Events - Talks & Lectures

Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, by Rachel Mayeri

Introduced by Rob La Frenais

07 Dec 2011

The Space, 7pm, free

In Primate Cinema: Apes as Family, Rachel Mayeri imagines a primate social drama in a contemporary urban context and shows this to a chimpanzee audience. Her two-screen video installation juxtaposes the drama enacted by humans in the guise of apes (of a young female city ape befriending a group of outsiders) with mesmerising footage of the reactions of its ape audience at Edinburgh Zoo.

As the watchers of the watching chimps, we perceive - or we imagine - fascination, puzzlement, and flashes of anger in their responses. Sited in different spaces in Los Angeles and Edinburgh we are never sure whether we are seeing a lab, zoo, wildlife park, rumpus room or post-apocalyptic landscape inhabited by half chimp/half humans. Mayeri’s intriguing and amusing story-and-response structure contains darker undercurrents in its contemplation of the lives of our captive close relatives.

To make Primate Cinema: Apes as Family artist Rachel Mayeri collaborated with comparative psychologist Dr Sarah-Jane Vick, testing different styles and genres of film to gauge chimps’ responses and discussing issues around cognition and communication in research primates.

The Arts Catalyst curator Rob La Frenais will discuss this challenging experiment on communicating with a group of chimpanzees at Edinburgh Zoo.

Funded by a Wellcome Trust Large Arts Award.