The Ethics of Interspecies Performance: Empathy beyond Analogy in Fevered Sleep's Sheep Pig Goat

Abstract

In this article, I consider Sheep Pig Goat alongside the work of foundational animal studies scholar and philosopher of science, Vinciane Despret-whose important book, What Would Animals Say if We Asked the Right Questions? (2016) was one text amongst many others that the company themselves read as part of the preparation for the project. In particular, I draw from Despret to explore multiple possible understandings of the notion of "interspecies empathy," noting that, for Fevered Sleep, a core aim of the project was to investigate how performance might "increase understanding of, and empathy towards nonhuman animals" (both their own as a company and those of the audiences who encounter their work) 2. Here, though, the mode of empathy I am reaching toward is not one that operates through analogy or identification, but an "embodied empathy" that operates as a mode of affective thinking alongside rather than "about" the animal, and as a performative encounter between human and nonhuman animals that produces both parties anew. Both embodied empathy and attention have key roles to play in securing greater ethical consideration of nonhuman animals in relation to the production of knowledge. As Donna Haraway suggests, the etymology of seeing-from the Latin verb respecere, to look again-invites consideration of the relationship between attention and respect: to taking care in an ethical sense and the careful, iterative act of observation that does not judge on first impressions but considers others as worthy of respect or, a second look. 3 But this ethics of attention is not just about vision or sight and this is why performance might play a leading role in its investigation. Rather, as Amanda Boetzkes has argued, if "the fundamental ethical question" concerns "how we might develop a complex sensibility of and for non-human animals" 4 or, if ethics is a matter of embodied behaviors improvised between actors in the uncertainty of specific contexts, then performance practices surely have much to contribute to the development of our understanding of what constitutes an interspecies ethics. Interspecies performance practice might be understood as a primary domain for the creation and investigation of what Traci Warkentin also describes as "an ethical praxis of paying attention." 5 But whereas Warkentin's work foregrounds notions of attention primarily informed by phenomenology, my own engagement has been shaped by both Bergson and Deleuze, and in this 2

Ei-ihmisten esitys

“…"'Kasvi-ajattelu' on ensinnäkin lupaus ja nimi kohtaamiselle, ja siksi sitä voidaan ajatella kutsuna hylätä inhimillisen ja humanistisen ajattelun tuttu maasto ja kohdata kasviperäinen elämä, jos ei siellä, missä sitä on, niin ainakin puolivälissä" (Marder 2013, 10). Esitysfilosofian kentällä esitysajattelua on sen sijaan luonnehdittu pitkälti François Laruellen ajatteluun pohjautuen epäfilosofiana, ajattelua samanarvoistavana tyylinä ja filosofian performatiivisena laajennuksena (Cull 2019(Cull /2018Ó Maoilearca 2019Ó Maoilearca /2015Nauha 2019). Tässä kuvatussa praktiikassa esitysajattelu hahmottui kuitenkin aluksi kasviajatteluun sisältyvän "sen" ajattelun kautta: " (…) seuraan ja käännän hitaasti esityksen inhimillisen ja ei-inhimillisen kollektiivisen toimijuuden ajattelua, tapahtumaa jossa "se" ajattelee, ruohon tavoin kevyesti, taipuen, vääjäämättä, keskeltä, lukuisin yhteyksin" (Kokkonen 2014, 183).…”

Becoming a tree with a tree

“…Some performance scholars like Nikolić and Radulovic (2018) or Brisini (2019) and others, including the author (Arlander 2020b) have looked at plants and performance. Discussions related to ethical issues in interspecies performance, which are relevant for encounters with trees, too, have mostly been concerned with animals (Cull 2019).…”