MoMA R&D
Salon 35 Dogs
Introduction: Paola Antonelli
Alexandra Horowitz
Henrik Werdelin
Young Woo
Will Rawls
Bénédicte Boisseron
Jack Halberstam
Q&A
Video Contribution: Greger Larson
Video Contribution: Aki Inomata
Video Contribution: Lori Gruen
Video Contribution: Sarah Mayorga-Gallo
Video Contribution: Kade Crockford
Video Contribution: Claire Jean Kim
Video Contribution: Revital Cohen
Video contribution: Maneesha Deckha
In his 1998 book My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk exclaimed that “dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen”. After microbes, dogs are the closest species to humans. We lament the lack of a shared language and think that if we could understand them, speak to them, listen to them, we could reach a superior natural harmony, but our relationship with dogs is defined by a deeper power binary. Dogs are treated as companions, pets, guides, workers, members of the human society, and, for many, also as an oppressed class of beings to whom basic rights are denied. In this salon, we will talk about dogs as a way to discuss otherness in a largely anthropocentric and unbalanced world. Considering forms of symbiosis as well as dominance, we will explore how and if humans can engage in a deconstructive process and design a better existence for and with others.
Some of the questions we will strive to answer: How does our relationship with dogs illuminate our attitude towards the natural world? What perspectives on the dynamics of dominance, oppression, and exclusion, can the human relationship with dogs reveal and how does this relate to contemporary ideals of the progress of civilization? How have humans constructed their relationship with dogs over time? Should humans be allowed to view dogs as property? Do humans grant dogs and other species enough rights? Are humans morally entitled to do as they want with dogs and other animals, to use them, limit their freedom, and train them for the purposes of entertainment, safety, spying, etc.? Is “pet” a disrespectful term? Does our built environment take other species, domesticated and non, into account? How can humans overcome their incapacity to comprehend animals? Can non verbal communication with dogs extend the boundaries of language? How can artists help recover the communication between human and animal as an integral part of a new, environmentally motivated social movement? What are ways for respectful co-existence? How can we decolonize our relationship between species? Versus / in relation to other species? Are dogs inherently the most domesticated or subservient species? Does domestication assume subservience? Intelligence, empathy? By what methods do humans enlist dogs for control, or even torture? Through what strategies and justifications are dogs used as tools to maintain power? Can a dog become a symbol of power? Of evil? How do we make this shift? What effects, if any, do robodogs and other roboanimals have on our relations with living species? Why dogs?
This salon took place on February 10th, 2020.
Speakers
-
Alexandra Horowitz
Alexandra Horowitz is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard. Her most recent book, Our Dogs, Ourselves explores aspects of the unique and complex interspecies pairing between humans and dogs.
-
Henrik Werdelin
Henrik Werdelin is an entrepreneur, author and the co-founder of BARK, America’s fastest growing pet company. BARK specializes in designing toys and accessories, creating products and experiences that satisfy each individual dog’s distinct personality and preferences. Using education, technology, and volunteerism, they pledge to serve as the voice for dogs in a human-led world.
-
Young Woo
Young Woo is a real estate developer, designer, founder and principal of Youngwoo & Associates. Based in New York City since 1979, Young Woo & Associates, are known for developments such as the Sky Garage and Pier 57 in Manhattan. Woo is currently designing a complex of dog friendly apartments in Chelsea, New York City.
-
Will Rawls
Will Rawls is a choreographer, performance artist, curator and writer. Rawl’s work explores the relationship between dance and language through the prisms of blackness, abstraction, and opacity. Recent publications include Dog Years (2014), Leap of Fake: Speculations on a Dance as Doubting (Scores 4, Tanzquartier Wien), and Mirror Mirrored: A Contemporary Artist’s Edition of 25 Grimm’s Tales.
-
Bénédicte Boisseron
Bénédicte Boisseron is an Associate Professor of Afroamerican & African Studies at the University of Michigan. Her most recent book, Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question draws on recent debates about black life and animal rights to investigate the relationship between race and the animal in the history and culture of the Americas and the black Atlantic.
-
Jack Halberstam
Jack Halberstam is a Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English at Columbia University. Halberstam is currently working on a book titled Wild Thing, on queer anarchy, performance and protest culture, the visual representation of anarchy and the intersections between animality, the human and the environment.
Video Contributors
-
Greger Larson
Dr. Greger Larson is the Director of Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network at the University of Oxford. His research interests include evolutionary genomics, ancient DNA, domestication, human & animal dispersal, and phylogenetics.
-
Aki Inomata
Aki Inomata is an artist and designer. Focusing on how the act of “making” is not exclusive to mankind, Aki Inomata develops the process of collaboration with living creatures into artworks. She presents what is born out of her interactions with living creatures as well as the relationship between humans and animals.
-
Lori Gruen
Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University where she coordinates Wesleyan Animal Studies. She is also Professor of Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Science in Society. Her research lies at the intersection of ethical theory, political philosophy, and social practice.
-
Sarah Mayorga- Gallo
Sarah Mayorga is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her research interests are racial and ethnic inequality, urban neighborhoods, and Latinx migration. Her current research agenda focuses on whiteness and power within multiracial spaces.
-
Kade Crockford
Kade Crockford is the Director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Crockford works to protect and expand core First and Fourth Amendment rights and civil liberties in the digital 21st century, focusing on how systems of surveillance and control impact not just the society in general but their primary targets—people of color, Muslims, immigrants, and dissidents.
-
Claire Jean Kim
Claire Jean Kim is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies. Kim is the author of the book, Dangerous Crossings: Race, Species, and Nature in a Multicultural Age, and her research interests are comparative race studies, race theory and politics, social movements, human-animal studies.
-
Revital Cohen
Revital Cohen is a designer and researcher. She develops critical objects and provocative scenarios exploring the juxtaposition of the natural with the artificial. Her work spans across various media and includes collaborations with scientists, animal breeders and medical consultants.
-
Maneesha Deckha
Maneesha Deckha is Professor and Lansdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria. Her research interests include critical animal studies, animal law, critical food studies, postcolonial theory, feminist theory, health law, and reproductive law and policy.
Reading Resources
HUMAN PONDERS ANIMAL
Berger, John, Why look at animals?, chapter in About Looking, The University of Michigan Press (1980)
Derrida, Jacques, The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow), Critical Inquiry, 28:2, 369-418 (2002)
Kalof, Linda (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Oxford University Press (2017)
Rutherford, Adam, Rethinking what sets humans apart starts with asking if we’re special at all, Popular Science (03.15.2019)
HUMAN EMBRACES ANIMAL: COMPANIONS & EMPATHY
Haraway, Donna, The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, People and Significant Otherness, The University of Chicago Press (2003)
Haraway, Donna, When Species Meet, University Of Minnesota Press (2007)
Gough, Zoe, Dogs can bond like babies. Gazing into a dog’s eyes can stimulate the same bonding process that occurs between mother and child, BBC Earth (2015)
Inomata, Aki, I Wear the Dog’s Hair, and the Dog Wears My Hair, Aki Inomata (2014)
Oswaks, Molly, Here’s How to Keep Your Cat Forever. Should you have your dog spun into yarn? Yes, The New York Times (01.13.2020)
Saletan, William, Wok the Dog. What’s wrong with eating man’s best friend?, Slate (01.16.2002)
Thwaites, Thomas, GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human (one man’s journey to leave humanity behind and become like a goat), Princeton Architectural Press (2016)
HUMAN “ADOPTS” ANIMAL: DOMESTICATION OR PARTNERSHIP?
Davis, Matt, Why do people prefer dogs over cats? They’re more controllable, study finds, Big Think (03.30.2019)
Handwerk, Brian, How Accurate Is Alpha’s Theory of Dog Domestication?, Smithsonian magazine (08.15.2018)
Kaminski, Juliane; M. Waller, Bridget; Diogo, Rui; Hartstone-Rose, Adam; M. Burrows, Anne, Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116 (29) 14677-14681 (2019)
Sanders, Laura, Human meddling has manipulated the shapes of different dog breeds’ brains. Distinct shapes of pooches’ brain regions aren’t solely due to the animals’ size or head shape, Science news (09.02.2019)
S. Rueb, Emily; Chokshi, Niraj, Labradoodle Creator Says the Breed Is His Life’s Regret, The New York Times (09.25.2019)
Yong, Ed, How Domestication Ruined Dogs’ Pack Instincts. Wolves dramatically outperform pooches at a task that requires them to work together, Atlantic (10.16.2017)
MORE THAN COMPANIONSHIP – MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS IN THE ABYSS OF NON-COMPREHENSION
Barkham, Patrick, Eva Meijer: ‘Of course animals speak. The thing is we don’t listen’, The Guardian (11.13.2019)
Claude Lévi Strauss, The Savage Mind, chapter one in The Science of the Concrete, University of Chicago Press (1962)
Mooallem, Jon, ‘Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?’ and ‘The Genius of Birds’, The New York Times (04.26.2016)
Multispecies Editing Collective, Troubling Species: Care and Belonging in a Relational World, RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, 1 (2017)
Rebolini, Arianna, Why Do Humans Talk to Animals If They Can’t Understand? The tendency to converse with dogs, cats, and hamsters ultimately says more about people than it does about their pets, The Atlantic (08.18.2017)
Wright, Katherine, Becomings, Multispecies Salon
HUMAN SUBJUGATES ANIMALS: AGENCY AND RIGHTS
Blattner, Charlotte; Coulter, Kendra; Kymlicka, Will, Animal Labour and the Quest for Interspecies Justice (2019), in Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?, ed. by Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter & Will Kymlicka, 1-25 (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Benedictus, Leo, Shock tactics: can electric dog collars ever be ethical?, The Guardian (09.18.2019)
Dickey, Bronwen, Dogs of Character: Pride, Prejudice, and the American Pit Bull Terrier, Virginia Quarterly Review (2016)
Fraser, Rachel Elizabeth, Animal Citizens, Animal Workers Animals require a politics of labor, The New Inquiry (11.14.2017)
Halberstam, Jack, Wild Things. The Disorder of Desire, Duke University Press (Forthcoming October 2020)
Heller, Nathan, If animals have rights, should robots?, The New Yorker (11.21.2016)
Horowitz, Alexandra, Dogs are not here for our convenience, The New York Times (09.03.2019)
Horowitz, Alexandra, Our Dogs, Ourselves. The Story of a Singular Bond, Simon & Schuster (2019)
McRobbie, Linda Rodriguez, Should we stop keeping pets? Why more and more ethicists say yes, The Guardian (08.01.17)
S. Favre, David, Living Property: A New Status for Animals within the Legal System, 93 Marq. L. Rev. 1021 (2009-2010)
CIVIC (MIS)MANAGEMENT – DOGS AND THE PUBLIC
Brighenti, Andrea Mubi; Pavoni, Andrea, Urban Animals—Domestic, Stray, and Wild: Notes from a Bear Repopulation Project in the Alps, Society & Animals, 26: 6 (2018)
Hauser, Christine, U.S. Plan Would Ban All Service Animals From Planes Except Dogs, The New York Times (01.22.2020)
Mayorga-Gallo, Sarah, How dogs help keep multiracial neighborhoods socially segregated, The Chicago Reporter (05.23.2019)
Murphy, Kate, Everyone Wants a Rescue Dog. Not Everyone Can Have One, The New York Times (06.29.2019)
O'Sullivan, Feargus, How Bucharest Ended Up With One of the World’s Worst Stray Dog Problems, CityLab (09.11.2013)
Quaglia, Sofia, New York City’s Shit-Show, Explained, New York City Lens (02.24.2019)
The Associated Press, South African President says pet ownership is part of 'white culture’, NY Daily News (12.27.2012)
DOGS AS POLITICAL SYMBOLS
Anania, Billy, The Cop-Attacking Chilean Dog Who Became a Worldwide Symbol of Protest, Hyperallergic (11.05.2019)
Glenney Boggs, Colleen, Animalia Americana: Animal Representations and Biopolitical Subjectivity, Columbia University Press (2013)
Lyall, Sarah, When Your Best Surrogate Can’t Talk, The New York Times (01.28.2020)
Ramos, Filipa, The Company One Keeps: Laptops, Lap Dances, Lapdogs, E-Flux (09.2018)
Skoglund, Annika; Redmalm, David, ‘Doggy-biopolitics’: Governing via the First Dog, Organization, 24:2, 240–266 (2017)
South Korea president unveils ‘peace gift’ puppies, BBC News (11.25.2018)
What’s with world leaders giving Vladimir Putin puppies as gifts?, Washington Post (10.12.2017)
MILITARIZING (DOGS)
Cohen Gilliland, Haley, Why explosives detectors still can’t beat a dog’s nose, MIT Technology Review (10.24.2019)
Laporta, James, Classified name revealed of special ops hero dog wounded in Syria raid that killed Isis leader Baghdadi, Newsweek (10.28.19)
Linder, Courtney, The Boston Dynamics Robot Dog Has Joined a Bomb Squad, Popular Mechanics (11.26.2019)
McDonald, Kelly, How Police Dogs Turned into Cybernetic Hunters. Technology is making working dogs stronger and more dangerous, by design, Vice (12.21.2015)
Roache, Madeline, A Beluga Whale Is Allegedly a Russian Spy. There’s a Long History of Marine Mammals in the Military, Time (05.03.2019)
Wellerstein, Alex, Remembering Laika, A Space Dog and Soviet Hero, The New Yorker (11.03.2017)
RACIALIZING ANIMALS & ANIMALIZING HUMANS
Boisseron, Bénédicte, Afro-Dog. Blackness And The Animal Question, Columbia University Press (2018)
Dayan, Colin, The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons, Princeton University Press (2011)
Isfahani-Hammond, Alexandra, When Trump calls someone a dog, he’s tapping into ugly history, The Conversation (12.13.2019)
Orozco, Cynthia E., No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, University of Texas Press (2009)
Rawls, Wills, Dog Years, Triple Canopy (10.23.2014)
COEXISTING, DESIGNING FOR, DESIGNING WITH (ANIMALS) DOGS
Hitti, Natashah, 10 designs for dogs, from miniature IKEA furniture to a canine-friendly staircase, Dezeen (02.16.2018)
Kaufman, Joanne, When the Dog Decides Where You Live, The New York Times (08.19.2016)
Schwab, Katharine, This is the most dog-friendly office ever, Fast Company (06.21.2019)
Studio Ossidiana, Animal Encounters, Het Nieuwe Instituut
ROBOTIC PETS/ ANIMATRONIC DOGS
Britto, Brittany, Animatronic pets at retirement homes a sign of how robots will contribute to our lives, The Baltimore Sun (03.30.2017)
Fistanic, Nicholas, The Making of Animatronic Spies So Convincing They Live Among Real Animals, Outside
Harrison, Sara, The Quest to Make a Bot That Can Smell as Well as a Dog. Scientists are trying to crack the code of how smell works—and create robots that can sniff out the world’s secrets like a dog, Wired (05.16.2019)
Holley, Peter, Boston Dynamics’ ‘terrifying’ robotic dogs have been put to work by at least one police agency, The Washington Post (11.26.2019)
Schwab, Katharine, I thought robotic dogs were ridiculous. Then I played with one. Sony is relaunching a new and improved version of Aibo in the United States, Fast Company (08.24.18)
DOGS AS DIVAS
Barry, Erin, Pets are the new social media influencer, and this Harvard Law grad represents many of them, CNBC (06.05.2018)
Bernard, Katherine, Watch the Backstage Beauty at the Westminster Dog Show: Because Being a Winner Takes Work, Vogue (02.17.2015)
Small, Zachary,New York’s New Museum of the Dog Is Serving Canine Realness Extravaganza, Hyperallergic (03.08.2019)
Williams, Alex, Is Your Dog Ready for Instagram?, The New York Times (02.10.2018)
DOGS IN ART AND HISTORY
Ramos, Fillipa (ed.), Animals from Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art series, MIT Press (2016)
Animals: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg opens new exhibition, Artdaily (11.09.2017)
Cascone, Sarah, The Next Klaus Biesenbark? Meet Rocky, the Canine Curator Who Is Unleasing dOGUMENTA on LA, Artnews (03.21.2018)
Mark, Joshua J., Dogs in the Ancient World, Ancient History Encyclopedia (01.14.2019)
Scientists at University of York unlock the mystery surrounding a tale of shaggy dogs, Artdaily (11.25.2011)
Small, Zachary, The Cultural Legacy of Animals in Japanese Art Over 17 Centuries, Hyperallergic (08.16.2019)
Teixeira, Pinto, Ana, The Post-Human Animal. What’s behind the proliferation of animals in recent artworks?, Frieze (04.21.2015)
WATCH
A history of dogs, National Geographic (05.21.2018)
Dogs are people too, New Yorker (05.22.2019)
Locals Are Poisoning Dogs at a Sanctuary For 1000 Strays, Vice (01.24.2020)
Mundruczó, Kornél, White God, Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing (2014)
Reichardt, Kelly, Wendy and Lucy, Oscilloscope Laboratories HD (2018)
Robotic Spy Puppy Meets Wild Dogs, clip from 1 ‘Love’, PBS/THIRTEEN Productions LLC series Spy in the Wild, John Downer Productions (05.22.2017)
Settles, Gary S., Dog breathing, schlieren video, Science Source (05.05.2011)