Singing in AniMAL TOngUES - Specialized Research AI at MIT

Singing in AniMAL TOngUES
An inner Journey

Jan Harrison

“A nimal tongues” is a language I speak and sing. It acts as a bridge to the

world beneath the surface, and it enables me to live and see clearly. It is
the voice of the Other—the animal soul, consciousness, and spirit. Ani-
mal tongues is not a literal portrayal of animal sounds, but it expresses the animal
spirit within human beings and within the world through speaking and singing in
tongues. High and low voices, innocent and knowledgeable, interact in a ritual of
chanting and singing.

The origins of my speaking in animal tongues can be traced to my earliest memories.
All of the events in my life, all of the different forms my art would take, have con-
tributed to and led to this language, which is part of my identity. The animals are
within us, within our subconscious. I see a connection with phylogeny, as the beings
in animal tongues are re-living all of our collective paths. They remind us of our
connections with other animals, with the earth, with ourselves, and with nature.

I have recollections from my childhood of imaginary friends, private worlds, and
communication with both domestic and feral animals in the neighborhood where
I lived in south Florida in the 1950s. My father left when I was seven, and I was
raised by my mother. It was a solitary life, as we were forced to move often because
we couldn’t afford to pay the rent. Although briefly exposed to traditional religion
in my childhood, I was reluctant to connect with it. For instance, when my mother
sent me to walk to church on Sundays, I would take a detour, and would go instead
to a wild-looking garden, where I could feel empathy with the spiders, lizards, birds,
cats, and dogs. This may be the source of my connections with deep ecology and
ecotheology, but of course I didn’t call it that back then. Feeling great empathy with
the natural world, I would disconnect from the dysfunctional events around me
enter abandoned houses, and create worlds that often included animals. Narratives
would come into being as a result of what I saw and experienced while spending
time alone in the houses or the gardens.

The narratives I told as a child would often involve animals and humans commu-
nicating with each other, expressing what they loved and feared in the world. One

28  PAJ 97 (2011), pp. 28–38.

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story occurred when I entered a large room on the second floor of an unoccupied
Spanish-style stucco house similar to many older houses in West Palm Beach, where
I lived. There was a very large window, and at the foot of the window were about
thirty pairs of childrens’ shoes, all lined up on the floor beneath the window. I
made up a story that the children had removed their shoes and had flown out of
the window, chanting and singing as they flew away. Characters in the stories would
perform rituals, which involved dancing and clapping hands, and the animals in my
imagination would wave their tails around in a curvilinear motion. The imaginary
beings would caress each other while laughing and sobbing. Narratives would include
animal ancestors, because I believed our animal forebears were buried beneath the
cast concrete statues of lions that had been placed as sentries at the entrance of some
of the old houses I visited. Many of the stories involved scenarios of humans being
assisted by animals. I spoke and sang of the purity of animals, as well as the plight,
persecution, and suffering of animal saints.

When I was eight or nine years old, people said that I had a beautiful voice, and I
was occasionally asked to sing at weddings, in school plays, and in performances in
the neighborhood for small groups of people. I remember once when singing for a
group of people in their garden, someone requested that I sing a particular song. I
refused, and at that point made a decision that would remain with me for the rest
of my life. I decided against performing as an entertainer, preferring instead to sing
with all the beings of the Earth.

I made early drawings as a child, on the sidewalks, alleys, and streets, with the soft
white rocks indigenous to south Florida that could be found on the side of the
road. The rock drawings were of sea creatures and humans. Sometimes they were
mermaids, and sometimes they were abstracted circles and swirls. The drawings were
very large, and I would create a ritual with them, standing in parts of the images and
chanting. Water became a part of the rockdrawing rituals. I would spray water with
high pressure from the garden hose, which would create circular white lines in the
mossy surface growth on the concrete sidewalks. The songs included in the sidewalk
rituals were celebrating a connection with all of the elements of the Earth. I would
lie on top of the chalk-like drawings of the sea creatures, and they would take me
to an imaginary underwater universe. The stories were of graceful and clumsy sea
beings who would bathe me, swim with me, and offer a new life.

Communicating with animals helped me to realize another kind of intelligence,
which was non-linear and more visual. I have dyslexia, and learning to read was
difficult. Right and left are confusing to me. I get lost easily. It is hard to retain
factual information. Singing in animal tongues enabled me to be in touch with
another part of my perception of the world. Its form of circular chanting helped
me to communicate with the wisdom of my body, and by extension, with all the
world. When I speak and sing in animal tongues, I feel as though the voices are
coming from the cells of my body, and through the songs and stories, I can feel the
wonder of the universe.

HARRISON / Singing in Animal Tongues  29

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30  PAJ 97

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Opposite: Jan Harrison, Now You See Me, diptych, 1996, charcoal, pastel and gouache on rag paper,
30.25 x 44.5 inches. Photo: Nancy Donskoj. This page: Animal Tongues, 1999, bisque-fired porcelain
sculptures on pine needles with, 15 x 37 feet. Photo: Tony Walsh. Courtesy the artist.

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HARRISON / Singing in Animal Tongues  31

The speaking and singing, which began long ago, was abandoned for many years,
and virtually forgotten during my “formal” training as an artist. But, after a major
life change in the late 1970s, I began to reconnect with the private language and
the rituals of my childhood.

Dreams have always been important messages to me. The following is a dream from
1979:

I was walking by a river, and I came upon a bird. The bird was very
beautiful and very perfect. I wanted to talk to the bird, but I didn’t know
how. I looked at the bird, and saw that around the bird’s neck was a shiny
medallion. Then I looked and saw that around my own neck was a shiny
medallion. I touched the medallions together. And, at that point, the bird
began to sing in a language I understood.

The voices in animal tongues often engage in a dialogue, but it is not always a linear
narrative. It is more circular and dreamlike. The voices do not necessarily tell a story;
they often describe a place or a state of being. When the characters in animal tongues
are singing and talking, the deeper sounding voices seem to be saying, “Look at
the world, look at me. Be strong and knowledgeable.” The higher sounding voices
seem to say, “I am pure and light. I am innocent. Please don’t make me have to
die.” When the voices are joyous, they sing about dancing, swimming in clear blue
water, and living. When the voices are angry or melancholy, they speak about being
forgotten, or being abused, and becoming extinct. When the voices are rhythmic,
they sing or chant about mystery and things we don’t know. When the voices are
sensual, they speak and sing about caressing. When the voices are mischievous, they
utter sounds about shadowy things that aren’t what they seem to be.

I can remember complete passages from the beginning of the emergence of animal
tongues, and the songs have recurred after many years. When singing in animal
tongues, my emotional memory transports me to a place, a landscape that seems
familiar. I walk by a stream. I put my feet into the water, and it feels pure and cold.
My feet feel the smooth rocks in the streambed. Different beings converge there,
and they want to speak and sing. The various beings want to “come down” and tell
their story. There is a parallel between the beings in my visual art and the charac-
ters singing in animal tongues. For instance, the primate who possesses a deep gaze
and powerful presence in a specific painting may emerge through the speaking and
singing of animal tongues as having a deeply urgent-sounding, empowered voice.
The joyous cat in the sculpture may emerge in the singing of animal tongues to
be expressing a beautiful and mysterious love song. But the implication is not that
the images in the paintings and sculptures are illustrations of the characters singing
in animal tongues. Instead they are a manifestation in physical form of the sing-
ing beings. Animal tongues does not have direct “translations,” since meanings of
individual words or phrases remain abstract. The sounds in animal tongues cannot
be translated into codified language, any more than a painting or sculpture can be

32  PAJ 97

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completely translated into words. This is not to say that the language is meaning-
less: I see it as a vocal enactment of beings in the paintings and sculptures, and a
paradigm of how we can communicate with living creatures. It is a way to establish
contact with the mystery of animals.

In 1979, I consciously began speaking in animal tongues, after having completed
The Tongue Drawing, a mixed-media collage/drawing installation, on tongue-shaped
pieces of paper, waterproofed, and attached to a drinking water fountain. The Tongue
Drawing, which had to do with animal courtship and sexuality, involved the viewer/
participant drinking from the fountain—the water would flow down the attached
pieces of paper. When The Tongue Drawing was being exhibited at The Contemporary
Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, it was periodically installed on a drinking water
fountain in a nearby park. While displaying the piece, I began to tape record people’s
reactions. It was during that time that I began to acknowledge animal tongues as
an integral extension of, and complement to, my visual work. It was also then that
I realized the connection between the title, The Tongue Drawing, and my actual
speaking, singing, and later performing in animal tongues.

In 1980, I did a series of very large charcoal works on paper. Then, as I still do,
I worked on the floor, and would sit in the middle of the pieces as I drew them.
Some, such as The Abyss Crossing, are narrative and processional in nature, with
one character, “the innocent Bloodhorse,” crossing over to the other character, “the
knowledgeable Cat.” While working, I would take a break, look at the images, and
sing in animal tongues, sitting in the middle of the drawings. In the resulting songs,
the Cat possessed a dark, mysterious voice, as if she knew the secrets of the world.
The Bloodhorse, a hybrid of a horse and a dog-like character, sounded innocent
and vulnerable, and spoke and sang with a very high child-like voice. In the singing
of animal tongues, the two voices intertwined, one blending with the other, and
simultaneously, the two visual entities in the large charcoal drawing crossed paths
in order to reach the other side. The large drawing, The Abyss Crossing, evolved with
no pre-planning. As the Bloodhorse emerged in the drawing, I would look at the
image and sing in a high voice. As the Cat established her presence in The Abyss
Crossing, I would sit near her image, in the middle of the drawing, and sing in her
mysterious, low voice.

Masks and mask-like shapes have been a part of my art from the very beginning.
Masks enable me to get beneath the surface. Instead of concealing, the mask reveals
the true nature of the character or being, a reversal of the usual understanding of the
term. Often the mask-like shapes are organic extensions of the animals or humans
in the visual art. An essential part of the creation of my work has to do with caress-
ing the surface of the painting or sculpture. As the surface is rubbed and caressed,
the animals go through a metamorphosis. They grow mask-like shapes as the work
progresses. An early example is The Cruel Eclipse (1986, pastel on rag paper). During
the creation of the work, the beings began to sing in their own voices. They became
anthropomorphic characters in a play. At that time in my life I had become active

HARRISON / Singing in Animal Tongues  33

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in the animal rights movement, and my work expressed what I had learned about
abuse to animals, and how that reflects our relationship with the world. The drawing
was created in layers, changing many times as I worked. As I sang in animal tongues,
the characters in the songs acted out and evolved. The voice of the human blended
and intertwined with the voice of the primate, and, at the same time, the primate
in the painting developed a mask.

In addition to the early works on paper, in the 1980s I also did a series of very
large paintings on wood panels, on doors, which had edges that were angled and
attached together to create large semi-circular spaces. Images of interacting humans
and animals were painted on the front and back. These paintings, The Serpentine
Wall Series, were narrative in content, and the semi-circular shape gave the viewer
a feeling of being embraced by the space. They were not flat paintings on a wall;
instead, viewers experienced being within a painted diorama. The figures in the
paintings looked out and invited the viewer to join them and to participate in a
ritual of the reunion between animal and human. The Serpentine Wall Series told
the story of humans and animals converging on a wall of steps positioned along a
river. The human and animal beings were all holding a green cord, which I called
“the life-line.” They were witnessing a coming together, and they reached out, invit-
ing the viewers to enter their world. I had not yet performed in animal tongues
for an audience. However, there was now an implied performance, as the figures
in the paintings were standing on a series of steps in a stage-like composition, as
if the creatures were participating in a play. I was living in Cincinnati at the time,
which is home to the Serpentine Wall, along the embankment of the Ohio River.
The geometry of the Serpentine Wall forms an amphitheatre, where performances
regularly occur and are encouraged.

During the following years, I continued my interest in creating spaces. Divining House
was a 1986 collaboration with my partner, architect Alan Baer. It was a site-specific
structure in The Federal Reserve Plaza, at the former site of The Contemporary Arts
Center, Cincinnati. The name Divining House implies tapping subconscious and
unconscious resources. When the participants entered, they could sit on benches,
which were an integral part of the structure. The participants would view a frieze
and murals painted on the walls, which contained small glazed organic-shaped win-
dows. The walls were wood, and the roof was canvas to let light inside. The canvas
roof was supported by painted telephone poles, with the ends carved into hooves.
Divining House included a frieze depicting primates, cows, horses, and humans
interacting. The painted frieze told the story of animal abuse and rescue. Masks in
the frieze paintings emerged in unusual places, with masks coming from the back
of the head of a sleeping human, instead of being attached to the face. Also, in the
frieze painting, a bandaged research primate looked out at the viewer. There were no
right angles inside the structure, which gave the participant a feeling of being inside
something alive and organic. Inside, sitting and viewing the frieze and murals, I was
inspired to sing in animal tongues. By that time, I had also recorded the language

34  PAJ 97

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in conjunction with various animal sounds of whales, wolves, cats, and birds, and
I began to sing with the voices of wild and domestic animals.

In 1989, Alan Baer and I moved to Ulster County, in upstate New York. The move
was a perfect plateau for realizing the potential of all of my work, including animal
tongues, because there is a spirit in the area of being close to nature. My studio, the
second floor of our house, an 1869 three-story brick Victorian, which is covered in
vines, is a fitting location for the animal voice to find and express itself. Our back-
yard, while small, contains a microcosm of the forest complete with groundhogs,
squirrels, opossums, skunks, and snakes. We go on hikes in the Catskills often and
walk along streams very similar to the ones envisioned in my early childhood stories
and songs.

I created a series of charcoal and pastel diptych works on rag paper in the 1990s,
in which beings, both animal and human, would travel from one side to the other,
with the figures merging together. The quasi-animated actions within these works
were not pre-planned, but instead happened through the physical act of doing them.
During this time the voices in animal tongues began to include a number of distinct
sounds, which intersected and merged together. The sounds ranged from high-pitched
pleading to low murmuring whispers. The merging of animal and human images
involved transformations coming from a great struggle. In Now You See Me (1996;
diptych; charcoal, pastel, and gouache on rag paper), the characters changed and
evolved as though they were acting in a play. I sang in the various voices of the dif-
ferent characters in the painting as the work came into being. Although I was not
yet presenting animal tongues as a performance, I introduced speaking and singing
in the language within lectures about my art. Simultaneously, I was beginning to
respond to the sequential nature of my visual work, incorporating the characters
moving in space, and noting that the movement was happening over time. I began
to include recordings of animal tongues with exhibitions of the visual art.

In the 1990s I began doing porcelain sculptures of animals and hybrids, such as
Tendril Birdfish. This led to a large installation, Animal Tongues, which was exhibited
for the first time in 1998, in Animal.Anima.Animus, an exhibition curated by Linda
Weintraub and Marketta Seppälä at Porin Taidemuseo in Finland. It was also shown
at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, Holland, and in a solo exhibition,
Arcana Mundi, at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati. Animal Tongues included
numerous sculptures of animals, on the wall, and on the floor on a deep bed of
dried pine needles. A tape recording of my speaking and singing in the language
was included with the installation. I performed in Animal Tongues in Finland in
conjunction with the exhibition.

In 2005 the video, My Other Tongue—Jan Harrison, was created by Jenny Fox,
and included my singing while working in the studio. During that time I created
sculptures of animal heads, in both porcelain and beeswax. After completing a series

HARRISON / Singing in Animal Tongues  35

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Top: Jan Harrison, The Corridor Series
Primate #31, 2009, pastel and ink on rag
paper, 30.25 x 22.5 inches. Bottom: Cat
With Raw Nose, 2006, sculpture: beeswax,
damar resin and encaustic, 6.25 x 6 x 8
inches. Exhibited as a sculpture, and also
presented by the artist as a mask being in
performance. This sculpture is included
in Animal Tongues—2009, a video of
performance with animal sculpture heads.
Photos: Nancy Donskoj. Courtesy the artist.

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36  PAJ 97

of the mask-like heads, I began to hold them up and speak/sing through them,
discovering that each sculpture has a different voice. Although I sing through the
sculpture heads, they are not actually masks in the traditional sense of the word.
They have their own innate quality and voice, and when I sing through them, it
is through their voices. The first performance of Animal Tongues, using the animal
sculpture heads while speaking and singing, was presented in conjunction with a
solo exhibition, Bestial Beings, in 2007, at Cabaret Voltaire Art Center, Poughkeep-
sie, New York. A video was made of the live performance, Jan Harrison, Bestial
Beings—Mask Performance.

In 2009, I performed and had dialogues in animal tongues in an evening of mul-
tiple interactive performances and videos by poets, visual artists, and musicians,
including George Quasha, Gary Hill, Charles Stein, and David Arner, in Talking
Tongues and Other Organs, at The Kleinert James Art Center, Woodstock, New York.
The key premise of the event was: “no English was spoken”—that communication
has as much, or more, to do with intonation (and theatrics) as direct translation
or traditional understanding of words. The participants had lively conversations
and sometimes long discussions in tongue-like languages. The entire event melded
unknown spoken “foreign” languages with visual art, including sculpture, musical
performance, video, and a performance creating visual art onstage. Talking Tongues
and Other Organs made the transition from visual to literary, and extended into
the realm of experimental poetry, as well as improvisational interaction with other
participants. While there was a loose framework established for the entire event, the
extemporaneous components came together to create a form of theatre.

The Corridor Series, a series of pastel and ink iconic works on paper of primates, dogs,
cats, birds, and other animals, is a project I began in 2009. The series is ongoing,
and has grown to more than seventy works. As the work developed, I discovered
that when viewing one after the other, the images of the animals appear to move
in progression, like an animation. Simplifying the recent paintings and sculptures
to portrait-like heads has revealed their essence as an intimate connection. In The
Corridor Series, animals exist in both ecological and psychological corridors. They
are taking a stand, vanishing, and returning. They are on the outside, inviting you
either to join them, or to invite them into the viewing realm. The Corridor Series is
both autobiographical and universal, having to do with personal feelings of various
states of empowerment and expressing the similar states and plight of the animal
nature. Some of the animals in the series express humor, some are calmly medita-
tive, some are dark and wild, some are anxious and fearful, and some express love
and empathy towards the viewer. They seem to express a willingness to share their
mystery. I have sung in animal tongues while creating this series and have discovered
that each being in the portraits has its own voice. I am currently working to create
a video of the images transitioning and moving in progression that will include my
speaking and singing in animal tongues.

We live with five cats, all rescued strays, and one feral cat. They have influenced my
art, and they respond when I am singing in animal tongues. I have performed in the

HARRISON / Singing in Animal Tongues  37

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forest, with birds as well as with other animals. Each time there is interaction the
language repertoire grows. If the beings in my visual art could speak, this is what
they would be saying. For me, animal tongues is their voice, and an integral part of
my complete body of work. It is the voice of the animal.

JAN HARRISON’s work has been seen in more than one hundred solo
and group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally,
including Animal.Anima.Animus and at P.S. 1, in Long Island City, New
York. Arcana Mundi, a book spanning twenty years of her work, was pub-
lished in 2001 by Station Hill. An early recording of animal tongues was
released on the album, On Record, which included audio art and music by
artists, and an example of singing in animal tongues was included in the
video documentary, Jan Harrison—Painter. The video My Other Tongue—
Jan Harrison features the artist speaking and singing while creating art in
the studio. In the video, Jan Harrison—Animal Tongues the artist performs
with the animal sculpture heads.

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