed dog may actually feel physically shamed without having any awareness of how s/he looks, since the costume’s position may mimic another dog dominating!] The Humane Society and other animal rights groups put out a list of best practices when dressing up pets to avoid harming them, since sometimes people’s enthusiasm to costume prevents their pet from properly breathing or perspiring. And most animal rights organizations have embraced pet photography of all kinds as a way to draw in support and empathy for animals.

Dressing our pets in costume around Halloween, even if done to merely highlight the absurdity of the costumed pet and get a laugh, nevertheless encourages us to read these pets as part of the community, as participating in a holiday ritual of temporarily becoming something else, even if what they actually end up representing is mostly their perceived proximity to us. While Brower reads wildlife photos as staged to present “real animals” as those that only exist in human and cultural absence, the photography of domesticated animals in costume illustrates their perceived role as contributing members of our culture. His reading is useful in its emphasis that the staging of these photos is entirely about us.

Tags:

photography

animals

pets

halloween

Visual Rhetoric

costumes

Pets, Pain, & Pigs

Emily Lederman — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 01:13:51 +0000

Image credit: Foreign & Domestic, by Aimee Wenske

As Deb noted in the last viz. post, recently many social media users have taken to posting photos of animals, usually puppies and kittens, as a means to demonstrate empathy in times of (both personal and public) trauma and tragedy. Animals may help us deal with our pain even in their visual form. (In person, they certainly benefit us!) I’m interested in how this use of animal visuals as an antidote to pain relates to the popular use of animal figures to sell the food we eat, such as the currently hip image of the pig.

A fascination with the pig seems to exist in hipster culture—pigs, and especially bacon, are hip.

Cartoonish animal imagery, always seemingly popular in images of bbq shacks, pig roasts, and fast food chains, has become popular in the expensive, finer-dining, hipster restaurant scene in Austin. Pigs are often the featured animal (think Barley Swine, The Salty Sow, Bacon, Foreign & Domestic…).

Image credit: 512foodblog.wordpress.com

While the images of cats and dogs that proliferate on the web are usually real, up close, and personal—take this one of my cat Frank—

--the images of the hipster pig are often simple, childish cutouts. Eyes and fur are rarely pictured, since these might remind us too much of our furry domesticated friends. The diverse associations we make with the images of animal bodies allow us to greatly compartmentalize our empathy. The caricatured nature of these restaurant images might also de-emphasize the animal’s relation to our own bodies.

Image credit: baconaustin.com

These images at least likely distance us from empathizing with the pain of pigs, a highly intelligent animal, whose bodies are so similar to our own that they have the potential to serve as organ donors. Most diners probably do not associate the “Salty Sow” with a pregnant pig (as the term usually refers to female swine used for breeding). Yet pregnant pigs are a hot topic in animal rights discourse, as many organizations have chosen to focus on ending the gestation crate—a confining cage in which female pigs are kept their entire breeding life—and frequently use images of suffering sows in their arguments against animal cruelty.

Image credit: TopsyTasty.com

Maybe the pig icon and the more animalistic terms like “swine” and “sow” proliferate because of the farm-to-table movement, and a growing desire to move closer to the source of our food. Certainly within the hipster food movement there is interest in sourcing and eating the entire animal. At Austin’s hip butchery Salt & Time, a full animal carcass is often in view. The once vegan butcher, Ben Runkle, and his business partner Bryan Butler, source whole animals from farmers they trust, and thereby have great control over the quality and cuts of the meat they produce.

Image credit: saltandtime.com

For some, seeing the whole dead animal is disconcerting, indicating how sensitive many of us are to real butchery. Despite the inundation of visuals in our lives today, few people are exposed to images that document the production process of the food we eat. (In fact, photos and video from inside animal production sites are often banned). Our ability as a society to consume such extreme quantities of meat certainly seems due to the fact that we don't have to visualize the process of mainstream meat processing and factory farming.

While the images of pigs that we see outside of hip restaurants may seek to persuade their clientele that the food served is real and fresh from the local farm (rather than factory farmed, pesticide-filled, antibiotic-fueled, genetically modified…etc.), their simple and frequent appearance may actually discourage viewers from visualizing the live animal.

Tags:

Visual Rhetoric

animals

Food

Browsing Between Cute Baby Animals and Tragedy

Deb Streusand — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 19:51:33 +0000

Image Credit: klaynexas 3, escapistmagazine.com

A post that links to images of cute animals is a common sight on Facebook these days. We share articles such as “13 Pictures of Humans Hugging Animals That Will Make You Feel Better” and “27 Baby Animals That Will Instantly Make Your Day Better.” Within the articles, these images are framed in terms of how they make the reader feel, how they will comfort us and raise us from whatever mental state (by implication, a negative one) we were in when we found them.

Image Credit: cutestpaw, 123inspiration.com

Aww, I feel better already.

This summer, I noticed a phenomenon on my Facebook in which people who were feeling negative about the state of the world asked others to post pictures of animals in the comments to their posts. It is nothing new for people to ask for good news or comfort via Facebook, but the timing of this particular trend (asking for animal pictures) coincided with some of the most troubling news coming out of Ferguson, MO and Gaza. Due to Facebook’s peculiar interpretation of the “search” function, I can no longer find any of these posts. However, some internet investigation turns up interesting juxtapositions of animal posts and mentions of Ferguson and Gaza.

For example, on August 20, 2014, a commenter on escapistmagazine.com wrote, “I propose a thread filled with cute animals, regular animals, awesome images/gifs, and overall happiness.” Other commenters readily picked up on the first commenter’s proposal: 51 posts appeared in a single day. On the same forum, a recent Gaza thread had accumulated 177 posts over 6 days, and one on Ferguson had accumulated 367 over the same 6 days, both just before this comment thread appeared. One animal-inclusive comment on the “happiness” thread explicitly juxtaposed the contents of the thread with Ferguson and Gaza:

Image Credit: klaynexas 3, escapistmagazine.com

The text reads, "See, now this is the thread that needs over 50 pages of content. You ever just start feeling sad or angry or anything, just come here and look at adorable animals. It's not just useful for the times of Gaza, Ferguson, and Zoe Quinn, we will always need this thread. Keep it alive for years gentlemen, never let it fall off the main page."

The second image, of the animal clinging to the human finger, casts the viewer in the role of the human represented in the picture: a person operating in harmony with nature and receiving the gentle attention of an infant. The effect on the viewer is likely to be calming, as they perceive themselves in a symbiotic relationship with the natural world. It may also make them feel better about human nature, since the image suggests that humans are capable of the kind of gentleness and patience that holding a baby animal on one’s finger would require. After reading a blood-pressure-raising thread about Ferguson or Gaza, in which one confronted other humans who held opinions violently opposed to one’s own, this image would be soothing, providing one with a more positive perspective on oneself and other human beings. The commenter who shared this image clearly has faith in the utility of such images, as they suggest that the "happiness" thread be kept “alive for years.” They believe that, “it’s not just useful for the times of Gaza [and] Ferguson,” but will always be needed.

Such images, especially when framed in the context of an article or thread that is supposed to induce happiness or comfort, use visual rhetoric to persuade viewers to “feel better” about their lives and the state of the world. This rhetoric is in distinct contrast to that created by photographs taken in Ferguson showing protestors with their hands up.

Image Credit: Jeff Robertson, Associated Press

The photo of the baby animal on the finger and the Ferguson photo both show vertical appendages that represent non-violence. In the Ferguson photo, however, the threat of violence is active. The viewer, facing the guns and masked police, is positioned to identify with the threatened party, the person holding their hands up. Whereas the animal photo represents and persuades passivity, the Ferguson photo, by portraying threat, argues for action.

What might be the effect of these visual rhetorics on a viewer who sees both? Like all rhetoric, its impact depends heavily on its audience. To return to the phenomenon I described at the beginning of the post, however: let’s imagine a Facebook user who has just read a shared article containing the Ferguson photo, and, requesting comfort on Facebook, receives the animal photo posted as a comment. Might the viewer, after being comforted by the baby animal photo, be less likely to pursue whatever action the Ferguson photo might have called them to take? I’m not sure, but both images contain powerful visual rhetoric, and their potential persuasive impact is worth considering before one decides to seek out another “The 30 Happiest Animals in the World That Will Make You Smile” post.

Tags: