2015/1 – #Animals

Features

Browsing 2015/1 – #Animals by Subject "animal studies"

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  • Article
    Animals, images, anthropocentrism
    Creed, Barbara; Reesink, Maarten (2015) , S. 95-105
    Anthropocentrism is central to the nature of discourse across all disciplines, from science to philosophy and the arts. We argue that anthropocentrism has become particularly marked in modernity despite the avowal by some theorists that modernity signified a radical break with traditional approaches. A powerful strategy, invoked by such discourses, and designed to cement the anthropocentric perspective, is that of contradiction. Media theorists and scholars working in the broader field of (human) animal studies have begun to unravel and demystify such discourses, questioning the nature of these contradictory perspectives and the anthropocentric point of view at work in visual texts. This is particularly evident in the current work of contemporary theorists who are researching the representation of animals in media texts. For it is the figure of the animal, as represented in visual discourses, from film to photography and new media, that offers a powerful challenge to the dominant anthropocentric worldview.
  • Article
    Horseplay: Equine performance and creaturely acts in cinema
    Hockenhull, Stella (2015) , S. 181-198
    Throughout Béla Tarr’s latest and reputedly final film THE TURIN HORSE (2011), the horse (Ricsi), as the title of the film indicates, leaves the spectator in no doubt that she is an important, if not the most important, individual within the narrative. However, unlike most films which feature animals as central protagonists, at no juncture is the horse’s behaviour articulated in human-driven semantics. Furthermore, she is never presented with what Emmanuel Gouabault, Annik Dubied, and Claudine Burton-Jeangros describe as a superindividual status. This stated, neither does the director devalue the role of the animal. Instead, Ricsi’s performance can be analysed in what Brenda Austin-Smith argues is ‘memorable film characterization’, whereby animal performance is valid and ‘counts for something’. While it cannot be suggested that Ricsi deliberately acts as a character her performance is equally valuable for analysis both within and outside the context of the narrative. Applying performance theory and film theory to a study of the role and performance of the horses in two films, THE TURIN HORSE and OF HORSES AND MEN (Benedikt Erlingsson 2013), this essay proposes an alternative and more fitting approach to the study of animals in film. The contention here is that neither film humanises or ‘starifies’ the horses, yet all of the equine presentations are significant, as well as examples of what Michael Kirby terms simple acting. This essay begins by examining the ways in which animal performance has predominantly been represented and discussed in media and film before proposing Kirby’s notion of simple acting as a mode of analysis.