Inside Another Skin, (2018-)
Inside Another Skin (Toisen nahoissa) is an art project combining art and research, which explores the different animal species senses as well as the way a person associates anthropomorphic traits with animals.
During the project, various immersive works based on the senses of different animal species will be implemented. The perceptual abilities of humans and other animal species differ and we pay attention to different things in the environment. The viewer is taken to installations where one can experiment with, for example, dolphin sonar navigation, bird ultraviolet vision, fish lateral-line sense or snake infrared vision applied to human sensory means, media and painting. These means seek to detach the experiencer from the role of passive observer, which is typical of mere visual observation.
The working group includes visual artists Leena Pukki and Karoliina Paappa.
The core of the project is to generate and reinforce the experience of compassion. In the project, humans are thought of as one animal species whose characteristics are compared to those of other species. The project aims to strengthen opportunities for more respectful coexistence between different species and to broaden the understanding of nature, different species and the environment.
Projects:
Deep diving - what is it like to swim among a pod of dolphins? (2021), a dolphin's sense of echolocation
Smelling time (2021), a dog's sense of smell
The Snake's Court Stone (2021), anthropomorphic animals – giving human characteristics to animals
Night hunters (2021), snakes ability to sense infrared
What did you see while flying? (2019), Kaikkien joukosta tunnistit minut (2021), the color vision of blue tits
Currently working on the following projects:
Whale, infrasound
Sounds played on frequencies outside our hearing range are ultrasonic and infrared. Ultrasound refers to sound located at frequencies above the human hearing limit of 20 kHz upwards. Infrasound refers to those sounds that vibrate below the lower limit of 20 Hz of the human auditory sense. In the animal kingdom, for example, whales, elephants, giraffes, alligators, and rhinos produce infrasound. The lower the sound, the longer its wavelength and the farther it travels to a medium such as water or air. Whales communicate in long gentle waves propagating through infrasound. A whale swimming off the coast of Scotland is able to keep in touch with its species mates all the way to the coasts of Iceland and Norway.
Some people are able to sense low sounds just below the hearing threshold through the senses. Many experience infrasounds as a vague sensation in the chest, a kind of sense of presence. To enable you to experience the infrasounds produced by the whale, a separate sound-insulated space will be built in the exhibition space, where low-frequency sound is played outside the human hearing area. The exhibition guest gets to experience a sound that exists in the world but is inaudible. You can feel the presence, you can immerse yourself in it. The work also seeks to deconstruct the dominance of the visual sense inherent in man.
Thus, animals may live in a completely different reality, built from a mixture of odors. A dog has about a hundred times the number of odor cells compared to a human and is able to smell air movements.
The work converts the information received by the dog as odors into a pictorial form, taking advantage of the properties of phosphorus.
MORE ON THE TOPIC
The purpose In the Skin of Another art project is to increase compassion and understanding, as well as to dismantle the unequal structures and instrumentalization of other species by realizing immersive works through art.
According to finnish philosopher Elisa Aaltola, the role of emotions and empathy in animal philosophy has begun to be emphasized in recent years. Adding emotional level to the conversation opens up the understanding. Because we tend to ignore the connection between our own pleasure and the suffering of others the connection between deeds and consequences does not open on a rational level. During In the Skin of Another art project, the experiencer can experiment with, for example, dolphin sonar, bird ultraviolet vision, fish lateral-line sense or snake infrared vision applied to human sensory ability. By these means, we seek to detach the experiencer from the passive role of the observer, which is typical of mere visual observation, and to open up the possibility of the emergence of empathy.
Identification and compassion open the way to empathy and caring. Empathy is an important moral sense, because through it openness and otherness can be realized.
We feel that breaking down animal diversity and instrumentalisation is important. It is argued, for example, that members of secondary groups do not feel pain like others. According to Aaltola, especially in the case of animals, emphasizing facelessness is quite common. Facelessness leads to moral paralysis: Why should these beings be cared for? Individuals are treated as a mass.
In the Skin of Another art project tries to dismantle facelessness with artworks that allow the experiencer to experience immersively in the experiential perspective of different animal species. Immersion is achieved through multisensory as well as augmented reality. This allows for the emergence of an experience of physical and affective empathy. A faceless creature transforms from object to subject. The bodily response to another's feelings and active empathy, for example, with the sparrow's perceptual world, increases understanding and perhaps compassion. The sparrow is gray only to humans. On the other hand, during the project, we also considered how to convey to the human experiencer the experience of the animal, the pursuit of a rewarding cause and the experience of a sense of pleasure. For example, how to convey to the experiencer the feeling of pleasure of a dog when it wallows in pig manure? The ability to experience is relevant. It’s kind of being in the skins of a dog, roach, or lynx.
Experientialism makes us individuals and creates a basis for us to care about events that affect us. The name of the project In the Skin of Another refers to the saying “step on the skins of another” i.e. to look at the world from the perspective of the other. The name also refers to the belief found in many cultures about the transformation in which a person or animal transforms its consciousness into another form. The desire to understand the other has always existed. When we are able to identify and empathize, the other becomes object of caring. In the Skin of Another project tries to give a face to the faceless through multi-sensory representation and bodily experience.
SOURCES:
Aaltola, Elisa, Keto Sami: Eläimet yhteiskunnassa. 2015.
Telkänranta, Helena: Millaista on olla eläin? 2015