Discursive animals : prop or participant? : a discussion of three contemporary Australian artworks

Abstract

The series of works presented for my PhD explore human relationships with urban birds. I use this over-arching subject to reflect on representations of the urban environment as a human-constructed ecological system; and the systems of collecting and identifying that birdwatchers use to give form to intangible interactions. The works presented for examination use a variety of media and include: Varied, noisy, a group of interactive multiples; Feeders, a 6 channel video installation; List keeper, a single channel video; and Here we are, a 3 channel video installation. The multiples use the audiences' interaction and distribution outside the gallery to complete them as artworks. The video works use bird models constructed from paper, manipulated live and in post-production, to depict instances of human/bird encounters. These analogue and digital animation methods focus attention on the human hand, not only as a visual motif, but also as technical and creative agent. The 35,000-word dissertation explores 3 case studies from recent Australian art that use living animals to stage a confrontation with their audiences. My analysis questions whether the animal performers are participants in these works or props. The 3 case studies are Bianca Hester's Please leave these windows open overnight to enable the fans to draw in cool air during the early hours of the morning, Lucas Ihlein's Gruffling and Remnant Emergency Artlab's Bat/Human Research. These works use instruction, documentation and the participation of their audiences to create a discursive site. I examine the artists' construction of the autonomy of their animal performers, and how they use the discursive form to engage their audiences. Rather than suggest an ideal model for working with animals, my analysis concentrates on how the staged interactions, and the animals themselves, create an excess of meaning not containable by the roles that the artist have constructed for them. In contrast, my own artworks presented for examination do not use living animals. While only some of my works address the interaction of humans and birds from a conservation perspective, this ethical position has influenced my thinking. For this reason I chose not to interfere in animals' lives by asking them to perform in artworks. Instead I use a variety of artistic strategies to replace the animal performer and stage a confrontation with the art object. My exegesis addresses these choices and asks what artistic forms are best for engaging and sustaining audience attention and whether this can operate in similar ways to interaction in the discursive field of art. Show more