#zoomorphism

Notes on an Animal Form

Wheels — and circles in general — have carried symbolic meaning for a long, long time. In Buddhism, the cyclical movement of a wheel is used to symbolize the cyclical nature of life in the world. The Aztecs probably reasoned similarly with these wheeled figures:

Made of clay, porcelain and occasionally obsidian, they came from the late Classic Period (250–900 CE) up to the end of the Postclassic Period (from 900–1521 CE), and most are of dogs and jaguars, although monkeys, deer, alligators, iguanas, peccaries and/or armadillos have been mentioned by experts. Since the first two were associated to the underworld and many of these wheeled figures, when reconstructed, did not pull smoothly enough that children would have enjoyed their motion, most researchers now agree that the figures were of significance to adults, not to kids. Of course, certain ones could have been toys, “either by intent or following adult use and discard of the figures”. (Sorenson, Wheeled Figurines in the Ancient World, 3)

The evidence suggests that wheeled animal effigies were ritual objects invented in central Veracruz some time after 600 CE and that the concept reached northern Veracruz, central Mexico, and the southern Mesoamerican frontier by 1000–1100 CE. It is quite possible that this diffusion occurred a century or two earlier and that we simply lack evidence of it at the present time. (Diehl and Mandeville, Tula, and wheeled animal effigies in Mesoamerica, 243)

These concepts apply to the following, presumably votive carts from the temple of Inshushinak cache, found on the Susa acropolis, from around 1150 BCE:

According to historian Eduard Hahn, chariots descended from “a model by which the votaries of the Babylonian astral faith imitated on earth the movements of their celestial deities”. (Ekholm, Wheeled Toys in Mexico, 227) The model grew into a lifesize vessel, and as it was taken out of the temple precincts, lost its divine traits to become another vehicle of common life.

It's a touching story, but I find myself babbling much more than I expected about Aztec wheeled animals, and I’m pretty sure there has been way more examples of non-ritualistic wheeled animals — toys, essentially — in history that were toys than non-toys. One swallow does not summer make.

But I see magpies and seagulls. Owls and vultures. Falcons and pheaseants alike.

I think of the eyes painted on the bows of Greek and Phoenician galleys or the figureheads of Viking longships. How we call ships "she" regardless of their name.

I think of car hood ornaments. The leaping jaguar of Jaguars. The lion rampant of Peugeots. The ram of Dodges. The elephant of Bugatti Royales.

This whole reflection is born from the reading of "The Animation of the Inorganic" (2012) by Spyros Papapetros. Papapetros mentions unsurprisingly "the animal biomorphism of machines" only once, since his work is mainly centered around architecture; he was talking about the comparison to horses Native people made with the train locomotive. This animal biomorphism, or zoomorphism, in the context of automobiles, is more or less explicit, as it took different forms:

The Esso tiger advertisement campain from the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, compares its product, gasoline, to the physical attributes of a tiger: power, speed, performance; make your car a bit tiger-like! They even sold (fake) tiger tails to hang to your fuel tank as promotional items.

I like the Liqui Moly ad next to it mainly because the engine is this futurist mechanical horse. But the message is that your car is already part-animal and you just have to unleash, free that part. In other words, the product sold will not inherently give your car animal traits, as it has animal characteristics from its conception. It just hasn't "awoken".

The BMW ad shows a horse bowing to the car: it is superior to the horse, may it be performance, or even status. The ad treats the car as a rival to animals, but still as a car.

I'm pairing this second Esso ad with the Jaguar one. These treat the car as an animal in itself: animals that need to consume fuel (1), cars that are viewed as animals (2).

I'm sure a lot of vehicle characters in media gain traits and personality based on their form (shape language, bouba/kiki and all that) and vice versa. Cars are akin to animals not only because they look like animals, but because they move, feel, behave, and even think like animals; how numerous are depictions of cars as beasts, steeds, people (which are nothing but political animals)? Our living spaces are shaped by our needs; can't we say the same about our automotive structures? Aren't they shaped as if we were accommodating the land in function of the automobile's needs?

But I think I see now why the presence of animalistic vehicles or vehicular animals nowadays has mostly been confined to children’s media: in our common era, like the Mesopotamian cart, they have lost their divine aspects. And more than that, we see vehicles and animals alike as (lesser) companions. Humankind dominates these spheres. We endanger the environment of and have tried to domesticate tigers, jaguars, lions and the like. As we've successfully domesticated wolves into dogs, wild cats into regular cats, we've domesticated the once dangerous car into a tool. As they no longer constitute a significant danger to our species (most of the time), we choose to decide when they do. We associate these predators' traits to positive values as shown earlier even when we try to emphasize its intimidating factor i.e. the size, the engine power, etc.

And let's not leave out that if advertisements that use animalistic traits appeal to adults that want to feel in control of such power or luxury, zoomorphic cars of the 20th and 21st century mostly appeal to children (exceptions include weird Canadians like me). This form of animism (I hope I'm not using the term disingenuously. I just feel like making such characters or advertising cars in such ways is somewhat animism, at least in spirit.) is a phenomenon of the North American society of manufacturing and consumption.

There has been undoubtly an uptick in animism in recent years and it's thought, according to experts like Joseph Altshuler and Julia Sedlock, that the common people are subconsciously looking for an alternative to this capitalistic worldview. They argue that a more animistic worldview will make people kinder, but I must disagree with their conclusion, because I don't see how it could get us to move away from our capitalistic ways when advertisers are already, in a sense, somewhat animists! A spiritual theory cannot supplant an entire economic system, only mitigate part of its effects, since it does not offer a robust rival economic system.

I don't have any good closing thoughts, apart from the fact that in the end, vehicular zoomorphism has been around for as long as humans have built vehicles of transportation, but only has really taken off since the introduction and popularization of the car. The animism we've attributed to it has since taken a capitalistic value. Could American automotive zoomorphism simply be a form of consumer sentiment?