Animalizing, Animating, and Interspecies Communication: Interspecies Politics in Wu Sih-Chin’s Works

By Fang Yen-Hsiang (KMFA Exhibition Department Assistant Curator)

Translated by Scott Hsieh

“We have to accord to animals the capacity to delude us, to modify us, to seduce us, to conquer us.” 

Through the perspectives of the Anthropocene theory, the fundamental transition of contemporary art lies in its transcendence of anthropocentrism and human (modern Homo sapiens) superiority to reconfirm the coexistence between humanity and the other species. We can see an abundance of works of contemporary art that attempt to explore from the perspectives of non-humans or animals about the ecosystem established collectively by different species through their interactions. These works are responses to the reflection about the Anthropocene, bringing species and animality into the core of discussions among artists and cultural theorists. The focus on human interactions with animals also opens up a new angle for the re-understanding of power, dominance, suppression, and exclusion. By comparing the similarities/dissimilarities between human society and animals, these works are intended to seek in the world of animals for any possibility of transcending colonialism and capitalism. In addition, information and languages used in interspecies communication can be used as references for actions that defy structural or hierarchical boundaries. We can say that, compared with earlier works that used (or commissioned) animals, contemporary artworks in the Anthropocene epoch are different in their dimension of discussion. They often demonstrate that animals are no longer a kind of objects to be on display and they start to explore the possibility for humans to act together with other species (for some common causes or interests). To a certain degree, it seems that contemporary art as a kind of communicative medium and action approach expects itself to resonate with the action plan proposed by Bruno Latour in the name of “the Terrestre” to overthrow the existing concept of territory and attempt to revive the deprived ability to take actions among species in nature, forging an alliance among humanity, animals, plants, minerals, and microorganisms.

Animalizing and Animating4

Wu’s works have long focused on the so-called “non-humans”. In his artistic creation, animals have always been given different images and identities while humans only take a secondary, non-present or even non-existent role. As a result, his works present a world that has come into existence earlier than human beings.

His I have a good doggy is a case in point. Through animation, a canine skull is brought back to life and becomes the head of Pluto, a pet dog named after the planet of Pluto in the Disney cartoon world. The animism we read in this work is one that exists between deceased life and reincarnation through the image of capitalism.  In his A Talk between Clouded Leopard and Thylacine (2016), Wu worked with scholars to enable a simulated dialogue between a cloud leopard and a thylacine, two already extinct animals. This talk reminds us of the dialogue described in Face à Gaïa—a dialogue among personified species from different habitats about issues such as the soil, forests, oceans, air, and species endangerment in the “theater of negotiations”. The question raised here is: if such interspecies communication is made possible, will the power structure among all the species be changed accordingly and will the results of extinction be different? At first glance, the world in :Why we haven’t seen any (  ) ? :Well…,Cause we killed them all is lifeless with no presence of creatures in the Uluru landscape. It is a world that negates any civilization or any presence of humans. This work is a deep reflection of the natural politics underneath the landscape. It questions and overturns the concept of “territory” by deviating from the context of “civilization”. Here, there is also a hidden question: what a world would look like before the emergence of any civilization or Homo sapiens (or even with the possibility of humans not evolving into Homo sapiens)?

In his My name? I have a lot of names and My name? I have a lot of names (Backstage), Wu seeks to bring back to life through a virtual interface a tribe that has disappeared and now only exists in indigenous legends: the Ta'ay people (literally meaning the short, dark people). In this work, animals/species are considered as objects with significance of “object-oriented philosophy” while “animals” or “indigenous species” are reborn in the world of information technology. This perspective of Wu’s artistic creation precisely exposes and signifies that species in contemporary society are a kind of technology-structure products and, as a consequence, their true identities are always hidden behind the scene as in the backstage.

Interspecies Communication and Eco-politics in Animalizing 

In his Muntjac Imitation, Wu further explores the issues of interspecies communication. This work records his journey of following indigenous hunters from a Rukai tribal village in Lichu on a hunting trip into the mountain forest. This work can be divided into two parts. The first part records how the hunters imitated the behaviors, habits, and characteristics of muntjacs in order to approach and hunt their preys. In the second part, an “animal communicator” watches photos and videos and, like a psychic in a channeling session, trying to empathize with the “communicated” animals as if connecting with the consciousness of the muntjac through an internet wire and becoming the animal, becoming the other, becoming another species at the levels of consciousness, psychology, and perception. 

In addition, the “psychic-like” message in this work reflects the fact that there are dual observers in the whole process. Through the so-called “communicating with animals”, we become aware of the boundaries between different subjects and reject the proposition of turning the hunters into the prey animals. This work, Muntjac Imitation, touches upon more than crossing over the boundaries among species but also psychologically (ideologically) crossing over the boundaries of “territory”, the boundaries of living/survival spaces. This is a very important and notable topic in Wu’s works: the conversion of “territory” (either physical, spatial, abstract, or ideological one) into a space/boundary where technology, reality, and virtuality are overlapped. It can be said that this topic reflects Wu’s observation of the confrontation between humanity and the other natural beings, between culture and coloniality through his artistic creation. 

On the other hand, when we think about the so-called “animalizing” in the contemporary time, it is probably no longer about how to acquire any particular power from animals but more about how to explore the possibilities for certain types of animals to develop better resilience to the changes in their living environments, particularly in this world overwhelmed with humans’ technology development. By discussing what else animals can become or do and then what else humanity can choose not to become or do, we can more or less find inspiration for our thinking about the collective resilience of all the species on earth to the contemporary environment.

1.“Assemblages: Félix Guattari and Machinic Animism”, Angela Melitopoulos and Maurizio Lazzarato. Please refer to Animism, Anselm Franke, 2013, Gold Wall ress, p.113.
2. The concept of “the Terrestre” was first proposed by Bruno Latour. As opposed to the modern people who seek globalization detached from their local land and environments, the Terrestre are an alliance of life politics that transcends the existing concept of territory, an alliance of people living and acting together in multiple worlds. Please refer to Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime, Bruno Latour, Chinese translation by Rong-Tai Chen and Qi-Hong Wu, 2020, Socio Publishing.
3. In his Animalizing Postmodernity, Hiroki Azuma reuses the concept of “animalizing” proposed by Kojève to replace the “human nature” that, according to the definition by Hegel, defies the environment and fights against nature. 
4. The term, “animer”, originally means “to give life”, “to enliven”, or “to invigorate”. In the Animism exhibition curated by Anselm Franke, animation was used to give life to objects and break the boundary between animate and inanimate as a gesture to criticize modern coloniality. The concept of “animating” adopted by Bruno Latour attempts to break the framework of subject-object conflict by including “non-humans” into “acteurs” (actors) without excessively animating or “desanimer” (deaminating) nature. Please refer to Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime  Bruno Latour, Chinese translation by Rong-Tai Chen and Qi-Hong Wu, 2019, Socio Publishing, pp.83-127.
5.For more information about the “theater of negotiations”, please refer to “Eighth Lecture: How to govern struggling (natural) territories?”, Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime, Bruno Latour, Chinese translation by Rong-Tai Chen and Qi-Hong Wu, 2019, Socio Publishing, pp.373-410.
6. Please refer to the personal website of Sih-Chin Wu: https://www.wusihchin.com/a-talk-between-clouded-leopard-and-
7.Chien-Hung Huang uses “Jhihsing” to replace “Jhihminsing”, a more commonly used Chinese translation for coloniality, in order to have discussions about post-colonialism and decolonization with no influence from nation-centrism or even anthropocentrism. He also proposes the concept of “paracolonial” in the fight against the dominance over technology, resources, species, and environment. For further information, please refer to Fragments on Paracolonial, Chien-Hung Huang, 2019, Taipei: The One Production Studio.。