This weekend I find myself consuming and being consumed, now entertaining the ways in which this state can be one of sordid “glass half empty” or blissful “glass half full” existence. As Diana Taylor says in Dead Capital, we are at once the spectator and the product (15), both the almond milk and the almond milk drinker.
On Saturday I relax into some sweat pants and turn on the latest episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It’s a tradition at this point, one hour each week when I remove the mask of attempted ally-ship and solidarity with the world and slide into the comfort of removal. Though I have been watching this TV show for almost a decade, my increasing knowledge of wealth disparities, ignorant celebrities, and the coloniality of “reality” television has not decreased my absolute devotion to this family and their generous display of life for millions of fans to ingest. In fact, I find myself returning to this soft place each week out of a deep and increasing desire (read: need) to relax, to be the voyeur without obligations. For this reason I felt absolutely seen when Diana Taylor proposed the question in Dead Capital “What if you actually do catch up?”(9). Well, were I to “catch up” with the Kardashians beyond my distant spectatorship, my contributions to society would look starkly different.
So I also spend much of my weekend doing home improvement with my partner. We discussed our collection of animal figurines and artwork. We couldn’t decide if they should be scattered throughout the apartment or concentrated in the bathroom so as to create an intensive “animal-centric” bathroom experience. This is not rare for us, as I have been conducting a performance called Home Tours since 2014, in which I tour peoples’ homes in order to observe and interact with their inanimate animal objects. Upon reading Dead Capital and Cannibal Metaphysics, I became comforted in my devotion to these “things” (Taylor) and their “personhood”. I am reminded of Kathy Davidson’s question to our class last week that asked us to share one word relating to what we wanted to contribute to our peers this semester. I said “consumption” something discussed in Canibalist Metaphysics (154). While the initial word I wrote was “veganism”I decided that “consumption” would work better considering the troubling whiteness of animal rights advocacy. As much as I devote my life to animal welfare, I too am “Against the vegetable elites” (Andrade, 3) and hope to better understand not only how/what we consume, but how humans are consumed in the process. I am deeply affirmed in this muddled, materialist jacuzzi, swaddled by far-off glittery objects and provoked by the dusty things on the dusty shelf. In the words of Diana Taylor:
“This walk undoes us. Every step takes us further from utopia, further from any aspirations of care and relationality—human and non-human, animate and inanimate“ (19).
PS –> Apologies for the self promotion, but if you or anyone you know might be interested in opening your doors for a Home Tour of your animal objects (often hidden in plain sight!), please do not hesitate to get in touch. More info here:
https://www.mistermotley.nl/salon/home-not-range-hallie-abelman
works cited
de Andrade, Oswald. “The Cannibalist Manifesto.” Third Text 13. 1999. 92-95.
Taylor, Diana. “Dead Capital: Teatro da Vertigem, Bom Retiro” . . : , 2018.
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo. Cannibal Metaphysics: For Post-Structural Anthropology. Trans. Peter Skafish. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2014. Print.