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Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture by Dr. Zira, Animal Psychologist
Performance | 2013

When the chimp psychologist from Planet of the Apes travelled back in time to pay our civilization a visit, she charmed and terrified humans who sensed that her kind would soon overtake them. Try as humans did to destroy Zira, and thus engineer a different future for their race, they did not succeed in ridding themselves of her or any of her talking ape brethren, who return in endless sequels and remakes to this day.

Zira is an expert in human behavior. In Ape City she conducted experiments on human subjects and dissected their brains. Her civilization was designed to avoid the human forms of aggression that lead to calamities, and her behavioral studies were key to forging that split between those hominids who destroy each other and those who would not.

For this performance, Zira shares her observations of human predation with a lecture followed by a question and answer session.

Commissioned by The Studio Museum in Harlem for the Radical Presence exhibition's visit to New York City. Premiered in December 2013.

For more information about Dr. Zira's 2014 tour, please contact Coco Fusco.