Piscis ludicrous / Transfixed gaze | Lygophilia

To be a thing at all—a rock, a lizard, a human— is to be in a twist.
How thought longs to twist and turn like the serpent poetry!
—Timothy Morton (Dark Ecology)

Robertina Šebjanič is working the fields of living systems (bio-art) and sound art, thus creating interactive ambiental responsive immersive installations, dealing predominantly with cultural, political and biological realities of marine and aquatic environments, not least for their obscured visions in the human imaginaries. In Piscis ludicrous / Tranfix Gaze (Lygophilia) she showcases non-human-subject Mexican salamander »axolotl« – one of many non-furry friends that have long transfixed the human minds – through different narratives:

– axolotl as a species that is facing extinction in its natural environment;

– axolotl as a subject of scientific research considering its extraordinary regenerative abilities and the promise of everlasting life;

– axolotl as a cultural heritage representing biopolitical and decolonial relations, displaying the connection between mythology in the contemporary world.

The artist creates an immersive and poetic visual soundscape and ​encourages the viewers to reflect – on the level of sensory experience – on new (ecological) realities in the time of the Anthropocene (notwithstanding moral judgment). With her field-recording (audio-video) equipment, the artist entered into axolotl’s living environment and discussed this ecology with several scientists, ethnobiologists, farmers (chinamperas) and other experts who monitor substantial changes in axolotl’s ecosystem.

Axolotls, trapped in the reality of ecological catastrophe, have taken – through the centuries – many shapes in the imaginaries of the humans who encountered them. A sixteenth-century Spanish naturalist recorded its Nahuatl name and came up with piscis ludicrous – the ludicrous fish. (Henderson, 16) In a short story “Axolotl” by Julio Cortázar, the writer is transfixed, experiencing his own metamorphosis transforming into an animal: “I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else.” The video essay offers a multilayered view of the animals and the viewer is experiencing the transfer that Cortázar writes about. It challenges the perception of the relationship between the non-human-subjects and human. It explores if and how we are able to perceive the parameters of ecological needs of other species in the times of a dark ecology.

Axolotls intrigued the ancient Aztecs because of their fascinating appearance and regenerative powers, and were believed to be a manifestation of the god Xolotl who was the ferryman of the dead to the underworld and the God of Fire. At the same time, they had been a part of their culinary tradition and folk medicine.

Axolotl’s mythology and scientific facts, merged with popular culture, invite the viewers to gain a more profound view of interspecies cohabitation in the contemporary world. This is a story about particularly complex case of such cohabitation. Since the end of the 19th century, the numbers of axolotls has increased, however, only in laboratories, where they are examined for their biological advantages of their perpetual youth. On the other hand, humans are the cause for (imminent) extinction of axolotls in their natural habitat and the lakes surrounding Mexico City, where axolotls originally live(d) in the darkness of the swamps, are losing their symbolic meaning as a connection of the past and future.

Given all the scientific merits in the field of regenerative biology and the promise of prolongation of human life, it is almost impossible for humankind to see axolotls as they are – non-human-subjects in the process of inevitable extinction.

The project thus opens the questions: Who observes whom? Who is seen as a monster and who is perceived as an optical illusion?

Bibliography:

• Cortázar, Julio, “Axolotl”, in Literaria, Buenos Aires, 1952.
• Henderson, Caspar, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings. A 21th Century Bestiary, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
• Morton, Timothy, Dark Ecology. For a Logic of Future Coexistence, New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
• Voss, Randal S.; Woodcock, Ryan; Zambrano, Luis, “A Tale of Two Axolotls”, v BioScience, No. 65, Issue 12, 1  December 2015, pgs. 1134–1140