The Fish's Brain
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A thought on inhumanity
posted Tuesday, 14 August 2007
What makes us human. I mean recognizably, physically or sociologically identifiable as human? Back when I was studying off-the-wall avant garde video (2001-ish) I was working on a very elaborate video concept exploring the core elements of humanity. Corpus, body without animation, mens, the intellect behind the flesh, anima, the 'soul' or force of life. I think I digress though. Those videos were never made, they're a little too extreme for casual work. On the other hand, I Suddenly hit back upon the issue when shooting this weekend. On impulse, when hounded by my model to provide something I was interested in photographing, I stated "I want to try to dehumanize a person." What hell does that mean anyway? So I thought on it. It ties in with my previous considerations. I can shoot it. Why the hell not?
My initial thoughts run like this: there are many ways that something can be (visually) inhuman. 1 - A thing that is not bipedal, does not share our skeletal structure, a head, etc. is the most inhuman obviously. Although this includes almost every other lifeform on earth, I will still note this as being Alien to humans, as it is utterly and obviously unlike us. Now, would a photomanipulation that bends limbs the wrong way, or makes a figure otherwise "alien" be enough to dehumanize said figure with a human face (like Dali's works??) 2- A bipedal form that lacks our key features (two eyes, nose, mouth, sex characteristics, five fingers and five toes, ect) is closer, but still is blatantly inhuman. The divine androgyne, angels, 'greys' are all close, but no cigar. Mannequins as well. I'm also going to stretch a definition by calling these inhuman forms 'Angels' 3- Things that are biologically compatible to humans, but with abnormal morphology are yet closer. 'Furries' from anime, Egyptian deities with their animal heads, cyclopses, werewolves, vampires, faeries, giants. All of these things are still non-human, but recognizable. I'm going to call this 'anthropromorphic' 4- and last but not least human beings are notoriously bad at naming anything that has a simple cosmetic difference as non human. Tattoos, skin pigmentation, simply change eye color (obscure the iris?) and a person suddenly appears "inhuman." I can't even grant this it's own category, other than 'not as I am' in the most simple of ways.
Okay, there's a lot of bleed over in those simple categorizations, I'm not trying to be exact, just to speculate... I'll save my more thorough statements for art. I'd also like to add some notes to this developing thesis (because that's all this is, the long form of an artistic thesis that I am working on to spark a photo series.) Humanity can only understand the inhuman as either greater (divine, angelic, advanced) or worse (base, demonic, animal) than what they see themselves as. The farther from humanity, the more pure or vile a figure would become. Remember that in (somewhat antiquated) studies, infants responded to a human face as having eyes, nose, and smooth brow. They ignored mouth present or absent, but the brow had to be smooth and not creased.
Now, for any readers this may seem like gibberish. Wait until I can do some work based on this thesis and then you may (or may not if I fail too badly) get where I am going.
My initial thoughts run like this: there are many ways that something can be (visually) inhuman. 1 - A thing that is not bipedal, does not share our skeletal structure, a head, etc. is the most inhuman obviously. Although this includes almost every other lifeform on earth, I will still note this as being Alien to humans, as it is utterly and obviously unlike us. Now, would a photomanipulation that bends limbs the wrong way, or makes a figure otherwise "alien" be enough to dehumanize said figure with a human face (like Dali's works??) 2- A bipedal form that lacks our key features (two eyes, nose, mouth, sex characteristics, five fingers and five toes, ect) is closer, but still is blatantly inhuman. The divine androgyne, angels, 'greys' are all close, but no cigar. Mannequins as well. I'm also going to stretch a definition by calling these inhuman forms 'Angels' 3- Things that are biologically compatible to humans, but with abnormal morphology are yet closer. 'Furries' from anime, Egyptian deities with their animal heads, cyclopses, werewolves, vampires, faeries, giants. All of these things are still non-human, but recognizable. I'm going to call this 'anthropromorphic' 4- and last but not least human beings are notoriously bad at naming anything that has a simple cosmetic difference as non human. Tattoos, skin pigmentation, simply change eye color (obscure the iris?) and a person suddenly appears "inhuman." I can't even grant this it's own category, other than 'not as I am' in the most simple of ways.
Okay, there's a lot of bleed over in those simple categorizations, I'm not trying to be exact, just to speculate... I'll save my more thorough statements for art. I'd also like to add some notes to this developing thesis (because that's all this is, the long form of an artistic thesis that I am working on to spark a photo series.) Humanity can only understand the inhuman as either greater (divine, angelic, advanced) or worse (base, demonic, animal) than what they see themselves as. The farther from humanity, the more pure or vile a figure would become. Remember that in (somewhat antiquated) studies, infants responded to a human face as having eyes, nose, and smooth brow. They ignored mouth present or absent, but the brow had to be smooth and not creased.
Now, for any readers this may seem like gibberish. Wait until I can do some work based on this thesis and then you may (or may not if I fail too badly) get where I am going.
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