04 Morality is a Human Condition

A rat dressed as a stormtrooper (pictured) had me contemplating the language and tools utilized in the depiction of opposing forces and that the dichotomy of good and evil, right and wrong are senseless ethical expressions when attributed to animals. Morality is a human condition and it should also be humane. "Humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action."* 

It is the narrative of human history to define the details by winners, losers, heroes and heroines of the past, to create a hero’s journey for others to follow and to transcend. An animal transposed into a new and foreign environment isn’t guilty of genocide by the consumption of that environment. It is merely obeying its own instinctual needs for survival. The harm they have caused is due to man’s intervention into the balance of the biodiversity of the environment and can only be rectified by further interventions. - we have to believe that what has been done, can be undone.

For the next years Pocket Edition and Works on Paper shows I looked at an old favorite tv program I used to watch as a kid, Star Trek (the original series). I thought I'd dress my native birds in Star Trek uniforms to display a certain quirk of the show, which was; if you beamed down to a new planet on an away team, and you are wearing a red coloured shirt (the uniform of a security detail), chances are you wouldn't be coming back. The supporting cast were usually the first to get killed by the dangerous inhabitants of any new planet. By incorporating this with the plight of the native bird species, I wanted to display the frailty of further existence for many of our treasured birds.

Along with the 5 Star Trek small paintings for this concept, painted with bright technicolour backgrounds, was a somber group of 5 painting in monochromatic greys called collectively: the Fallen.  These referenced the nostalgia of old photographs of lost loved ones and pictured were birds that have now become extinct.