Sociobiology of Defense, Cut paper, 20 x 24”, 2012
“Nature’s Helmet: The Human Skull” Extension Gallery at Orchard Skateshop
The piece I made as part of the show Nature’s Helmet: The Human Skull, is up for a few more days at Extension Gallery at the Orchard Skate Shop in Boston. Here is the text I wrote for it:
Sociobiology of Defense
Cut Paper, 20 x 24”, 2012
Sociobiology is the theory in which the behavior of animals, specifically humans, is explained through its connection to inherited traits advantageous to survival. These traits include: territorial fighting, mating, pack hunting, and the hive societies of social insects.
The skull is an exemplary structure that has evolved to protect the precious brain; the medium through which all our behavioral traits are expressed. Keeping this in mind, I have depicted a human skull using images of organisms with particularly incredible defense techniques: apex predators, masters of camouflage, or cuteness (pandas would be extinct if not for their cuteness). All of these organisms have evolved physical and behavioral structures parallel to our own: where the hive mentality benefits bees, conformity benefits society. Yet so often the order created by evolution devolves into chaos. Our cerebral defenses (such as the pack mentality or hyper-competiveness) often backfire, leading to the beautiful, sublime, and occasionally terrifying tapestry of human life.
hmm?
i recently received this fortune, if you can’t read it, is says specifically:
“Love or Money,
or neither”
It’s christmas eve. (not fortune text)
not the worst thing to see before you die :)
