{"id":475,"date":"2005-08-26T20:56:24","date_gmt":"2005-08-27T00:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/dbnews\/2005\/08\/26\/humans-on-view-at-london-zoo\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T20:56:24","modified_gmt":"2005-08-27T00:56:24","slug":"humans-on-view-at-london-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/2005\/08\/26\/humans-on-view-at-london-zoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans on View at London Zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n
\n

LONDON (AFP) – London Zoo unveiled a new
\n exhibition — eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig
\n leaves to cover their modesty.<\/p>\n

The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human
\n beings as they frolick throughout the August bank holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

"We have set up this exhibit to highlight the spread of man as a plague
\n species and to communicate the importance of man’s place in the planet’s
\n ecosystem," London Zoo said.<\/p>\n

Man is a plague species? Is that like "Language is a
\n virus"? Or are they speculating that humanity is actually an infection
\n on the body of Gaia? <\/em><\/p>\n

Seeing
\n Humans in the zoo would be more interesting if they paraded a
\n steady stream of animals by the cages to laugh and jeer
\n at
\n the hapless hominids.<\/em><\/p>\n

Humans on display, like the Calvin
\n Klein models o<\/a>n display
\n 24-7 in a giant doll house in Times Square, strike a nerve because they
\n expose the voyeuristic core of most popular entertainment. From the Homeland
\n Security fanatics to the paparazzi, to celebrity blogging, to reality
\n TV, we are obsessed with spying on each other. Human lives laid bare
\n to the unflinching gaze of a rapt audience is the ultimate entertainment. <\/em><\/p>\n

This is definitely the wave of the future, but watching
\n people in such a limited, low-tech setting as a zoo is way too retro
\n to catch on in a big way. Micro cameras, floating camera platforms,
\n live embedded feeds and stealth surveillance techniques will be much
\n more popular with the mass audiences of the future. Still, the fig leaves
\n are a nice touch….<\/em><\/p>\n

from APF<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AFP) – London Zoo unveiled a new exhibition — eight humans prowling around wearing little more than fig leaves to cover their modesty. The "Human Zoo" is intended to show the basic nature of human beings as they frolick … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wacky-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}