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Behavioral Processes and Infectious Disease: project statement Behavioral Processes and Infectious Disease is a short film which explores parasitic relationships in the animal world and the human body. Envisioned as a cross between a sex education film and a nature documentary, the project is structured in eight segments, combining elements of live video, stop motion, hand painted and digital animation. The project is a collaboration between Maura Brewer and Erin Johnson, who met in the Fiber and Material Studies Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maura is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of California, Irvine, and she has been working on this project in the context of a Science Fiction Seminar led by Connie Samaras at UCI. Erin works as a Research Associate for the Institute of Learning Innovation, where her interested have been, among other things, public perceptions of health, illness and disease. Behavioral Processes and Infectious Disease follows the story of a young woman who discovers she has contracted the Herpes simplex virus. As her story unfolds, it is punctuated by a series of parables about three parasitic relationships in the animal kingdom: Mixotricha paradoxa in the termite, Toxoplasmosis gondii in the rat, and Sacculina carcini in the crab. Ultimately, a parallel is drawn between the behaviors of these animal parasites and the Herpes simplex virus. The virus is one actor within the complex landscape of the human body in which multiple organisms live, procreate and compete, questioning the conventional percetion of self as discrete and autonomous. Behavioral Processes and Infectious Disease is informed by Donna Haraway's writings on biopolitics, the WNYC program Radiolab, and the text Riddled with Life, by Marlene Zuk. |
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