Meeting with Erica Ruch

At my review it was suggested that I just focus on the articles and information I have right now and sort through the various topics trying to narrow them down. The topics I have as of now are domestication, court cases/legal articles, companionship & bonding, chemical reactions to animals, and statistics. I was thinking of picking 4 topics and making 4 books each focusing on one topic each.

Last night I met with Erica Ruch who is a teacher at Montserrat and also works full time for PETA. I told her about my idea of making four different books each focusing on one topic. She introduced a new term (& issue) to me, which is “breedism”. We talked about visuals for the books and how to go about obtaining those visuals. She was very helpful with suggestions on how to brainstorm the structure of the books and how to focus on each topic.

After I have the outlines of the books and topics figured out, I am going to e-mail them to her and get her feed back seeing as she works for PETA and knows a lot of information and resources.   

October 26, 2010

One week so far

Photo taken on October 20th, 2010

Fur installation, legal readings

Today I set up my fur installation in a tree in my backyard. I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out. I think I am going to take a photo of it once a week to document what happens to it from the weather and animals. 

I've been reading some of the articles from Hauser, Cushman and Kamen, eds., People, Property, or Pets? (2006) The articles have been really interesting because it's as if the articles were written for court cases. The articles discuss different legal standpoints of animals being considered property, or their own individual beings with legal rights, and the pros and cons of each. If animals react according to their desires, are they not able to govern their own lives? Do they have the ability to think through their actions? Should owners be held 100% accountable for their pets actions or should the punishment be completely on the pet?


I was discussing the "cute" factor with John McVey and dogs as fads. Dog commercials have always  been using purebred "cute" dogs to promote there brands. For my next smaller project I am going to go to local pet stores and write down the prices of pet supplies. I think it's such a disappointment when reading descriptions of why an animal was given up and the reason is along the lines of "the owner was unable to care for/able to afford the pet". It's such a disappointment because it can be so easily prevented. A person wouldn't even have to get off the couch to figure out if they could afford a pet. They could go to pet store websites and write down the costs of things. I think I'm going to design a small brochure-type hand out that includes the initial cost of adopting a cat, dog, bird, reptile etc and what it will add up to be yearly.


Here are two examples of dog food commercials using the "cute" factor to sell their brand.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hANeIYvk3VE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puzqVlyNxxE (This video link proves the point exactly because if you scroll down to the comments, currently the first one says,"Omg!!! What kind of dog is that cuase i want it!!! lol. Someone pllaaaeessseeee tell me!! :)")


And last, this is from a website talking about overpopulation in California and a brief overview of the proposed California pet microchip legislation.

"Yes she's a beautiful Dalmatian, but Dalmatians are so retro. I mean golly, I might as well be seen with my last year's Golden Retriever. Stinko! I saw an ad for a Pressa Canaria. Such a hunk! And they come in fawn."

Quick update from the weekend

This weekend I came across the Animal Planet show called Killer Aliens. This is the basis of the show:


Welcome to ground zero in America for invasive species: Florida. The Sunshine State is being overrun by lethal Burmese pythons, feral hogs, Nile monitor lizards, and Gambian rats the size of cats - all non-native species that have been imported by humans. These foreign invaders are wreaking havoc on the ecosystem and natural species are being thwarted. With no natural predators, their populations continue to spread rapidly throughout the state, spreading disease, destroying vegetation and crops, preying on native species and in the worst cases harming humans. It's a race against time to fight this ecosystem nightmare. The front lines are expanding, and no one knows where they are headed next.    

Continuation of fur spheres

I've been working on putting together the fur spheres I wrote about in the previous entry. Originally I was going to create the spheres from wire and newspaper. The first newspaper and then wire spheres I created proved not to be sturdy enough. I decided to use foam balls instead but due to prices I had to change the size I had originally wanted to have (the largest one foot wide foam ball was $20 each and I would have needed 5 of them which just wasn't do-able).

John let me borrow two books of his, the first one being The Postmodern Animal (c. 2000) by Steve Baker. It explores how animal imagery has been used in recent and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to shape ideas about identity and creativity. I have not had a chance to actually read it, but I spent some time looking at the photos in the book. One of them (shown below) caught my attention. It is Tar and Feathers (1996) by Mark Dion, tree, wooden base, tar, feathers, various taxidermic animals. This photo has me thinking of different purposes for my fur spheres. Originally I was creating this just to hang from the ceiling and each sphere represents a different number of animals euthanized in Merced County, CA. I think when it is complete I will hang it outside, from a tree, and take a photo once a week of the condition of the spheres. The idea behind this would be the fact that some people leave their pets/animals out on the street to fend for themselves. I would in turn be leaving these spheres to "fend" for themselves with the elements. 

The second book is People, Property, or Pets? by Hauser, Cushman and Kamem from the Harvard Law School library. It's made up of articles discussing pets as property, animal ethics and legal status, animal's rights, moral and practical problems, and animal testing. I have read one of the articles so far and I am very intrigued by everything in this book because it's focusing on laws and rules. 


Lindsey made the suggestion of looking into familiars. That thought had never crossed my mind and I was really excited when it was brought up. I have read through wikipedia pages connected to the "familiars" one and have read through most of them. I find it really interesting so I looked up some discussion boards pertaining to this. I didn't find anything interesting on any of them. Mostly people just talking about (in my opinion) close bonds with pets that they take as spiritual. But I am going to keep on reading and searching this topic. 

An update from the end of summer: I had sent out several e-mails to organizations and animal controls through out Massachusetts. The majority received no response back. I was not able to get a hold of the information I was looking for. This led to me taking a step back and looking at subjects with a wider scope. From doing broader research I came across several interesting topics such as several states taking into consideration including pets in temporary restraining orders and I was also introduced to http://www.coolinfographics.com which is very interesting to me and has helped me start thinking of ways to display information. 

The semester so far: I am working on a side project right now. I am trying to construct structures and sculptures while having them correspond to the information I have so far. My first project is going to be constructing three different sized spheres covered in fur, each representing a specific number of animals euthanized in Merced County, CA for the year of 2009. 

I will also be listing links I have come across during my research, or stumble on through clicking through various sites and blogs. They may not have anything to do with my seminar research but the links will be of something that interested me, this being the first one:  http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/