ctrl. + Z: a DNA / ZOO for the 21st century
Date
2012-07-02
Authors
Manicom, Caitlyn
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Abstract
The disappearance of naturally occurring organisms, their extinction,
and their reinterpretation through science, reinvites the ancient allegory
of Plato’s cave. The story is a scenario in which reality and illusion are
confused:
Socrates asks Glaucon to imagine a cave inhabited by prisoners who
have been chained and held immobile since childhood: not only are their
arms and legs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, compelled
to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is an enormous
fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised walkway, along
which people walk carrying objects on their heads. The prisoners watch
the shadows cast by the men, and hear their echoes, not knowing that
they are shadows and reflections.
Socrates suggests that the prisoners would take the shadows and echoes
to be reality, not just reflections of reality, since they are all they knew,
and the whole of their society would depend on the shadows on the wall.
We are currently confronted with a similar conundrum where information
can be misconstrued as both reality and myth.
The headlines are a riot of outcries since the escalation of rhino poaching
for new-age traditional medicine. The result of rhino poaching is their
imminent extinction. Without the media frenzy, animals would silently
disappear and man would neglect to acknowledge the part he has played
before it was too late.
Our relationship with animals provides us with a useful mirror of society.
The incomprehension between man and any other species forces us to
project emotions and meaning onto them in order to understand them.
The synapse of ambiguity creates a void that is filled with questions, curiosity
and guilt.
ABSTRACT
The rising number of vulnerable species highlights the fact that measures
taken to stall extinction are ineffective. The artificial landscapes attempted
by man to preserve animals: namely nature reserves, zoological
gardens and natural history museums; construct new versions of reality
into which we file nature so that it corresponds with human logic. Our incessant
need to control, dissect, and extrapolate habitats has amounted
in anthropomorphic and anthropocentric typologies.
Through assessing these preservation models as well as their priorities,
which seem more concerned with capture and display for capital than reestablishing
a natural order; I argue that the current situation is outdated
and requires a reinvention.
The human population has hindered the natural migration of animals,
however, it is now possible to reinstate some of this natural order through
establishing a network of genetics between zoos, natural history museums
and nature reserves. In the process of collecting animal DNA data,
we are creating a back up system for animals in the future.
My thesis proposes the integration of the concepts of game reserve, zoo,
natural history museum and cryobank into a single ‘DNA Zoo’ concept for
the 21st