As planned, I watched the CBC's "Cruel Camera" special on The Fifth Estate last night. (if you missed it, you can watch video and read a lot of the details on the program's webpage). Not quite as disturbing as I had feared, or particularly shocking, but that's mostly because I knew a lot of this information already - captive animals used to stage wildlife documentaries, with nothing in the narration indicating the 'reenactment' nature of the films, for example.
Some of the animals are filmed in zoos, others are professional actors whose handlers are hired to reproduce specific stunts for the camera. Even the most respected natural history filmmakers engage in the practice, and as for the classic Disney nature films - a baby polar bear tossed down a slope, lemmings thrown off a cliff... Not so warm and fuzzy, eh?
But "Cruel Camera" was actually more concerned with the use of animals actors in general than with the practices of on-screen natural historians, particularly the use of chimps in film and tv. Speaking to a major animal provider and handler as well as primate sanctuary founders and even Jane Goodall, the program revealed what might as well be called systematic torture.
Chimps can live well into their fifties, and their developmental stages are reasonably similar to humans' - infancy, childhood, adolescence, and a long adulthood. Well, only toddler and child chimps are malleable enough to be trained for entertainment, so the baby chimps are taken from their mothers when they're maybe one year old, brutally trained to act on command, and then shipped off to any roadside zoo or research facility that will take them once they get too strong and wild to handle, which usually happens at adolescence, before they're ten years old.
A few of the luckiest chimps end up in sanctuaries, which require $14000/yr for each chimp's care. But there's a chance the sanctuaries won't be needed indefinitely. The program suggested that the hard work and campaigning of Goodall and other activists may soon result in a ban preventing the use of chimp actors. It can't come too soon.
----
A polar bear photo is a sure way to catch my attention on the net (I know, I'm a sucker), so lured in by a polar bear photo posted by the CBC I happened upon another entertaining image. As someone with an interest in surveillance studies (and a little healthy paranoia), I couldn't help but be amused by this UK photo: "ONE NATION UNDER CCTV".
Which then, of course, me want to watch this video - "(Total Surveillance is) Identity Theft" - by UK band The Bombs of Enduring Freedom.
And that, inevitably, led me to check on what James Fogarty of The Bombs of Enduring Freedom/Death to Music/Ewigkeit is up to these days. As it turns out, the answer is - quite a bit. New material, the debut digitally re-released, new releases by other DTM artists... Looks like I have more CD shopping and legal downloading to do...
Showing posts with label surveillance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surveillance. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Thursday, 9 August 2007
part 2: freedom (for people and bears)
I just finished reading (listening to) The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks. Having spent the last several years of my life in academia subsumed by dystopian studies, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the ideas at the centre of Hawks's fiction.
I can't do the novel justice in the few sentences I'm going to give it here so if you're looking for a summary or review look elsewhere. I'd prefer to draw your attention to a few points of interest:
Behind the controlling forces of digital surveillance in Hawks's novel lies a secret organization known as the Tabula or The Brethren, which makes The Traveler akin to conspiracy theory as much as science fiction, dystopia or thriller. Of course, I can't read anything about conspiracy theories without thinking of Ewigkeit, or now, James Fogarty's new project The Bombs of Enduring Freedom. Fogarty's work delves into many of the ideas that Hawks's writing raises, so if you're interested in one, you might want to check out the other.
The debut CD from The Bombs of Enduring Freedom is available for pre-order now from the artist's own independent production facility, Death to Music.
By now you might be wondering where bears come into all this. In The Traveler, one of Hawks's characters compares the average human to an animal in a cage. Only, unlike the non-human animal, the human entertains the illusion of freedom and privacy and doesn't see the bars of his/her cage. Thus, unlike the Syrian brown bear that recently escaped from a roadside zoo in Fort Erie, the average human isn't making a bid for freedom.
I completely respect the bear's attempt to run away but loose, s/he presented a significant danger to the surrounding communities. Of course, if the bear hadn't been kept in the little zoo in the first place, this problem would never have arisen. And what most people fail to realize is that roadsize zoos are dangerous even when the animals are confined. The animal enclosures at roadside zoos tend to be inadequate (thus the escape), placing visitors at risk. Poor cleaning and maintenance and improper enclosures present a health hazard as well.
Niagara Action for Animals sent out a request today asking for some letter-writing action in their ongoing efforts to ban (or at least better regulate) roadside zoos. Here are some suggested targets for your letters:
Fort Erie Times
450 Garrison Rd. Unit 1
Fort Erie, Ontario
L2A 1N2
Telephone: 905-871-3100
Fax: 905-871-5243
Editorial: feeditor@cogeco.net
I can't do the novel justice in the few sentences I'm going to give it here so if you're looking for a summary or review look elsewhere. I'd prefer to draw your attention to a few points of interest:
- John Twelve Hawks lives "off the grid," as do some of his central characters.
- The digital panopticon he describes is scary but I doubt it's far off the mark: it seems pretty likely that we're being coerced (and frightened) into sacrificing our privacy in the name of "security".
- His (fictional) vision is not without hope. Hawks offers a suggestion of how we might (should) live in a [critical] utopian enclave, where community members take advantage of the benefits of high technology without becoming slaves to it, working toward and cherishing a sustainable and enjoyable way of life.
Behind the controlling forces of digital surveillance in Hawks's novel lies a secret organization known as the Tabula or The Brethren, which makes The Traveler akin to conspiracy theory as much as science fiction, dystopia or thriller. Of course, I can't read anything about conspiracy theories without thinking of Ewigkeit, or now, James Fogarty's new project The Bombs of Enduring Freedom. Fogarty's work delves into many of the ideas that Hawks's writing raises, so if you're interested in one, you might want to check out the other.
The debut CD from The Bombs of Enduring Freedom is available for pre-order now from the artist's own independent production facility, Death to Music.
By now you might be wondering where bears come into all this. In The Traveler, one of Hawks's characters compares the average human to an animal in a cage. Only, unlike the non-human animal, the human entertains the illusion of freedom and privacy and doesn't see the bars of his/her cage. Thus, unlike the Syrian brown bear that recently escaped from a roadside zoo in Fort Erie, the average human isn't making a bid for freedom.
I completely respect the bear's attempt to run away but loose, s/he presented a significant danger to the surrounding communities. Of course, if the bear hadn't been kept in the little zoo in the first place, this problem would never have arisen. And what most people fail to realize is that roadsize zoos are dangerous even when the animals are confined. The animal enclosures at roadside zoos tend to be inadequate (thus the escape), placing visitors at risk. Poor cleaning and maintenance and improper enclosures present a health hazard as well.
Niagara Action for Animals sent out a request today asking for some letter-writing action in their ongoing efforts to ban (or at least better regulate) roadside zoos. Here are some suggested targets for your letters:
Editorial Page Editor
The Standard
17 Queen St.
St. Catharines, Ont L2R 5G5
905-684-7251 ext. 258
fax: 905-684-6032
kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca
The Standard
17 Queen St.
St. Catharines, Ont L2R 5G5
905-684-7251 ext. 258
fax: 905-684-6032
kreid@stcatharinesstandard.ca
Niagara This Week
3550 Schmon Parkway, Unit 1
Thorold, ON L2V 4Y6
905-688-2444
3550 Schmon Parkway, Unit 1
Thorold, ON L2V 4Y6
905-688-2444
Fort Erie Times
450 Garrison Rd. Unit 1
Fort Erie, Ontario
L2A 1N2
Telephone: 905-871-3100
Fax: 905-871-5243
Editorial: feeditor@cogeco.net
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