When we look at the animals photographed by Paris Petridis myriads of associations on the relationship between animal and human spring to mind. Humans boast all the time for their escape from the beastly tyranny of animal instinct, from the kingdom of need, of simple biological determination.

And yet, they never stop denouncing the beastly tendencies corrupting the achievements of their sophistication, threatening the smooth development of human civilization.

Simply put, the strict distinction between animal and human coexists with its own negation. The human being seems to be continuously flirting with its irreducible but ineffable animal roots. It is not only condemned to revisit this connection by its nature, its unnatural nature... Humans actively desire this connection: from the mythical tortoise and the hare up until the PIIGS¹ of contemporary political discourse, references to animals allow humans to talk about themselves, only differently.

Petridis is evidently fond of animals. But not in a conventional way. He is also handling a certain gaze. Once more, not in a conventional manner. Sometimes the two converge: Petridis talks about animals and takes pictures of them. The more humans seem to be absent from his work, the more animals establish their presence. The latter thus highlights the former.

But why?

‘I am wondering [he e-mails me] to what extent the feeling of self-sufficiency and wholeness conveyed by animals has to do with the intuition that they possess (without knowing) something we lack. Negatively put, there is something they lack (the symbolic function) which we seem to have (the lack it creates)’.

‘Your second point is valid [I reply to him], but because it is not easy to swallow we fantasize about the first!’

No doubt, the excess we possess (language) divides our being, while its lack (their proximity to the real) seems to condition their claims to fullness. Hence the fascination ‘superior’ humans feel for ‘inferior’ animals. Entry into the world of language marks the moment when things start going astray, Jacques Lacan observes. We are no longer happy, we no longer resemble a little dog that wags its tail or a nice monkey that masturbates. Humans are indeed ravaged by the Word. Maybe this is why they return to them, to the animals, with a gaze full of innocence and blessedness projected onto them, hoping to get back some of that in a mirroring movement betraying, if anything, mutual misrecognition.

When we look at the animals photographed by Paris Petridis, one more thing is thus also at stake. Something that – ambivalently – articulates the uncanny with the enigmatic and even with the meaningless. But always with the aesthetically pleasing manner of a photographic look.

When we look at the animals photographed by Paris Petridis, one thing should not escape our attention: they are also looking at us.

Rather, they are also looking...

Yannis Stavrakakis

¹ Acronym with clear animal connotations utilized during the global crisis (following 2008) in order to designate – in an obviously derogatory manner – the ‘weakest links’ of the European edifice (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain).