Coyote, 2024

wood, speaker, amp, 9v battery, wire

These wooden animal speakers function as both art objects and audio devices, but more importantly, they operate as physical metaphors for our evolving relationship with the natural world. Historically, animal iconography carried fixed symbolic meaning, lions traditionally represented courage, owls wisdom, etc…serving as cultural archetypes. Contemporary culture has liberated these symbols from their traditional associations, reducing animals to blank canvases for human projection, as seen in cartoons where a lion might be cowardly or comedic rather than noble, an owl might be naive and childlike. The pieces make this conceptual shift literal: by transforming animal forms into speakers, they become vessels for whatever content we choose to feed through them. Whereas animals once spoke through myth and symbolism, they now literally vocalize our own personal playlists and podcasts. The exposed technical elements, visible amplifiers and wiring, underscore this manufactured functionality, laying bare the mechanics of our control over what was once wild and symbolic. The 9 volt battery gives this particular animal life. In essence, the work examines how modernity has converted animals from sacred symbols to customizable commodities, reflecting our broader cultural transition from collective meaning to individual expression, where nature exists not on its own terms, but as a platform for human curation.