Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson
in conversation with Andréas Hagström
For the sixth Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art Pandemonium: Art in a Time of Creativity Fever Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson have made the relational and site specific work Vanishing Pointfilmed on the rooftop of Röda Sten Art Centre where they invite seagulls to an interspecific feast.
Andréas Hagström The title for your work in the Biennial is Vanishing Point: Where Species Meet. Tell me something about this name in relation to the work.
Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir & Mark Wilson Vanishing Point here denotes a space of possibility and thinking which we consider to exist in the interstices between meeting beings. In this space, a place perhaps not visible from where we might currently stand, we imagine another basis for conference between species*
Early on in the development of the work, our working title was 5 loaves – 2 fish and in relation to that, we were drawn to the interpretation of a miracle that shifts focus from the physical transformation of objects i.e. the bread and fish and instead focuses on the shift in the minds and hearts of those present, which prompted each to an individual act of generosity. What we are saying here is that it is this possibility of being able to alter a perceptual position – to change one’s mind that has a key conceptual significance in Vanishing Point – the possibility that by the meeting of human and animal something new may be learned and a new position attained.
*We consider the locational shift in emphasis from Donna Haraway’s ‘When…’ instead to ‘Where…’ to be pivotal not only in our selection of location and the provision of a mechanism for meeting, but also as the imaginary space where the consequences of such a meeting may continue to to be considered.
AH How was it to shoot the video on top of the roof of Röda Sten Art Centre?
BS & MW We wanted to be on the roof for various reasons, one being that the position was unfamiliar to us and thus it was more neutral territory – more a being ‘up there’ with the gulls. As it was, we often looked down from the roof onto their backs as they flew below. For us, by being physically elevated in this way it prompted a sense of vertigo in us and as a consequence, our own sense of security was usefully unhinged.
AH Did the gulls react and act as you anticipated?
BS & MW We have been around animals long enough to know that you cannot expect or anticipate anything with certainty. Of course one tries to visualize more than one series of events taking place in order to test out conceptual and visual frameworks. Our own intentions were clear, structured on our experience of gulls and on our knowledge of human responses to gulls more widely. How the gulls responded was a matter for them. Strategically, we work with what we find and therefore setting the initial approach is the most critical factor. On this occasion, by this means we afforded the possibility of sharing within a context of hospitality.
AH Could you tell something about the aesthetic choices you have made for this project?
BS & MW We had very clear ideas about the framing of the image for this work and made what were very accurate drawings for how this should be. This planning determined for instance the location of the cameras in relation to the position of the human performer and table in relation to the site. Being on the roof served us aesthetically as well as conceptually, as it gave us an appropriate predominance of blue/white sky as background. We wanted to position the camera so that the image would be in portrait format – not only to reference the idea of the portrait as the form that privileges human proportion but also because its verticality acknowledges in a very striking way, the approach of the bird from above.
AH And you weren’t interested in an image of feeding frenzy?
BS & MW That’s right to the extent that we didn´t want to construct and reinforce any image of a human being ‘threatened’ by gulls. Thus we gave particular emphasis to a specially made table at which there was a place for the gulls to eat and a place for the human to eat. In the space between there was room for action and even interaction but there was also space built in for choice, distance and more solitary or independent experience.
AH In your art you have researched human relationships with animals, taking as the starting point, many different animals or animal groups such as the polar bear, pets, seals, and the thylacine. How come you chose gulls for this project?
BS & MW It is less about us choosing certain species and more about them choosing us, by the issues that arise within respective projects pointing to or leading us towards those relationships within which our ideas can best be developed. Yes it is right that in our work we have had some focus on what could be termed, from a human perspective, charismatic mammals like the polar bear, the seal and the thylacine, but then we stretched that further by looking at the ‘habitats’ of pets within the homes of their owners and last year we completed a project entitled Uncertainty in the City which explored perceptions and manifestations of the phenomenon of ‘pests’ by focusing on contested borders where the domestic and the wild meet. What we learned in this last project was that Mary Douglas’s statement that ”dirt is matter out of place” holds just as true when it comes to the imponderables in the borderlands referred to above. During this project we took some time accompanying pest control officers on their duties in the Lancaster and Morecambe area in the north of England. We found out about different strategies used by authorities and individual city dwellers in both deterring and encouraging pigeons. We interviewed an elderly man in Morecambe who fosters close connections to local pigeons through feeding. In another instance we interviewed an artist in central London who shares his studio with a huge colony of pigeons. He ackowledges that it is only because of them and their presence in the warehouse building, that he is he able to benefit from a massive studio at a very low rent. During Uncertainty we also heard stories of gulls and how Pest Control receives regular complaints from citizens when they are rearing their young and they are learning to fly. The seagulls are of course being protective of their young and see humans as a potential threat, but for humans the large wingspan of the seagull and their aggressive physical and vocal behaviour is alarming and unsettling. One can understand both positions and it is thus interesting for us to stay in and explore this zone of contestation. Through our own behaviour and our summary disposal of waste, traditionally through fishing, but also from passenger ships and in large concentrations on landfill sites, we unwittingly encourage these animals to be close to us.
So our choice for the Biennial has to do with all of the above and the way we work site- specifically. The seagull and its contact with humans is very conspicuous in Göteborg. We observe and experience it picking food off tables in open air restaurants, nesting and consequently diving down to protect their young in the City. Their presence may be annoying and unsettling to some but it is an announcement of spring, a connection to the sea, they bring an air of lightness when the day gets longer and the nights shorter. Our relationship to the urban gull constitutes an index of our own complex and contradictory relationship to environment as a whole.
AH When reading about your previous projects you use the terms post-human, anthropocentric and multinaturalism. How do these terms relate to your art practice?
BS & MW What we aim to challenge is an anthropocentric position of elevated apartness. We try to find the point at which you can approach the position/perspective of the other, in this instance the animal, in order to be able to look back and thereby reappraise something much bigger than ourselves. We don’t think that our own (human) way of understanding the world, is necessarily the only way and we are curious about different models for existence and being. It connects to multinaturalism, a term introduced by Bruno Latour in which the conventional separation of nature and culture is challenged and instead an approach is taken in which these terms are interconnected, constantly weaving in and out of each other or indeed are part of a continuum. The results-driven and often presumptive approaches of science have dominated and influenced our value systems for too long and although linear thinking continues to deliver its own results on this basis, we fundamentally question the capacity of such linearity to recognize and acknowledge a much needed wider understanding of how the world works and how we might best coexist within it. Coexistence is too often seen as something ‘soft’ and at best, ideologically desirable rather than a necessity. A life has a beginning and an end accountable in years, but the way we live it involves so many fragments and moments that must not necessarily march to the ticking of a clock or to the tune of our own desires and constructions, but instead can reveal lateral spaces of understanding beyond, that build and extend us all in much more complex, illuminating and ultimately constructive ways.
We wouldn´t say that we are post-humanist but we identify with some aspects of the philosophy. We have taken some encouragement in our work from the theories of Donna Haraway (who incidentally no longer subscribes to post-humanism but more pointedly, aligns herself against speciesim). Also useful have been the writings of Val Plumwood and in particular, her essay Being Prey in which she describes narrowly escaping being eaten by a crocodile. She subsequently and controversially took the position of not wanting the animal killed, as she saw her own position and actions on the river where this occurred as an enticement for the animal to do what it did. Recently, in our own research in Svalbard we heard first hand of an incident during our stay, in which a group of tourists was airlifted away from the space of a polar bear instead of what would have been a more usual animal displacement under such circumstances – in this unorthodox action there is an encouraging acknowledgement of human trespass.
AH When you speak of your work you say it is relational and site specific. Would you say the term “relational” in your practice also refers to the relationships and interactions with animals that occur in your projects?
BS & MW Very much so and in some ways this is crucial to why we have chosen so regularly to work with specific human/animal relationships. We are interested in the complexity that objects, names or ideological constructions disallow almost by definition. By presuming that we know little about something or by observing that collectively we have a set of contradictory responses to it, as artists we contrive to establish a proximity with that thing, or to those untidy responses. This has taken us also of course into relational work with institutions – for instance museums, local governmental departments, scientific research institutions etc, individual specialists – zoologists, anthropologists, historians, hunters, pest control officers – in additon to other non professionals whose specific personal experiences alone have enriched our enquiry.
But in choosing the kind of relationship that precludes syntactic language, that is with a non-human animal we are extending an invitation to ‘relate’ (which of course is our initiative), but simultaneously relinquishing a degree of control, handing this part over to the other in question: this was the case with the Three Attempts work, where an honest series of attempts was made to engage with seals there on the margins of land and sea. The word ‘attempt’ here is significant because for this artwork it is the endeavour and the taking of time to undertake this practice that is important, without necessarily demanding a result. This is the same spirit that we take into the Biennial projectVanishing Point.
AH In line with the curatorial idea you have chosen to create an image of a human being sitting at a table sharing food with the gulls. But is it possible to share something with an animal?
BS & MW In blunt terms we can’t be sure. Certainly, we know from observation that other animals have the capacity and the will to share both in play and in the consumption of food and generally in welfare and support, not only with others of their own, but across species.
That capacity for sharing requires a degree of trust and the establishment of trust in turn requires time and a developed familiarity. While these conditions are not entirely dependent on trust of specific individuals in either direction, where a specific relationship between individuals is fostered then tolerance, trust and perhaps affection can be engendered(1) but then the relationship is skewed – changed from the kind of engagement in which we are most interested here.
From our side we take certain measures to kindle the idea of sharing. How this is construed by another party is debatable, but the relationship is certainly observable and the work sets out to make such questions visible and for any logic or irrationality to be weighed alongside the consequences of the action.
AH I think about your gesture more as an act of trading than sharing. You trade food with the animal to create an image of sharing, to create an artwork? I found this concept of trading interesting as it connects with the idea of ”contact zone” and ”contact language” that you have written about.
BS & MW It is an interesting analogy in that we offer food and in return solicit their presence as part of the making of art. It is important from an ethical perspective perhaps that the image is not just taken – there is a trade off and it is this mechanism that is both an end in itself and a means by which a relationship can be brought into focus. We are under no delusion regarding being the ones to set these events in train and although the specific behaviour of the animal within the frame of the picture is largely beyond our control and will significantly inform and qualify possible readings – we acknowledge our capacity to construct and slew such readings.
For us we see sharing as something that can take place within an act of trading. Trading is the platform for the creation of this “contact zone” but sharing requires something more – a sort of a will or determination on both sides to connect mentally/psychologically. The level of this engagement is precisely indeterminate but there will be observable signs, which will have a direct correlation to degrees of wariness and ease on the part of the gulls towards their human host (and vice versa). The laying out of food on a table signifies a gesture of hospitality. In Western European culture the basis of hospitality is the performance of rituals designed to make the ‘guest’ feel, ideally, welcome. Alternatively such a gesture may result in the guest feeling patronized and put in his/her/its place.Under ideal conditions therefore and as a result of kindling a mutually inquisitive conviviality, we can hope to use this as a basis from which to explore another type of interchange.
The seagull in the city is a species that causes alarm and discomfort amongst many people, especially during the breeding season. Contrary to this view we do not consider them a significant threat and acknowledge the large part we have had to play in encouraging them into our built spaces. Having extended the hand, unconsciously or otherwise, – rather than withdrawing it nervously and resentfully, we are interested in seeing how the relationship can be further developed…
We take the bread (of companionship), and fish, (a staple life form and food of the sea) to unravel an oft misunderstood myth of sharing and unexpected abundance.
AH When you were performing – did you get a feeling of sharing or a notion of the miraculous?
BS & MW Having spent so much time thinking about the notion of sharing – it was taken out of our hands. The seagulls decided how this was to go – they took part graciously. We were not seeking to create direct representations of the miraculous. We work more with the idea that the basis of transformation is already there in our own minds – it is the will and ability to shift one’s own parameters that may be miraculous.
AH Finally how would you describe the portrait of the birds in this project, and the portrait of the human?
BS & MW Well importantly, we feel this is a portrait of neither. The gulls demonstrate the dignity of self determination in this work. They are being offered a feast of their supposedly favorite food by a human, but they take their time and when they accept it, it is on their terms. The human also has dignity in offering hospitality and in sharing the same meal and indeed in setting up the meeting. The work allows a recalibration of perceived relational power but there is still imbalance in this relationship – an imbalance of expectations, of caution, unpredictability, vulnerabilities, desire, of knowing and not knowing, acceptance and so on – the portrait, if any, is of the chemistry of that imbalance.
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(1). Donna Haraway in her book When Species Meet has written about a form of sharing occurring between herself and her dog Cayenne in agility training and competitions. For Donna Haraway the level of sharing between animal and human required for participation in this sport can reach a point in which there is a special mental connection and meeting point across species.
(Andréas Hagström is a freelance crtic, artist, bird-watcher and and an employee
of Göteborgs Konsthall.)
