sahnhar lecture 9
TRANSCRIPT
Neil McPherson
Society & Human/Nonhuman
Animal Relations (SOCY10015)
Lecture 8: Spectacle and sport: the nonhuman animal as entertainment.
Pt2 The Zoo
Dr NEIL McPHERSONEmail: [email protected]: @neilgmcphersonSMS: 07708 931 325
Neil McPherson
Considering the role of the zoo
Spectacle
Conservation
Production of scientific knowledge
Educational engagment
Entertainment
Neil McPherson
A brief history of the zoo & zoological garden
Around for more than 4500 years
– Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, China
Medieval Europe – exotic animals - the property of kings
Fredrick II (1194-1250) – Holy Roman Emperor
– treatise on falconry – ecology, behaviour, anatomy
King John (1199 to 1216)
– menagerie established at the Tower of London
– Lions at the Tower of London
The Menagerie of Versailles – Louis XIV
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles (built 1662-1664)
Spectacular architectural project
Designed by Louis Le Vau under order of Louis XIV
Regarded as the first modern zoo (see Senior 2004)
Perhaps the influence behind Bentham‟s Panopticon
Blueprint for the disciplinary architecture of the Modern Age
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles – Man and the Natural World
Two fundamental intentions in the menagerie‟s construction:
to make nature visible to man
to separate that nature into groupings of species
The human observer could look out from the central position of
the pavilion over a vista of nonhuman animals, able to scan the
totality of that vista from a singular point, thereby encapsulating
the power of observation over the natural world.
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles (1664)
Each enclosure held groupings of nonhuman animals
In 1700 the groupings evident included:
Cour des Pelicans – large birds from Asia and Africa;
Cour des Autruches – ostriches
Cour des Oiseaux – various birds and small animals;
Basse-cour – where “animals for the king's table were raised”
(see Robbins 2002: 43)
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles
Man was the “audience to the spectacle of nature” (Baratay & Hardouin-Fugier 2004: 49)
Not a „natural‟ separation and organisation
The architectural construction of the enclosures and the
separation of species represented the taxonomic boundaries
identified by the natural historians of the age
“For the first time in history, the zoo is meant to divide & classify” (Senior 2004: 211)
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles - Académie des Sciences
Exhibition of animals by the public which could not normally
be encountered
But also:
Anatomical study of dead animals
Artistic representations of intimate anatomy
The peintres animale: Desportes, Nicasius, Boel painted
each animal in vivo as it arrived at Versailles
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles - Académie des Sciences
“the Ménagerie itself was located at the focal point of a
multitude of forms of classification, representation and
order present in the Classical age. The architectural and
classificatory formation of the Ménagerie captured man‟s
relationship with his Others, and the order of the natural
world…From his position in the pavilion of the Ménagerie,
man looked out over a vista that encapsulated the order of
the nature, over the species of that world and their
taxonomic separation as represented through the mind of
man on the table of the natural world.”(McPherson 2010: 147)
Neil McPherson
The Ménagerie de Versailles - Académie des Sciences
Man was located beyond the natural world
The centre point of an artificial separation and location of
nonhuman animals
The point of departure in the classification and organisation of
nonhuman animals
Neil McPherson
Problems with the zoological gardens
Criticisms of zoological gdns – eg life expectancy of big cats
“In a state of endless captivity, their lives, for the most
part, turned into lingering deaths.”(Altick quoted in Bostock 1993: 29)
The „liberation‟ of Versaillies (1792)
Neil McPherson
The Emergence of the Modern Zoo
Zoological Society of London (1826)
First zoo founded as a scientific institution
Exclusive access to Fellows of the Society (or friends)
Officially opened to public in 1846 (unofficially accessible since 1834)
Neil McPherson
The Emergence of the Modern Zoo
Stellingen Zoo (1907)
Founded by animal trader and tamer Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913)
Showing seals in St Pauli (1848) to the first „open park‟ zoo
Bars replaced by moats – the illusion of almost direct contact
Blurred the human/animal separation defined by the gardens
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
How are zoos constructed:
Natural and/or free-living conditions
Semi-naturalistic enclosure
Enriched semi-naturalistic enclosure
Enriched non-naturalistic enclosure
Fully naturalistic enclosure
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
How are zoos organised:
By taxinomic system - zoological relations
By geographic origin
By habitat
By popularity
By behaviour
(see Mullan & Marvin 1999: 68)
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
Zoos often driven by need to please customers rather than
prioritise welfare of animals
Visibility of enclosures
Showtime
Conflict between aesthetic of architecture and animal needs
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
Aesthetics
Utility
Carson‟s Elephant House at London Zoo
Lubetkin‟s Penguin House at London Zoo
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
Naturalistic aesthetic – see work of David Hancocks
Suspension of belief
Avoids „prison‟ view
Enhances view of „natural‟ environment
Conservational and educational elements
Zoos must be „story driven‟ rather than „object driven‟
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
What is the primary role of zoos then?
Story driven – conservationist, protectionist, anti-pollution,
anti-hunting, anti-poaching
Object driven – protectionist – conservationist breeding
programmes
Contemporary tensions
Neil McPherson
Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface
“Zoos are a metaphor for our attitudes to and relationships
with Nature. The critical importance of landscape
immersion as a technique for zoo design is that it
acknowledges, makes evident even, the importance and
the values of natural systems. It creates opportunities for
zoo visitors to experience something more meaningful
than passively looking at an animal on display”(Hancocks 2001: 146-7)
Neil McPherson
The institutionalised and docile body
Goffman – the institution as total enclosed world
– highly structured
– little social intercourse
– stripping of identity
Foucault – surveillance measures and defines the normal
– produces docile bodies
– the prison/asylum (zoo) - disciplinary mechanism
– animality and the asylum
Neil McPherson
The institutionalised and docile body
Institutional neurosis & the asylum Position of captive nonhuman animal
Loss of contact with outside world Separation from natural habitat
Enforced idleness Enforced idleness
Authoritarianism of staff Direct control by humans
Loss of personal friends, loss of possessions, loss of events
Loss of life in normal social groups
Effects of drugs Drugs, and medical and fertility control
Ward atmosphere – poor lighting, furniture, diet, noise, smells, patients
Caging, a totally alien environment –lighting, artificial diet, unusual noise, strange odours, unnatural proximity of both alien species and the human visitor
Loss of prospects
(Source Mullan & Marvin 1987: 38)
Neil McPherson
The potential of science in the zoo
Taxonomic knowledge
Basic observational knowledge
Reproductive-physiological knowledge
Veterinary knowledge
Genetic knowledge
Behavioural knowledge
Productional knowledge
To add to biological knowledge
To assist care and breeding of animals in zoos
To assist management and conservation of animals in the wild
To assist the solution to human medical problems
(Bostock 1994: 164)
Neil McPherson
The potential of science in the zoo
Can scientific advance justify captivity in the zoo?
Scientific research using animals not usually located in the zoo
Is science little more than conservative breeding?
Potential rather than reality
(Bostock 1994: 164)
Neil McPherson
The educational potential of the zoo
At centre of zoos‟ vision
Unlike museums, does not require particular cultural capital
Extension of school
Stimulate interest & curiosity
Entertainment stimulates education
Neil McPherson
The educational potential of the zoo
However:
Zoos role is not traditionally one of education
Zoos mostly regarded as places of entertainment
Regarded as „cheap day out‟
Visitors require stimulation during visit
Resistance of zoo workers to embrace visitors
(see Mullan & Marvin 1999; Malamud 2007)
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle – the human spectator at the zoo: a
critical view
“The animal scrutinises [man] across an abyss of non-
comprehension…The man too is looking across a similar,
but not identical, abyss of non-comprehension. And this is
so wherever he looks. He is always looking across
ignorance and fear.”(Malamud 2007: 219-20)
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle
Zoo is a passive encounter
Requires minimal imagination
Cheap vicarious pleasures
Encourages anti-social behaviour
Fails to generate creative experience
(Malamud 2007: 164)
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle
“Most zoos are peep-shows, the animals merely goods
displayed to the public in return for hard cash”(Omrod quoted in Malamud 2007: 220)
Animals are rendered docile and do not act as they would in
the wild
Animals often riled into action as people expect their „money‟s
worth‟
Children (and adults) often see the monkeys as clowns and
rattle bars and hit glass fronts until they perform
(Malamud 2007: 164)
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle
Zoos also attract individuals engaged in voyeuristic sexual
behaviour
The „dirty old men‟ of the zoo (see Livingston 1974; Nimier 1993)
Although most are not voyuers, the zoo encourages staring
Staring is in a way the essence of the zoo (Bostock 1993: 100)
The promised spectacle, however, disappoints
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle
The threat of the gaze may render the animal fearful or
immobile
The animal may refuse to „be seen‟
Therefore, feeding time exists as an unhealthy pleasure -
demand for total visual experience
The human experience of the zoo is demeaning to both
human and nonhuman animal
Television and Internet offer a palatable alternative
(Malamud 2007: 164)
Neil McPherson
The zoo as spectacle
Acampora (2003) extends this view when he draws an analogy
between the zoo and pornography
„Natural‟ traits eroded by captivity
Relations are not natural – the animal that people want to see
has disappeared, as has the human from the gaze of the
animal
Pornography distorts sex – zoo distorts animal relations
Zoos desensitise – animals exist for our vicarious pleasure
Neil McPherson
Summary
The zoo has historically undergone a number of shifts in form
The actual role of the modern zoo is questioned & contested
The zoo constitutes a site for the cultural interrogation of both
human/nonhuman animal and human/human relations
“However misguided much of past (and even recent) zoo-keeping has
been, it testifies to a great desire for close involvement with other
animals” (Bostock 1993: 197)
“The view in the zoo is not good enough, and never can be; but keeprs
and patrons obsessively continue striving simply (and impossibly) to
establish a more satisfying spectorial experience.” (Malamud 2007: 231)