Coco Fusco Observation Report

In Observations of Predation in Humans, Coco Fusco performs as Dr. Zira, an animal psychologist from the original Planet of the Apes films. The people in the audience were anxious to see the performer as rumors merged that she would be in character, which required her to dress as a chimpanzee. This made the performance element seem that more realistic and when the lecture started the audience completely forgot about Fusco and focused on Dr.Zira. Fusco embodies the role and it works to her advantage because the character is very believable. Just like in video games, a player is attracted to the atmosphere and characters of a game, and if the environment is not good, the player will become bored and uninterested. The same could be said about performances. The audience needs to believe the characters are real;

In this case however, Fusco managed to keep character and the audience felt like they were in a real lecture with Dr.Zira. This unique style creates the artwork because it is something different from the norm which hooks the attention of the audience as oppose to a regular lecture format from Fusco. The costume just brings live into the performance and it was personally a lot more intriguing. To begin, the lecture started with a Skyped introduction conducted by feminist theorist and technoscience philosopher Donna Haraway. Her composure was very serious and she explains that Dr. Zira narrowly escaped death in the third film and has been living in hiding, observing human behavior through visual culture. This was necessary because it brought Dr.Zira’s story together and explains the main idea Dr.Zira will try to get across. In her lecture, Dr. Zira draws from primatology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology to address human