Leiden University Student Repository

Calcott, Shannon (2021)

What a Dog Sees: Speculative Visualities in Nonhuman Photography

Master thesis | Media Studies (MA)

The idea of displacing humans from our position of established viewpoints is provocative but necessary in order to better face our impending extinction. If we do not expand our visualities we will not get this chance again. My research explores how nonhuman vision encourages us to confront anthropocentrism - to reconceptualise the way we see ourselves in our domination of all worldly inhabitants. I examine how we can develop ethical ways of living and interacting with others by creating a video work that imagines what it is like to see as a dog. Dogs are one of our closest companions and we have taken away their agency in almost every aspect of their lives. By looking with dogs through a makeshift camera apparatus, I have cultivated an empathetic understanding on how they perceive the human-constructed world. Dogs know how to live well, so we should start believing them.

nonhuman photography

nonhuman vision

extinction

ethics

dogs

Haraway

anthropocentrism

eco-feminism

Author

Calcott, Shannon

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Film and Photographic Studies

Supervisors

Dr. T. Witty
Dr. P. Hesselberth

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en