The zoological apparatus : Chris Marker, Simone Forti and Joan Jonas’ artistic engagement with animals

Zoos make animals visible. By exhibiting, editing, framing and fixating the living beings they detain, zoological gardens—and by extension other apparatuses of exhibition of animals, namely aquaria, dolphinaria, safari parks, wildlife “sanctuaries” and petting farms—activate specific modes of looking and being looked upon, which transform the status and nature of the displayed animals and condition the ways in which they are observed, conceptualised and considered. My research is set to investigate how the conditions of exhibiting living animals in zoological gardens create specific modes of observation and inquiry—not only for viewers during their leisure time but also for artists who chose this environment as a source of intellectual, affective and creative input. The research is rooted on the work of three germinal artists—Chris Marker, Simone Forti and Joan Jonas—whose time-based practices (film, video, performance, dance) consistently engaged with zoological exhibitionary apparatuses. Through the discussion and contextualisation of their work, I aim to comprehend the conditions, possibilities and limits to their engagement, responses to and critiques of the zoo, in order to analyse contemporary art as an exhibitionary practice parallel to that of the zoo. I therefore consider discourses about the format of the exhibition, which are largely framed within the disciplinary ambit of art history, architecture and exhibition studies, expanding them towards a realm where the museological, the artistic and the display of the living contribute to one another in thinking the exhibitionary. Discussing the three artists’ work, I observe how the zoo’s agenda combines entertainment allure, educational aims, colonial narratives and scientific legitimisations, which support one another in entangling animals, infrastructure, optical devices and visitors, thus feeding an important thread of theory across critical animal studies about the effects and purpose of zoological gardens. I also reflect on how confinement, torture and spectacle work hand-in-hand across an exhibitionary logic in which the exhibition of living beings relates to other configurations of display, distribution, and interaction of the museological experience of “nature”

ARTISTIC INTERDISCIPLINARITY AND LA FURA DELS BAUS 1979-1989

PhDThis thesis aims to explore questions of artistic interdisciplinarity through a study of the Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus's practice in the period from 1979 to 1989. This study sees artistic interdisciplinarity and La Fura as prominent aspects of contemporary theatre,which have received little critical attention in theatre studies. The general introduction attempts to define a conceptual and contextual framework for this thesis. Chapter 1 examines `artistic interdisciplinarity' as a significant conceptual instrument for this study. Chapter 2 investigates some instances of artistically interdisciplinary practice before and after performance art. Chapter 3 takes a general look at what constitutes the wider social and aesthetic context within which La Fura had its inception. Chapter 4 focuses on the group's early productions in Catalonia from 1979 to 1983, a period often neglected by scholars writing on the company's work. Chapter 5 presents Accions (1983-87),S u o/Suz (1985-91) and TierMon (1988- 90). These three productions comprise the features of the lenguajefurero. Chapter 6,7 and 8 examine these features, La Fura's manipulation of scenic threads such as space, time, sound, image,body and movement as well as the interdisciplinary exchanges with different arts. Chapter 8 also looks at the relations among La Fura's productions and questions of national and aesthetic identities in Catalonia and Spain. The final unit presents the conclusions of this thesis.Through a cross-disciplinary methodology, this thesis has the double ambition of stimulating further debates and actions in re-mapping theatrical language as well as connecting ideas about both main objects of study to an understanding of the art of theatre and its environments at the end of the twentieth century.Coordenagdo de Aperfeicamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES) and the Universidaded e Brasilia (UnB