OUGD405 Studio Brief 02 Natural History Museum

When I reached the Natural History Museum the area dedicated to insects was called the creepy crawly room. This name in its self suggests that my findings from the survey were correct. The way animals move could define our fear of them. Yet, somehow the inanimate dead insects on display were still unnerving. Could this mean that the aesthetic of insects plays a larger part than previously thought? Or could the instinctive repellent quality anything dead has could be blamed for this.

What was strange was that when inanimate the insects became like objects or strange works of art. The shapes and angles are strange and alien, so different from anything else. 

The bright colours of some insects seemed to distract from the strangeness of the structure of them. They are no doubt beautiful, but still in an alien way. Also the way that butterflies move should be taken into consideration, they are floppy and slow, almost sweet. They pose no threat and therefore are not as scary.

There was a section of the display devoted to the insects that are everywhere in our everyday life. Once again this idea that they are inescapable turns up. 

There was also a display about the way insects exploit each other, much like I found in my analysis of the documentary. Along with their fast evolution, what is to stop them exploiting us?

They often have dangerous weapons not only to other insects but to us as well.

One of the most unsettling things seemed to be when the insect breaks the boundaries of what we believe an insect to be. The image above is a bird eating tarantula, its size and the fact that it is visually covered in hairs makes it seem like a strange hybrid between insects and mammals, as does the fact that that it dines on mammals. The threat posed by this insect is quite high but more than anything the fact that it challenges our ideas of the insect and is testament to the fact that they are unpredictable. This is the best example of the way that we might fear insects not because of the threat they currently pose but rather the threat they may pose in the future.

The abilities insects have are incredible; such as the centipede which it the fastest animal for its size. The most mentioned thing in my survey was the way that insects move, intact one person said 'the more legs it has the creepier it is'. the video below shows the way a centipede walks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF0oJ0uexro Could this relate to the strange structure of the insects?

lots of legs =way of moving

The museum presented the insects in an almost virus wonders way, that definitely informed the idea that they are 'other' but also that they are amazing in their strange way.

The museum also had an area where it was possible to get out specimens and get a really good look at the structure of the insects.

The stage of metamorphosis is something that really sets insects apart from other animals. So, I thought it prudent to look closely at the chrysalis and its almost atomically beautiful structure. From this i got the sense that insects may be smaller but they seem to have perfected physical design in a way we have not. Is it this superiority we might feel insects have that breeds our fear?

I did some sketches from life to help me get a closer idea of the structure of the insects I was looking at and what really came through was the way they were segmented almost like toy robots. This segmentation is part of what separates them from other animals. Could the way they resemble robots unsettle people? They are so old yet seem to be physically advanced from us. Does our fear come from a constant uncertainty surrounding insects? We don't really know much about them and what we do know opens up even more questions. This 'unknown' is possibly what first drew designers to use them as the basis for aliens. Aliens in essence are unknown.

There is an incredible beauty in the complexity of structure found throughout the insect world.

One of the problems I encountered when doing my research was the fact that all the specimens were encase in resin which made them hard to photograph. So, she I asked the staff brought out a non encased atlas moth. 

 In conclusion the main areas I have identified that seem to contribute to a fear of insects are the way they move, their proximity to us, the way they almost seem to be superior to humans and the way that they are alien and unknown. I want to go on to research the structure of some insects and how this contributes to the way that they move, the way that insects develop for their habitats and how this might make them superior to us and the insets found in the home.
 There were ask some facts and statistics I gathered on the day.
- Insects get in everywhere from the nostrils of humming birds to tunnelling through our own skin.
- they have a wide variety of weapons to high sensitivity to multiple ways of delivering poison.