Laurel Braitman
If I couldn't be up with my friends in Quincy for our recent solar eclipse, Headlands was also a pretty darn great place to observe the celestial phenomenon. Partly because it was sheer delight to watch all the artists-in-residence freak out over the eclipse, but also because earlier in the afternoon in a completely unrelated public program Laurel Braitman and Rachel Mayeri each gave fascinating presentations about their work with animals. Braitman has just finished writing a book entitled Animal Madness exploring the history of mental health issues in the non-human set, and she also talked about her experimental "Music For Animals" series in which she tries to pair musicians with animal audiences she think will appreciate their tunes. I would have paid money to watch Grass Widow perform for the gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo, I tell you what. Meanwhile Mayeri, she of the amazing Miracles and Disasters in Renaissance and Baroque Theater Mechanics installation at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, showed bits and pieces of her Primate Cinema project including footage of how zoo apes reacted when shown video of humans dressed up like monkeys. Both women play with ideas about the ways we anthropomorphize animals, but they are also genuinely interested in the ways we different species interact with and influence each other.
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