daniel - project 2

I’ve made this page public so stuart can see without having to log in.
This project is inspired by temple grandin.

Some Ramblings

It often requires an outsiders perspective to see what surrounds you. In a society driven so strongly by market forces, the unthinkable can become the norm. I’m interested in the psychic break that is associated with a radical political perspective, particularly in the states. How do people get to the place where they can see past the myths presented by our culture and start to grapple with the systems of control and production that surround us. In the case of temple grandin, she was born with a built in psychic break that gifts here with strong visual and empathetic ability, and also automatically puts her on the outside looking in. She has used this gift to alleviate suffering.

daniel.mcnairscott.com/hunter/massculture/
i cut off the end of the song, which sucks, but having the entire thing creates a huge file.

I thought the images synching up with the guitar worked very well to provide a kind of visual assault as well as documenting actual assaults on cattle. The maps/charts were especially good here. My favorite image is the one where it looks like the woman is going to swallow the cow behind her in the grass.

A few questions: Do you think Grandin is actually overcoming these systems of control and production? I agree that her autism provides her with a unique ability to perceive differently, but it struck me that she uses this to help create these systems. She seemed to have a paradoxical ability to identify with the physical perspective of an animal going through the slaughter house without at the same time experiencing any emotional empathy toward it. Not that this undoes your statement; just my own reaction to the reading. Last question: What is the music? I wondered if it was an original composition or something that came from another source.

Good points. The meat filled outro speaks to your idea, that even when the slaughter is human its still a system that in the end mass produces meat. I don’t think she helps create the system. I do think she makes more humane what i consider an intrinsically inhuman system. The quotes in the beginning of the piece i think state an temple’s view that may not take into account a bigger systemic analysis of industry scale animal husbandry.

Daniel, I think the question you start with is the most important question we can be asking ourselves now—how to look at the present and shake loose some idea that it deserves to exist by right of history or progress, to really look at things with political imagination. I’m convinced the problem in the US isn’t apathy or stupidity as much as fear and lack of hope. So looking (listening) with the outward perspective is necessary.

At the same time, your images obviously encourage us to believe that Grandin has not only turned her “disability” or difference into a strength, she’s used it not to question or upend the system, but to reform it to questionable ends. Is it more humane to slaughter this way when you are still slaughtering? What makes innovation turn towards capitalization and profit rather than abolition or invention of entirely new methods? Good questions to raise in a short piece.