Tilikum

amberhawkswanson.com

The fascinating and tragic tale of Tilikum, the male killer whale held captive at SeaWorld (Orlando Florida), is brilliantly told in the documentary Blackfish (2013), directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite.

The film focuses on the cruelty and stupidity of keeping such a large and intelligent mammal in what is essentially a fish tank and obliging him to perform like a seal and act as a living sperm bank for SeaWorld's lucrative breeding programme. 

If he enjoys doing tricks for the trainers who, when not throwing him food from a bucket, are masturbating him with a cow's vagina in order to gather his semen, it hasn't stopped him from being actively involved in the deaths of two of them (Keltie Byrne and Dawn Brancheau); as well as a Sea World visitor, Daniel P. Dukes, who made the fatal mistake of hiding in the park until after closing time and then getting into Tilikum's pool. His naked and mutilated body was found the next morning draped over Tilikum's back.

    

Inasmuch as Tilly has undeniably been objectified by owners who believe him to exist solely to generate profits and sire young and spectators who think his duty is to entertain them and their children, then the above deaths might well be described as the brutal and bloody revenge of the object. 

Undoubtedly, the person who best appreciates this aspect of Tilikum's tale is the very wonderful video and performance artist Amber Hawk Swanson, for whom issues of power, violence, sex and objectification are clearly of great import. She is probably best known for her Amber Doll project (2007-10) in which she married a RealDoll made in her own image and jointly explored the distinction between fantasy and reality. 

Predictably, Amber Doll, and Ms Swanson's relationship with her, solicited some extreme reactions and they were involved in strange and disturbing situations. But who would have guessed that the severely damaged sex doll, with her silicone flesh and plastic skeleton, would one day resurrect and be transformed into ... Tilikum!

This, however, in December 2011, is precisely what happened and, I have to say, it's a brilliant move by the artist; as one pure object is turned into another, by a woman who is herself the object of her own work. The critic and blogger, Megan Milks, describes this best:

"With the transformation of Amber Doll into Tilikum, Swanson’s exploration of compound female subjectivity becomes an exploration of human-doll-animal intersubjectivity. Swanson figures Tilikum in the pose of the entertainer, with tail raised, greeting his spectators, with the collapsed dorsal fin characteristic of orcas in captivity; meanwhile his upward, unflinching gaze, communicates his enforced submission and his history of and potential for violence, inscribed back onto the female-gendered doll body that forms his own. Swanson as doll as Tilikum: the art object flickers with the radical passivity of these co-mingled subjects."

- Megan Milks: Free Tilikum, or the Transfiguration of Amber Doll: Radical Passivity in Amber Hawk Swanson's Doll Projects, posted on the multi-authored blog montevidayo.com (Oct 11, 2012)