in Frieze | 08 OCT 16

Six things we learned from Dr. Zira

Coco Fusco’s Frieze Project premieres

in Frieze | 08 OCT 16

At Coco Fusco’s Frieze Project on Thursday night, Dr. Zira - familiar to some from Planet of the Apes (1968) - emerged from two decades of seclusion to deliver her lecture ‘Observation of Predation in Humans’. Here are six takeaways: 1. You never know who might come to your aid After the launch of President George Bush’s “Operation Descartes” against her kind, Dr. Zira saved her son through the intervention of a “friendly circus owner”. 2. Most human business is carnivorous Dr. Zira likens a hostile takeover bid to one animal eating another overnight, so one company wakes up “in the belly of another”. 3. Even apes like HBO Immersed in the human “moving pictures”, Dr. Zira enjoyed among others ‘Girls’ and ‘Mad Men’ - “just about language. Imagine!”.

Performance documentation: Coco Fusco, *Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture* (2016) for Frieze Projects at Frieze London.

4. Balance is key Aggression is not always a bad thing. "It can be essential. But so is cooperation and peace. Without altruism and empathy, no social species survives."
Performance documentation: Coco Fusco, Observations of Predation in Humans: A Lecture (2016) for Frieze Projects at Frieze London.

5. Change starts at home When asked how we can do away with alpha males (a question she is asked in every country she lectures in), Dr. Zira advises first identify the alpha male within yourself and get rid of that, “before you can get rid of these outside you”. 6. The future is female (or run by them, at least) Professor Donna Harraway assures Dr. Zira that bonobos - who use sex to resolve conflicts, practice altruism, and eschew alpha males for ‘gynecocracy’ - “are the way to go.”