Co-Ex Interface

When first confronted with the idea of a human species with an average height of 50cm, initially most people express their fear for cats and dogs and how our diminutive size might affect our relationship with them. The Incredible shrinking Man doesn’t deny that this may represent a risk, even if some animals could shrink along with us. Such primary response however shouldn’t disallow us to envision much more compelling possible scenarios for the future relationship between small man and animal. If we stick with fear we remain ignorant.

So let’s bypass fear for now and embrace possibility. Like this elderly lady does with her research puppet and squirrel feeder avatar. Her feeding, without any other goal but the joy of caring for another living being, allows us a glimpse of a possible future when man has become so short that our position in the natural order of life has changed radically and specific cultures of engaging with animals will have evolved. The relationship with other species, especially undomesticated ones, could become a matter of negotiation, education, play and wits more than institutionalised dominance and physical strength. Like a lion tamer, where man and animal form a fragile but exciting equilibrium. Such new co-existence, by default, allows for a more ecological understanding of the human species, and therefore a chance at a necessary understanding of our fragile existence on Earth itself.