Life Forms Dogs Vasilina Orlova 2016 Space Dogs

Life Forms: Dogs Vasilina Orlova 2016

Space Dogs: Laika, Belka, Strelka, others

Cultural Trope (USSR)

Contemporary Repercussions (Russia: Nationalistic Attachments)

Moscow Metro Dogs • Super-smart dog mutants have appeared in Moscow, explaining themselves with gestures. Novosti Rossii, 14 October 2004 (Quoted by Metro. Dogs: the heart in the machine, Alaina Lemon, 2015, 660) • “in communist dreams, free circulation of all for all would be enabled, among other things, by good public transit. ” (Ibid, 2015, 661; virtually expanding communist dream bestowing them on non-human forms, which was never the case; nature was a realm of materiality which should be subjugated by humans) • Mediation of interactions between human/nonhuman through infrastructure

Moscow Metro: Dreamspace Prospect Mira Salaryevo station, opened on 15 February 2016 and immediately called Mondriantsevo in people (from Piet Mondrian, the artist who painted colorful squares)

Theory • “Whom and what do I touch when I touch my dog? ” (When species meet, Donna Haraway, 2008, 3) • “Bare life”; zoe, bios (Forms of Life, Georgio Agamben, University of Minnesota Press, 2000); “materiality of corporeal processes”) • Breathers (Tim Choy) • Imagined community and practices of belonging (Benedict Anderson) • Purebred / Mixed blood; racialization of animal life forms (John Hartigan)

Siberian Dogs • Human-nonhuman interactions in which the survival of both species depends of both sides • Practices of picking up the best pup (should be the bravest, exhibit certain qualities; should try to leap from the chair; should be curious about bear skin etc. ). Drowning of other pups. • The idea of sending a dog to the dangerous and unknown reenacts the cosmic Odissea of dogs • Rural and urban dogs: different ways of living; outdoors/indoors. Urban dogs are admitted to owners’ beds etc

Variety of Forms

Robotic Dogs • Why do we construct canine robots and not feline robots? (“We like our robots to like us”) • Is that OK to kick a robotic dog? 'Noel Sharkey, emeritus professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, UK, told CNN: "The only way it's unethical is if the robot could feel pain. "' What a strange idea of ethics the robotic emeritus has. Whatever we do to robots we do to ourselves. We are the sufferers of the violence we perform. Creates the image of acceptance of violence. The video is disturbing. “Uncanny ability to maintain its balance” (Phoebe Parke, 2015) http: //www. cnn. com/2015/02/13/tech/spot-robot-dog-google/

Reactions to Boston Dynamics company kicking its robotic dogs • “Someone who feels at ease or actually enjoys abusing a robot can probably over time graduate to abusing animals and eventually human beings. ” “It's like I can hear it whimper in my head. ” “Stop kicking them before they started kicking us”. • There is something disturbing in those robots, dogs without heads (why would a creature need a head? ). Spot dogs are constructed with an idea of being of military service to humans. • Anders Sandberg from the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, 'Ethics of brain emulations: “In the future it's possible we will be able to create artificially human brains that emulate a real human - but what are the ethicalities and moralities of doing this? ” “In his paper Dr Sandberg considered a future in which AI may be commonplace in so-called 'lesser beings‘” (Daily Mail http: //www. dailymail. co. uk/sciencetech/article-2955544/Would-kick-robotic-dog -Google-video-regnites-debate-machines-treated-like-living-animals. html) • “Lesser beings”: racial term; anthropomorphism, humanocentrism

Cuteness / Emotional Attachment Prosthetics / Toys

Disquiet