THE EXO-HUMAN
A Chicken-centric Manifesto
There are two things for which animals are to be envied: they know nothing of future evils, or of what people say about them.
Voltaire
This manifesto embraces the highly speculative nature of art and artistic views. In order to do so, you, the reader, must [try to] abandon logic, and embrace fantasy. ✨
Within this speculation, artists have the benefit of not looking for answers, and not solving any actual problem, but rather embracing ambiguity, paradox and fantasy🪄.
Authenticity is a human pretension, from now on, no art should aspire to any form of authenticity, for it is for all non-humans that we partake in this artistic practice.
Do chickens aspire to be unique? Chickens do not have aspirations, in the human sense. We must, instead, devote ourselves to understand what are their aspirations, aesthetic sense, and make art accordingly. 🐓
The praise of the individual does not exist in the wild, nor in the domestic habitat of fowls. The individual should die, and the natural cycles of life embraced, art is made to abandon the individual and particular personality traits, from now on we are a clan of chickens. 🐤🐤🐤🐤🐤🐤
Art should be emancipated from the human need to understand themselves. It should be centered in understanding other possible perceptual views and knowledge, starting by observing and making art for our dear friends: the chickens. 🐔
The role of artists as creators shall be abolished, we do not generate but fiction, we are not creators, from now on artis are but speculators.
Artists in their own role as speculators shall try to understand chickens' aesthetic sensibilities, taste, and sense of beauty.
Philosophy shall not be considered a humans-only task; WHO SAYS CHICKENS DON’T SPECULATE AND PHILOSOPHIZE? They have existed [in other forms] way before us, their wisdom overflows, their generosity towards us is incommensurable, they are, as for now, our masters in all artistic traditions.
Any living organism that creates predictions, is a speculator, therefore, chickens, as artists, are speculators. Speculation shall be the emblem of the artist, and the chickens. 🐦
The artist runs in the mud as pigs, the artist rises at dawn as roosters. We chase, we pray, we mate, we are no better than the common mice, and neither is the art we produce. Aspire only to be understood by chickens, and possibly other birds. 🦆
This new chicken art only asks questions, without wrong answers (the only wrong answers are ones that are too centered on the human psyche). This new chicken art cluck-clucks, cock-a-doodle-dos, and cheep- cheeps. 🎶🐔
Art is now free from the human art market yoke, and the shackles of human snobbism. Chicken art shall be directed to non-human animals, and cater to a non-human audience.
We shall always ask ourselves: What are the non-human animal’s feelings, can we, through art, understand them? “Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?
In conclusion, we believe this new chicken art will bring the solace humanity has been looking for centuries. We believe as well that to merely put “animals in human costume” , meaning only looking at them through our human limited lenses is not enough, but then HOW? we ask, HOW CAN WE EVER UNDERSTAND CHICKENS!!??