PhD Project More-Than-Human Drama
> as part of being(s) graduate school at HFBK Hamburg
> Supervisors: Prof. Jeanne Faust (HFBK Hamburg), Prof. Sophie Witt (UHH Hamburg), Prof. Jessica Ullrich (HBK Braunschweig)
Cartoon characters and movie characters are constantly involved in our encounters with animals. Consciously or unconsciously, they influence, confuse, and distort our ideas and knowledge about the lives and lifestyles of non-human animals. While the “Bambi effect” describes, among other things, an increased sensitivity towards wild animals and a rejection of hunting in response to cute cartoon characters, productions such as Finding Nemo (2003) and Rascal the Raccoon (1977) had the opposite effect. Affection for the main characters led to a demand for live clownfish and raccoons as pets, which had real consequences for animal groups and the health of entire ecosystems. These concrete, but also less obvious, examples of media-induced popularity of animals and the misconceptions that accompany it form the basis of my artistic research.
“Both scientific and popular thinking tend to conclude that ultimately there are only individual answers to individual questions. What is intelligence? Who possesses it? Where do they fit into our rigid structures and hierarchies of thought and domination? Perhaps—listen and be amazed—the world simply does not work that way.”[1]
Not only films, but also scientific studies, cosmologies, and “world creation projects” shape our relationship with mice, forests, and seeds. Many of these research findings and works of fiction portray the subjectivity of non-human life merely as beings subordinate to humans, exploiting their resources, unique abilities, and appearance to instrumentalize them as puppets and props for anthropocentric narratives. This double invisibility further alienates us from the ecological interdependencies that form the basis for collective survival.
“But awareness of the sensory existence of other life forms does not have to involve grand ideas or actions. How about a visit to the local garden center to smell the plants?” [2]
This doctoral project focuses on the medium of animated film and examines the dramaturgical, linguistic, and aesthetic forms of animals as well as the respective media-specific modes of play. Following in the footsteps of popular animal characters, many unexpected encounters, stories, and connections can be found. These dialogues and surprising connections form the framework for a series of cinematic and installation works that bring together the potential and practices of documentary film (observing, listening, recording) and 3D animation (extracting, imagining, embodying). “In order for animals and their capacity for action to become visible in history, it makes sense to ‘give them stories’ and tell their stories” [3]. Following Jessica Ullrich and Alexandra Böhm, the project also experiments with the idea of helping animal characters develop a rebellious self through compassionate and responsible storytelling. The associated ambivalent dynamic of anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism is accepted as a welcome challenge for artistic research at the margins of rational scientific logic.
[1] James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The search for a Planetary Intelligence, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022.
[2] Timothy Morton, Being Ecological, MIT Press, 2018.
[3] Jessica Ullrich, Alexandra Böhm (Hrsg.), Tierstudien, Neofelis, 16/2019.
The Ones Who Scratch with Their Hands
> An Artistic Research Project on imagining and relating to raccoons
> Collaboration with artist and film maker Terue Yamauchi (Fukuoka, JP)
“The crisis in our relationships with the living is a crisis of sensibility {...}. But it is also a crisis of our collective and existential relationships, of our connections and sense of belonging to the living beings who raise the question of what it means to exist {...}.” Baptiste Morizot, Ways of Being Alive, 2024, pp. 16 ff.
The presence of raccoons in Japan’s cities and forests raises questions about the relationship between humans, animals, and an increasingly anthropogenically shaped environment. Germany and Japan are among the countries with the largest populations of non-native raccoons. In both countries, these adaptable animals cause conflicts with human infrastructure and agriculture, and concerns have been raised about the threat they pose to native species. The particular history of their spread in Japan provides the starting point for our artistic exploration.
One important factor in this history is considered to be the popular animated television series Araiguma Rasukaru(Rascal the Raccoon, 1977). Produced by Nippon Animation, the series is based on an autobiographical novel by American author Sterling North and tells the story of a boy who takes care of an orphaned raccoon. The series became a huge success in Japan and sparked a demand for raccoons as pets. During the 1970s and early 1980s, young raccoons were imported and sold in Japanese pet shops alongside dogs, cats, and rabbits, sometimes without any indication that they were wild animals. Many were later abandoned when they grew larger and became more difficult to handle. The adaptable raccoons subsequently spread rapidly.
Today, raccoons are classified in Japan as “Specified Invasive Alien Species,” and their eradication is an explicit goal of the Japanese government. This history of a living being that arrived in Japan as a fictionalised, cute character and now gives rise to ethical and political conflicts lies at the heart of our interest:
What happens to stories when they are removed from their ecological and cosmological contexts and transported elsewhere? What is the relationship between imagined animal characters and their living counterparts, and what does this mean for a responsible storytelling practice? What relationships and associations do people in contemporary Japan have with raccoons?
Our initial research, supported by EU-Japan FEST and the Stiftung Kunstfonds, led us into an intensive exchange with wildlife biologist Mieko Kawamichi of the Kansai Wildlife Research Association. She shared with us the findings of her decades-long research on raccoons in the Kansai region, and we accompanied her during her fieldwork, including tracking raccoons at temples and shrines, which they frequently use as shelter. Traps are set up at these sites to protect cultural heritage and historic temple complexes from damage. One of the temple priests we spoke with described the dilemma this creates: trapping and killing animals fundamentally conflicts with Buddhist and Shinto values.
We encountered such contradictions and shifts in perspective repeatedly throughout our research. They reveal how closely cultural conceptions, spiritual values, ecological concerns, and concrete forms of coexistence are intertwined.
PhD Project More-Than-Human Drama
> as part of being(s) graduate school at HFBK Hamburg
> Supervisors: Prof. Jeanne Faust (HFBK Hamburg), Prof. Sophie Witt (UHH Hamburg), Prof. Jessica Ullrich (HBK Braunschweig)
Cartoon characters and movie characters are constantly involved in our encounters with animals. Consciously or unconsciously, they influence, confuse, and distort our ideas and knowledge about the lives and lifestyles of non-human animals. While the “Bambi effect” describes, among other things, an increased sensitivity towards wild animals and a rejection of hunting in response to cute cartoon characters, productions such as Finding Nemo (2003) and Rascal the Raccoon (1977) had the opposite effect. Affection for the main characters led to a demand for live clownfish and raccoons as pets, which had real consequences for animal groups and the health of entire ecosystems. These concrete, but also less obvious, examples of media-induced popularity of animals and the misconceptions that accompany it form the basis of my artistic research.
“Both scientific and popular thinking tend to conclude that ultimately there are only individual answers to individual questions. What is intelligence? Who possesses it? Where do they fit into our rigid structures and hierarchies of thought and domination? Perhaps—listen and be amazed—the world simply does not work that way.”[1]
Not only films, but also scientific studies, cosmologies, and “world creation projects” shape our relationship with mice, forests, and seeds. Many of these research findings and works of fiction portray the subjectivity of non-human life merely as beings subordinate to humans, exploiting their resources, unique abilities, and appearance to instrumentalize them as puppets and props for anthropocentric narratives. This double invisibility further alienates us from the ecological interdependencies that form the basis for collective survival.
“But awareness of the sensory existence of other life forms does not have to involve grand ideas or actions. How about a visit to the local garden center to smell the plants?” [2]
This doctoral project focuses on the medium of animated film and examines the dramaturgical, linguistic, and aesthetic forms of animals as well as the respective media-specific modes of play. Following in the footsteps of popular animal characters, many unexpected encounters, stories, and connections can be found. These dialogues and surprising connections form the framework for a series of cinematic and installation works that bring together the potential and practices of documentary film (observing, listening, recording) and 3D animation (extracting, imagining, embodying). “In order for animals and their capacity for action to become visible in history, it makes sense to ‘give them stories’ and tell their stories” [3]. Following Jessica Ullrich and Alexandra Böhm, the project also experiments with the idea of helping animal characters develop a rebellious self through compassionate and responsible storytelling. The associated ambivalent dynamic of anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism is accepted as a welcome challenge for artistic research at the margins of rational scientific logic.
[1] James Bridle, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The search for a Planetary Intelligence, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022.
[2] Timothy Morton, Being Ecological, MIT Press, 2018.
[3] Jessica Ullrich, Alexandra Böhm (Hrsg.), Tierstudien, Neofelis, 16/2019.
The Ones Who Scratch with Their Hands
> An Artistic Research Project on imagining and relating to raccoons
> Collaboration with artist and film maker Terue Yamauchi (Fukuoka, JP)
“The crisis in our relationships with the living is a crisis of sensibility {...}. But it is also a crisis of our collective and existential relationships, of our connections and sense of belonging to the living beings who raise the question of what it means to exist {...}.” Baptiste Morizot, Ways of Being Alive, 2024, pp. 16 ff.
The presence of raccoons in Japan’s cities and forests raises questions about the relationship between humans, animals, and an increasingly anthropogenically shaped environment. Germany and Japan are among the countries with the largest populations of non-native raccoons. In both countries, these adaptable animals cause conflicts with human infrastructure and agriculture, and concerns have been raised about the threat they pose to native species. The particular history of their spread in Japan provides the starting point for our artistic exploration.
One important factor in this history is considered to be the popular animated television series Araiguma Rasukaru(Rascal the Raccoon, 1977). Produced by Nippon Animation, the series is based on an autobiographical novel by American author Sterling North and tells the story of a boy who takes care of an orphaned raccoon. The series became a huge success in Japan and sparked a demand for raccoons as pets. During the 1970s and early 1980s, young raccoons were imported and sold in Japanese pet shops alongside dogs, cats, and rabbits, sometimes without any indication that they were wild animals. Many were later abandoned when they grew larger and became more difficult to handle. The adaptable raccoons subsequently spread rapidly.
Today, raccoons are classified in Japan as “Specified Invasive Alien Species,” and their eradication is an explicit goal of the Japanese government. This history of a living being that arrived in Japan as a fictionalised, cute character and now gives rise to ethical and political conflicts lies at the heart of our interest:
What happens to stories when they are removed from their ecological and cosmological contexts and transported elsewhere? What is the relationship between imagined animal characters and their living counterparts, and what does this mean for a responsible storytelling practice? What relationships and associations do people in contemporary Japan have with raccoons?
Our initial research, supported by EU-Japan FEST and the Stiftung Kunstfonds, led us into an intensive exchange with wildlife biologist Mieko Kawamichi of the Kansai Wildlife Research Association. She shared with us the findings of her decades-long research on raccoons in the Kansai region, and we accompanied her during her fieldwork, including tracking raccoons at temples and shrines, which they frequently use as shelter. Traps are set up at these sites to protect cultural heritage and historic temple complexes from damage. One of the temple priests we spoke with described the dilemma this creates: trapping and killing animals fundamentally conflicts with Buddhist and Shinto values.
We encountered such contradictions and shifts in perspective repeatedly throughout our research. They reveal how closely cultural conceptions, spiritual values, ecological concerns, and concrete forms of coexistence are intertwined.