BECAUSE WE WERE ANIMALS BEFORE

By Leding Nathan and Roxy

Empower
Growth

Utopiasoundwalk

00:00 / 07:16

Welcome

In a space separated from society by a myriad of trees, the viewer is guided by a soundwalk, placing them in the consciousness of someone leaving society, joining this utopia. They are led along a path through the woods to the installation space where several devices play looped video hanging down from the branches, representing the authority of this utopia until their authority is no longer needed, and one can pacify themselves. As the fabric and hanging shelves wave in the wind and the audio plays along, the installation engages with all the viewer’s senses, making this process tangible, and forcing them into this state of mind. The viewer sits alone, strapped to another’s consciousness, lulled into a new way of being.

BECAUSE WE WERE ANIMALS BEFORE

Because we were animals before provokes one to meditate on ideas of self-domestication through an immersive exploration of consciousness. Over time, humans have empirically become more passive beings, slowly muting their aggression throughout evolution to promote a more prosocial society. Through combining this evolutionary concept of self-domestication with a hyper-pacifist society, this process can be accelerated. Many societies like the Shakers, an 18th society, exemplified how this wish for strict pacifism can be achieved in their practices of isolation from society, celibacy, regular prayer, simplicity, and orderly communal living, essentially mutating humans into peaceful beings since no one could be born there. They prove that this acceleration is possible. So, with an immersion into societal mores of pacifism, one can be conditioned over time to become a self-pacifying being, no longer needing an authoritative figure to push these values onto them. And this is where utopia is born.