Description
Book SynopsisZebra finches playing electric guitars, a greyhound with a magenta paw or reindeer producing a mind-altering substance what are living animals doing in art installations? And what experiences can we as recipients have? Installations with living animals, which have enjoyed enormous popularity since the 1990s, such as Mark Dion''s Library for the Birds of Antwerp (1993) or Pierre Huyghe''s Untilled (20112012), create unpredictable performance situations in which we as recipients are challenged are to creatively try out unusual encounters with the living animals. In this way, the installations participate in a genuinely artistic way in the debates about a new understanding of nature, which have also been intensifying in science and society since the 1990s. With a dedicated focus on installation art and with the help of body phenomenology and theories on a new human-animal relationship, this study uses six artistic examples to discuss how art can change our relationship to other living beings.
