Feeding Time, 2019
Single-channel video on loop, 3:12
To be animate is the state of being alive or living. The more alive something is, the more we imbue it with agency, emotions, and sentience, and therefore, the less apt it is to die. The “animacy hierarchy” by language theorist, John Cherry, organizes entities on a scale from most animate to least. It arranges humans at the top, followed by animals, then inanimates, and lastly, incorporeals.
This linear scale explains how insults and activating language that refer to humans as animals are entangled with the notion that humans are positioned above animals in this hierarchy-- language serves to reinforce this social hierarchy of power. A Janus-faced pig in Feeding Time exchanges dialogue sourced from Facebook posts from former and current police officers. A commentary on how racism and lack of empathy conspire to dehumanize and restructure power.
The script in this video is sourced from The Plain View Project.
