Anna Kovler

Animal Promises

The central focus of this paper is the relationship between humans and animals and the way in which it is governed by a system of binary opposition. The idea that humans are fundamentally different from and superior to animals has a philosophical history dating back to René Descartes and the Judeo-Christian Bible. As an alternative to binary opposition a new way of thinking can be called “categorical blurring”, which involves removing the focus on overarching categories to emphasize that identity is created in relation to other creatures and not in opposition to them. I utilize categorical blurring as a methodological approach for creating paintings as a way to express that humans are tangled up with animals in a relation that is mutual and co-constitutive. Animal body parts spill over into human body parts in these paintings, signaling that there is no human without the animal, no animal without the human.