Animals disappearing

Animals disappearing: meaning not only the withdrawing of animals and their gazes amongst humans, but also animals becoming extinct. Recent reports show that over a third or even half of all species on earth are in risk of extinction by 2100, and the numbers of around half of all species are in decline. Researches consider that to be the biggest environmental thread to humans. Over the last 200 years the joint life has changed radically; animals have become products and representations, amount of which is increasing all the time. If — as Jacques Derrida claims - human subjectivity is based neither in reason, nor in being, nor the human other or unconscious, but in animals, what do these trends and their conclusion, the world without animals but filled with representations of animals, mean for us? Is it possible, that we do not yet know who we are, or that we have never been humans? If we do not know who we are, and if our subjectivity is constituted through animals, one has to ask: what are animals — so long as they still exist? With whom do we live on this earth? (references: John Berger, Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway)

A question and a proposal

Our time has been called the age of global performance; it has been said that performance and spectatorship define us living at the beginning of 21st century. At the same time we are living in an age of ecological crises, and many researchers consider the extinctions of animal species to be our greatest thread.

How would it be possible to find a way out of the performative society, or at least move to its periphery, and change the meaning of spectatorship?

A proposal: Create a performance with non-human actor(s), or create a performance for a non-human spectator. Other than human, as non-human agents, we mean here beings and processes of “nature”: other animals, plants, phenomena of weather, various durational processes. If you wish to share your experiences, you can do it via the Chronopolitics Facebook page. But public sharing might not be the most meaningful way to approach this issue in the performative societies. You can also contact Maus&Orlovski performance collective by e-mail: Enable JavaScript to view protected content.