sahnhar lecture 9

Neil McPherson

Society & Human/Nonhuman

Animal Relations (SOCY10015)

Lecture 8: Spectacle and sport: the nonhuman animal as entertainment.

Pt2 The Zoo

Dr NEIL McPHERSONEmail: [email protected]: @neilgmcphersonSMS: 07708 931 325

mailto:[email protected]



Neil McPherson

Considering the role of the zoo

Spectacle

Conservation

Production of scientific knowledge

Educational engagment

Entertainment

Neil McPherson

A brief history of the zoo & zoological garden

Around for more than 4500 years

– Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, China

Medieval Europe – exotic animals - the property of kings

Fredrick II (1194-1250) – Holy Roman Emperor

– treatise on falconry – ecology, behaviour, anatomy

King John (1199 to 1216)

– menagerie established at the Tower of London

– Lions at the Tower of London

The Menagerie of Versailles – Louis XIV

Neil McPherson

The Ménagerie de Versailles (built 1662-1664)

Spectacular architectural project

Designed by Louis Le Vau under order of Louis XIV

Regarded as the first modern zoo (see Senior 2004)

Perhaps the influence behind Bentham‟s Panopticon

Blueprint for the disciplinary architecture of the Modern Age

Neil McPherson

The Ménagerie de Versailles (1664)

Bentham‟s Panopticon

Neil McPherson


Neil McPherson

The Ménagerie de Versailles – Man and the Natural World

Two fundamental intentions in the menagerie‟s construction:

to make nature visible to man

to separate that nature into groupings of species

The human observer could look out from the central position of

the pavilion over a vista of nonhuman animals, able to scan the

totality of that vista from a singular point, thereby encapsulating

the power of observation over the natural world.

Neil McPherson


Each enclosure held groupings of nonhuman animals

In 1700 the groupings evident included:

Cour des Pelicans – large birds from Asia and Africa;

Cour des Autruches – ostriches

Cour des Oiseaux – various birds and small animals;

Basse-cour – where “animals for the king's table were raised”

(see Robbins 2002: 43)

Neil McPherson

The Ménagerie de Versailles

Man was the “audience to the spectacle of nature” (Baratay & Hardouin-Fugier 2004: 49)

Not a „natural‟ separation and organisation

The architectural construction of the enclosures and the

separation of species represented the taxonomic boundaries

identified by the natural historians of the age

“For the first time in history, the zoo is meant to divide & classify” (Senior 2004: 211)

Neil McPherson

The Ménagerie de Versailles - Académie des Sciences

Exhibition of animals by the public which could not normally

be encountered

But also:

Anatomical study of dead animals

Artistic representations of intimate anatomy

The peintres animale: Desportes, Nicasius, Boel painted

each animal in vivo as it arrived at Versailles

Neil McPherson


“the Ménagerie itself was located at the focal point of a

multitude of forms of classification, representation and

order present in the Classical age. The architectural and

classificatory formation of the Ménagerie captured man‟s

relationship with his Others, and the order of the natural

world…From his position in the pavilion of the Ménagerie,

man looked out over a vista that encapsulated the order of

the nature, over the species of that world and their

taxonomic separation as represented through the mind of

man on the table of the natural world.”(McPherson 2010: 147)

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Man was located beyond the natural world

The centre point of an artificial separation and location of

nonhuman animals

The point of departure in the classification and organisation of

nonhuman animals

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Problems with the zoological gardens

Criticisms of zoological gdns – eg life expectancy of big cats

“In a state of endless captivity, their lives, for the most

part, turned into lingering deaths.”(Altick quoted in Bostock 1993: 29)

The „liberation‟ of Versaillies (1792)

Neil McPherson

The Emergence of the Modern Zoo

Zoological Society of London (1826)

First zoo founded as a scientific institution

Exclusive access to Fellows of the Society (or friends)

Officially opened to public in 1846 (unofficially accessible since 1834)

Neil McPherson

The Emergence of the Modern Zoo

Stellingen Zoo (1907)

Founded by animal trader and tamer Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913)

Showing seals in St Pauli (1848) to the first „open park‟ zoo

Bars replaced by moats – the illusion of almost direct contact

Blurred the human/animal separation defined by the gardens

Neil McPherson

Space & the Modern Zoo: The Human/Animal Interface

How are zoos constructed:

Natural and/or free-living conditions

Semi-naturalistic enclosure

Enriched semi-naturalistic enclosure

Enriched non-naturalistic enclosure

Fully naturalistic enclosure

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How are zoos organised:

By taxinomic system - zoological relations

By geographic origin

By habitat

By popularity

By behaviour

(see Mullan & Marvin 1999: 68)

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Zoos often driven by need to please customers rather than

prioritise welfare of animals

Visibility of enclosures

Showtime

Conflict between aesthetic of architecture and animal needs

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Aesthetics

Utility

Carson‟s Elephant House at London Zoo

Lubetkin‟s Penguin House at London Zoo

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Naturalistic aesthetic – see work of David Hancocks

Suspension of belief

Avoids „prison‟ view

Enhances view of „natural‟ environment

Conservational and educational elements

Zoos must be „story driven‟ rather than „object driven‟

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What is the primary role of zoos then?

Story driven – conservationist, protectionist, anti-pollution,

anti-hunting, anti-poaching

Object driven – protectionist – conservationist breeding

programmes

Contemporary tensions

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“Zoos are a metaphor for our attitudes to and relationships

with Nature. The critical importance of landscape

immersion as a technique for zoo design is that it

acknowledges, makes evident even, the importance and

the values of natural systems. It creates opportunities for

zoo visitors to experience something more meaningful

than passively looking at an animal on display”(Hancocks 2001: 146-7)

Neil McPherson

The institutionalised and docile body

Goffman – the institution as total enclosed world

– highly structured

– little social intercourse

– stripping of identity

Foucault – surveillance measures and defines the normal

– produces docile bodies

– the prison/asylum (zoo) - disciplinary mechanism

– animality and the asylum

Neil McPherson

The institutionalised and docile body

Institutional neurosis & the asylum Position of captive nonhuman animal

Loss of contact with outside world Separation from natural habitat

Enforced idleness Enforced idleness

Authoritarianism of staff Direct control by humans

Loss of personal friends, loss of possessions, loss of events

Loss of life in normal social groups

Effects of drugs Drugs, and medical and fertility control

Ward atmosphere – poor lighting, furniture, diet, noise, smells, patients

Caging, a totally alien environment –lighting, artificial diet, unusual noise, strange odours, unnatural proximity of both alien species and the human visitor

Loss of prospects

(Source Mullan & Marvin 1987: 38)

Neil McPherson

The potential of science in the zoo

Taxonomic knowledge

Basic observational knowledge

Reproductive-physiological knowledge

Veterinary knowledge

Genetic knowledge

Behavioural knowledge

Productional knowledge

To add to biological knowledge

To assist care and breeding of animals in zoos

To assist management and conservation of animals in the wild

To assist the solution to human medical problems

(Bostock 1994: 164)

Neil McPherson

The potential of science in the zoo

Can scientific advance justify captivity in the zoo?

Scientific research using animals not usually located in the zoo

Is science little more than conservative breeding?

Potential rather than reality

(Bostock 1994: 164)

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The educational potential of the zoo

At centre of zoos‟ vision

Unlike museums, does not require particular cultural capital

Extension of school

Stimulate interest & curiosity

Entertainment stimulates education

Neil McPherson

The educational potential of the zoo

However:

Zoos role is not traditionally one of education

Zoos mostly regarded as places of entertainment

Regarded as „cheap day out‟

Visitors require stimulation during visit

Resistance of zoo workers to embrace visitors

(see Mullan & Marvin 1999; Malamud 2007)

Neil McPherson

The zoo as spectacle – the human spectator at the zoo: a

critical view

“The animal scrutinises [man] across an abyss of non-

comprehension…The man too is looking across a similar,

but not identical, abyss of non-comprehension. And this is

so wherever he looks. He is always looking across

ignorance and fear.”(Malamud 2007: 219-20)

Neil McPherson

The zoo as spectacle

Zoo is a passive encounter

Requires minimal imagination

Cheap vicarious pleasures

Encourages anti-social behaviour

Fails to generate creative experience

(Malamud 2007: 164)

Neil McPherson


“Most zoos are peep-shows, the animals merely goods

displayed to the public in return for hard cash”(Omrod quoted in Malamud 2007: 220)

Animals are rendered docile and do not act as they would in

the wild

Animals often riled into action as people expect their „money‟s

worth‟

Children (and adults) often see the monkeys as clowns and

rattle bars and hit glass fronts until they perform

(Malamud 2007: 164)

Neil McPherson


Zoos also attract individuals engaged in voyeuristic sexual

behaviour

The „dirty old men‟ of the zoo (see Livingston 1974; Nimier 1993)

Although most are not voyuers, the zoo encourages staring

Staring is in a way the essence of the zoo (Bostock 1993: 100)

The promised spectacle, however, disappoints

Neil McPherson


The threat of the gaze may render the animal fearful or

immobile

The animal may refuse to „be seen‟

Therefore, feeding time exists as an unhealthy pleasure -

demand for total visual experience

The human experience of the zoo is demeaning to both

human and nonhuman animal

Television and Internet offer a palatable alternative

(Malamud 2007: 164)

Neil McPherson


Acampora (2003) extends this view when he draws an analogy

between the zoo and pornography

„Natural‟ traits eroded by captivity

Relations are not natural – the animal that people want to see

has disappeared, as has the human from the gaze of the

animal

Pornography distorts sex – zoo distorts animal relations

Zoos desensitise – animals exist for our vicarious pleasure

Neil McPherson

Summary

The zoo has historically undergone a number of shifts in form

The actual role of the modern zoo is questioned & contested

The zoo constitutes a site for the cultural interrogation of both

human/nonhuman animal and human/human relations

“However misguided much of past (and even recent) zoo-keeping has

been, it testifies to a great desire for close involvement with other

animals” (Bostock 1993: 197)

“The view in the zoo is not good enough, and never can be; but keeprs

and patrons obsessively continue striving simply (and impossibly) to

establish a more satisfying spectorial experience.” (Malamud 2007: 231)

sahnhar lecture 9

Education

neil mcphersonthe mnagerie

versailles man

versailles acadmie

menagerie of versailles

groupings of nonhuman

neil mcphersona brief

vista of nonhuman animals

sciences exhibition