Process image from the making of Become the Gorilla, created at Allegheny College in 2011 during 8-Hour Projects.
Science can tell us quite a bit about gorilla behavior, but very little about the gorilla’s firsthand subjective experience of the world. The methods of science can’t effectively address the problem of phenomenal consciousness. This problem serves as a point of departure for a couple of performance-based projects that compare gorilla and human consciousness.
In Become the Gorilla (a project that I recently conducted at Allegheny College) gallery visitors were invited to watch and commit to memory a video of a gorilla behaving in a human-like way. Each participant then dressed in a gorilla costume and re-performed the scene as accurately as possible, attempting to take on the mind of the gorilla. This process was filmed and then displayed during the exhibition.
Still from Simon and Simian Sentience, 2011, video, running time: 2 minutes and 45 seconds
Simon and Simian Sentience was an earlier and more narrative video project that considered whether a gorilla might be capable of feeling existential dread. Gorillas seem to feel emotions like embarrassment and sadness, and they are capable of thinking about the past and future, so they might also be able to contemplate their own eventual demise. In this video, by repeatedly losing at the game of Simon, the gorilla realizes that all things eventually come to an end: games, and even life itself.
I’ve been incorporating performance and participatory aspects into my larger body of work in order to implicate the viewer. This invites the unexpected, and allows the collective intelligence of the viewers to enhance the work’s meaning.
Click here to watch the video on Vimeo
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