Thomas Thwaites- A holiday from being human

https://vimeo.com/125170738

Reflections on Simon Clarke's recent lecture-

The lecture was focusing on ideas of anthropomorphism/anthropocentrism, which mainly centred around examples of artists either imitating or attempting to embody animals. 
I thought it was interesting that in artist's attempts to embody animals, they actually created quite complex technological modifications which seems futile to me, because humans are essentially primal and animal, and if we could just divest of these advancements we would actually re-embody the animal nature that we all have. 
Perhaps one of the advancements that would need to be released for this to happen would be the way we form and use language. 

The philosopher Wittgenstein believed that our mother tongue forms our understanding of the world, and wrote of "Language Games". "A language-game (German: Sprachspiel) is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence has meaning only as a result of the “rule” of the “game” being played."


I see that as not only formative of our identity, community, and culture, but also as being constricting and inhibiting, requiring our individual natures to conform to something that is explainable and linear rather than being haptic, intuitive, experiential and responsive.

In this artist's "Holiday from being human" I wonder if what he is seeking is a holiday from the experience of humanity or a holiday from the descriptors that confine his experiences. His modification of his body seems to impose further limitations, rather than open up his sphere of experience in the way that the release

of social and lingual rules might. It seems like what he may be seeking is an old form of environmental connection that humans have in the past relied upon for survival.