Skip to content

Coco Fusco

Observations of Predations in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist

2013

Coco Fusco as Dr. Zira, 2013

Coco Fusco as Dr. Zira, 2013

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013,  

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013

 

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013,  

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013

 

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013,  

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013

 

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013,  

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, 2013

 

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN (2013)

Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist, performance, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, MN (2013)
Photo by Gene Pitman, courtesy Walker Arts Center

Coco Fusco as Dr. Zira, 2013

Coco Fusco as Dr. Zira, 2013

Observations of Predations in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologis

December 12 and 13, 2013
Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

November 6, 2014
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

December 8, 2014
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA

February 27, 2015
Participant Inc., New York, NY

April 24, 2015
List Art Center, Brown University, Providence, RI

July 2, 2015
Kaus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany

August 19, 2015
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA

May 7, 2016
Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico

In Observations of Predation in Humans, Fusco revives and embodies the chimpanzee animal psychologist Dr. Zira from the original Planet of the Apes films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In her Skyped-in introduction, esteemed feminist theorist and technoscience philosopher Donna Haraway explains that Dr. Zira narrowly escaped death in the third film and has been living in hiding, observing human behavior through visual culture. In her lecture, Dr. Zira draws from primatology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology to address human aggression and predatory behavior for the accumulation of resources in post-industrial societies. Dividing homo Sapiens into categories humans often use to study other species, she finds that economic disparity is a form of violence, primarily enacted by the dominant “alpha” males and females against the majority “beta” population. She also compares this homo Sapien behavioral pattern with that of other members of the homo genus, demonstrating the human shift from empathy towards what she calls “aggressively individualistic behavior.”

VIEW TRAILER