thanks for growing and covering my body. Without you, me and other humans wouldn´t be here. Why? Because you protected us in the past. When we had much more hair than we do now. You were our jacket when we had only a fire to keep us warm in extreme cold. You helped us to hide and to seek out preys. Furthermore, you could have been a warning sign for potential predators: “be aware, this human might be as dangerous as you are” … or something like that. What is funny is that you would still be here without us. You would probably still grow on different animals. I feel the urge to thank you for sticking with us, especially since many people hate you and would like to get rid of you.
After Georg Blaschke´s & Jan Machacek´s performance,the artistic team mentioned a turning point in the creation of ani_male. It was when they found out what animals can see – which light frequencies and how different it is to the human sight. This inspired the light design and the creative process as well. During the performance there were many scientific-like moments. When the camera observed the body of the performer and therefore, we as an audience could see the details of his hair or skin texture in an unusual way. The videos and projections had created a weird hairy forest landscape. In a forest, like in the many layers of the projection, I could easily get lost. It was soothing to see how layers drifted into each other. This laboratory approach helped me to see things from a new perspective. Dear hair, you are closer to all organisms that live on my skin – bacteria, microbes etc. How do you perceive them?
Nowadays, your functions on the human skin have evolved and changed. You are not only protecting us, but you have a social role as well. Looking at you from commercial binary optics – male and female hair, unfortunately, don´t equal. Some people have built businesses based on you, such as gender defined shaving products. I know, it´s not your fault. At the beginning of puberty, I was proud of you. You were my victory, a symbol that I was becoming an adult. Now, I have realized that it is hard to talk about you without somehow involving your social context, even subconsciously or unwillingly. This happened to me during the performance. I perceived the male performer in a furry costume doing animalistic raw movements as a picture of a gender role stereotype. Men are told to be as tough as animals. In the nature this behaviour is common. It is a survival of the fittest. But on that evening, I felt that the trio (male performer, furry costume & animalistic movement) was feeding the stereotypical image that men are raw, they are like animals, predators and vultures. I couldn´t help but to see this in connection with the chosen theme of masculinity.
In the end I am happy that I had the possibility to think about my relationship to you. I must say that I like how varied you are. For instance, the hair on my head and the hair on my legs… The texture, even the colour is different, and I like how diverse you are. Continue to be like that & keep growing!
Hairy hugs,
juraj
Juraj Bako is a student of Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His works are interdisciplinary combining performative, digital and visual art.
