Biophilic Experiences — Empathy Project
I attempted to explain this project to a number of people, who all responded with a certain lack of understanding. My girlfriend thought I was simply running and experiment, finding out how cats reacted to certain scents, etc. My roommate jokingly asked me if I attended a Montessori school.
Needless to say, I think those responses in it of themselves prove the exact point I attempted to make with this project. It was two-fold, but I really wanted to address 1. the fact that cats don’t really have creative options to engage with and 2. the fact that most work produced is almost always human-centric. Take cat toys—cats can’t really discern reds and greens as well as humans can, yet we continue to make them in these colors for our own aesthetic preferences.
So, here comes my project. I set out with the express intent of creating a work that would be of most interest to cats, less so to people. In the videos below, you can see the cats sniffing a variety of scents and objects in an attempt for me to determine, loosely, what might be of interest to them.
Using this information, I decided to create an exhibit experience that one could leave sitting in any given space, and one that lacks particular aesthetic interest to people. I used white scent stones that I dropped certain essential oil scents into that the cats were receptive to.
It likely isn’t useful to determine whether this was a success, but I think I accomplished two key things: 1. make something of interest to cats that deviates from standard cat enrichment (toys, etc.) and 2. alienating people from the experience to a degree, forcing them to contemplate the very fact that most of what we produce is innately human-centric, even if we don’t intend it to be so.