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Intellect Books - Julie Andreyev

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152 pages

English

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A highly original book in which the author proposes an expanded field of aesthetics, guided by her philosophy and approach to working, through the ways that philosophy can be manifested in art. She demonstrates the depth and complexity that she brings to her work through a sustained and committed relationship to working with animals across multiple projects.

The book tells real-world stories about the author’s creative encounters – with animals, plant life, mineral beings and forest ecosystems – in her Vancouver-based interspecies art practice, Animal Lover, and how they shifted her outlook on the Earth and all of life. Each chapter presents a weaving together of personal reflection, interdisciplinary research, critical thought and art methods. The threads converge on this main point: the need to move away from anthropocentrism and towards ecological understanding, reciprocity and biophilia. The local journeys in each chapter are guided by more-than-human ways of knowing which provide an expanded sense of the world and an understanding of the imperative for action. This book is an invitation to readers to step into more-than-human worlds, re-sense life and re-think their relationship with the planet and all its inhabitants. It asks readers to slow down, look around and listen – and feel. Love for life is practised by all beings in their lively projects. It is what joins us together in the relational flourishing that is the vital wondrous complexity of the Earth.

The Anthropocene is a term used to describe the geological era in which we live, marking the realization that humans have become such a force that we are affecting the Earth’s air, lands, oceans, climate. At its core, in the modern Eurocentric societies that typify this era, is an entrenched worldview of nature as a means to fuel global capitalist-colonial systems. This anthropocentric worldview justifies the colonization and exploitation of ecosystems and nonhuman life, seen as ‘resources’ available for human expansion and prosperity, and readily available as free labour. The consequential outcomes are manifest in today’s climate emergency and ecological degradations including animal slavery, industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation and habitat loss, and the coming environmental collapse with its sixth mass extinction. Within recent decades, the sustainability of anthropocentric views have been called into question across disciplines. Lessons from a Multispecies Art Studio joins with these movements, and offers new applied approaches – from interspecies art – to help shape and evolve human outlooks, emotions and actions.

Primary readership will be research-creation academic artists working with animals, and researchers working around animals; more-than-human-animal activists; artists and emerging artists, as well as to art theorists and to those with a strong interest in environmental values.

Introduction

Dogs

Dog lessons

Early days

Dog communications

Communication ethics

Transformation

EPIC_Tom

Crows and Stones

A gift from a crow

Good neighbours

Crow mind and narrative ethics

Stone communications

Stone aesthetics

Ruins

Other gifts

Crow Stone Tone Poem

New gift, new art

Salmon and River

Salmon lesson

River

The Adams River spawning grounds

Salmon migration projects

Fish ways of knowing

Salmon People

Forest

Dawn

The forest

Life’s beginnings

Phyto-fungal-communications

Interspecies indeterminacy and biophilic attention

Anthrophony

Old trees

Biophilia

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Sujets

Arts visuels

ART

General

General officer

Informations

Publié par	Intellect Books
Date de parution	01 septembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781789384543
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Lessons from a Multispecies Studio

Lessons from a Multispecies Studio

Uncovering Ecological Understanding and Biophilia through Creative Reciprocity
Julie Andreyev
First published in the UK in 2021 by
Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2021 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2021 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: MPS
Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas
Cover image: Julie Andreyev
Frontispiece image: Julie Andreyev
Production manager: Laura Christopher
Typesetter: MPS
Print ISBN 978-1-78938-452-9
ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-453-6
ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-454-3
Printed and bound by TJ International
To find out about all our publications, please visit our website.
There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current catalogue and buy any titles that are in print.
www.intellectbooks.com
This is a peer-reviewed publication.
In loving memory
Tom
the miracle dog
(2004-20)
and
Sugi
the splendor
(2005-21)
ethics is a form (I ve called it a manner or a way ) inseparable from life itself Interpreted further it means that to live ethically, to live with others, is to forge out of their and our fates a common destiny.
-Michael Marder 1
Contents
Foreword
Carol Gigliotti
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Dogs
Dog lessons
Early days
Dog communications
Communication ethics
Transformation
EPIC_Tom
2. Crows and Stones
A gift from a crow
Good neighbours
Crow mind and narrative ethics
Stone communications
Stone aesthetics
Ruins
Other gifts
Crow Stone Tone Poem
New gift, new art
3. Salmons and River
Salmon lesson
River
The Adams River spawning grounds
Salmon migration projects
Fish ways of knowing
Salmon People
4. Forest
Dawn
The forest
Life s beginnings
Phyto-fungal-communications
Interspecies indeterminacy and biophilic attention
Anthrophony
Old trees
Biophilia
Afterword
February 2020
May 2019
June 2019
July 2019
Ode to Tom
Poem for Sugi
References
Index
Foreword
Carol Gigliotti
We are, we need to remember, only one of an evolving and unique planet populated by the latest disputed estimate of roughly 8.7 million other species. 2 The words we and other say a great deal about human-animal relationships, even as we are becoming aware of the growing extinction of many of these species. We still manage to shrug off the fact that without other species we, too, face extinction. Without the millions or more species on this planet, the human species would wither and eventually die off. This is not because the extinction of multiple species only matters because it supports the continuation of human life on this planet. The opposite is true. Without us, other species would not only remain, but many would thrive in a world without humans.
If we were not blinded by our notion that somehow humans are exceptional and inherently superior to other animals, the image of how the world would flourish without us would catapult us into respect and gratefulness for all other animals, domesticated and wild. Rather than seeing animals as others to eat, wear, hunt, study or own, we might open up to animals as intelligent, emotional, complex and creative beings; like us in some ways and gloriously unlike us in others.
I have spent the better portion of my life, both as a visual artist and a writer, attempting to convince people of this. I believed, and still do, that art has the capacity to change minds. Whether making prints about factory farming, mixed media drawings on the hell of animal experimentation, or writing about the ethics of artists working with biotechnology and the consequences for animals of genetic technologies, my work has focused on the extent of human cruelty to animals. Writing about the ethics of artists using animals in art, even some artists I knew, was an unpopular position to take in the arts, one I knew would have consequences for me. Luckily, human-animal studies and critical animal studies became an area within academia where my voice was welcomed.
In 2008, I moved from Design to the Dynamic Media Area at Emily Carr University of Art Design (ECU) where Julie and I were the only two faculty members in the Interactive Media area. Julie was fun to work with and supportive of others ideas. We both had come from an interactive media background, rare at the time at ECU. Over time, our shared ideas about animals became a lasting bond.
Watching her Animal Lover Project with Tom and Sugi grow was an antidote to the work of many artists, who used animals in their work as objects, material or symbols. Their anthropocentric perspectives did nothing to shift our negative attitudes towards the more-than-human, but to only further entrench them. In contrast, Tom and Sugi, Julie s canine companions, were not just the stars of this early phase of Animal Lover, they were calling the shots. Together with Maria Lantin, Julie and I organized Animal Influence , a public symposium that included exhibitions, performances and screenings. All the artists, philosophers, biologists and scholars involved spoke about how they were influenced and informed by animals, their cognitive abilities, creativity and consciousness. For us, it was a landmark event.
Julie s body of work has expanded over time to include the wild of the sky, ocean, and forest, and the plant, tree and microorganisms above and below ground. Spending time just looking and listening to the worlds of animals of all kinds, and then actively investigating what knowledge is available about these worlds, Julie s own creative process is based on the non-human lives around her, letting each animal and environment reveal themselves in real time in their real world. Descriptions in this book on the creative processes of lives, hers and her collaborators, are not theoretical but fuelled by lessons learned from the animals with which she has intimately worked with or recorded. This generous contribution alone makes this book valuable, since many artists shy away from articulating their inner creative impetus.
Her technical prowess is flawless, as is the programming genius of her human collaborator, Simon Lysander Overstall. That is not what drives her, and it is not what one notices when experiencing her work. As in this important book, what one assimilates by viewing Julie s work is the complex personality of individual dogs in Wait , the gruelling swim against the current of individual salmon as they follow their traditional route to spawning, the creative generousness of individual crows thanking a human for water, the smell of cedar and sound of the wind in the calls of resident birds. Reading this book allows us to journey with Julie as her commitment to an art process based on what she calls biophilic attention guides her to an ecological understanding of being interconnected with all species. No small feat in today s world where this kind of attention is so sorely needed and difficult to find. Whatever you bring to this book, you will gain a wider perspective on how to live in a universally creative and conscious world.
NOTES
1. Marder, Michael, Plant Morality vs. Plant Ethics . https://philosoplant.lareviewofbooks.org/ ?p=177.
2. Mora et al., How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? .
Acknowledgements
With gratitude, I acknowledge that I am living, working and playing on unceded traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples - the (Musqueam), S k w x w 7mesh xwumixw (Squamish) and (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations; and the unceded traditional territories of wild-living animals and plant life, including ravens, crows, fir trees, cedar trees, bears, salmons, deers, raccoons, woodpeckers, wolves and hummingbirds. A heartfelt thanks to my partner Greg Snider who provided editing superpowers and loving support during dinnertime conversations about the writing process. He looked after dogs, gardens and birds while I worked to deadline on this book. This book would not be possible without my late companion dogs Tom and Sugi who first suggested the Animal Lover projects and were enthusiastic about collaborating. They provided unceasing companionship, waiting patiently by my side and gently reminding me to take walking breaks. My collaborator and friend Simon Lysander Overstall offered solidarity in the projects, and expertise in describing the computational processes in the book. My friend Dr Carol Gigliotti mentored me in the critical animal studies research and encouraged me to publish. My mother Galina Laks gave me a childhood filled with wonder about the natural world and helped me develop an eye for looking. As I worked on the book, she was always keen to discuss the topics and understood their importance with regard to ecological thinking. I am grateful to my late father Edward Laks who demonstrated a work ethic and perseverance when it came to creativity and experimental projects. He was an avid bird watcher and this rubbed off on me. Thank you to my wonderful production manager Laura Christopher at Intellect Books. She carefully coaxed the manuscript. Thanks to all the excellent staff at Intellect, including Jessical Lovett, Tim Mitchell and Emma Berrill. Thanks to Emily Legrand who provided an excellent and thorough index.
For the initial research on this book, I thank my Ph.D. committee: Dr Stephen Duguid for his guidance and care; Dr Heesoon Bai, Dr Jodey Castricano and Dr Brian Massumi who gently helped me find my voice. My heartfelt gratitude to Tom, Sugi, the Adams River salmons, the neighb