Abstract

By analyzing the work of three contemporary artists, this thesis intellectually grapples with how different mechanisms of interspecies attunement can disentangle, challenge, and in some instances reiterate, modalities of anthropocentric thought and action. The first section examines Špela Petrič’s performance piece Skotopoiesis (2015), which seeks to reconfigure human-plant relationalities and engender expanded anthropic engagement with the vegetative world. Petrič’s work provides a generative ground for contending with modes of attunement such as lengthened temporality, cross-species communication, and the formation of meaning. The second part discusses Tomás Saraceno’s interactive installation Play-Ground (2024), which aspires to bridge the sensorial worlds of humans and arachnids. Play-Ground generates a space to wrestle with notions of imaginative and embodied perception, while exposing the difficulty of thinking beyond anthropomorphism. The third section teases apart Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s project that prioritizes the specific niches and needs of pollinators. Entitled Pollinator Pathmaker (2021-ongoing), Ginsberg’s endeavour demonstrates how efforts of creative empathy and multispecies cooperation can instantiate ecologies of reciprocity, ethical frameworks of care, and multi-species coexistence. This thesis not only investigates how artistic praxis engages with paradigms of anthropocentrism, but actively confronts how art can employ creative methods to (re)construct our relationship with non-human entities. With the continual intensification of ongoing ecological imperatives, such work is integral as it highlights the challenges, as well as the value, of employing artistic endeavours to support interspecies flourishing.