CAT AND MOUSE

摘要

The popularity of digital cat photographs circulating through the Internet and across North American visual culture provides an occasion for a critical exploration of human-cat relations in contemporary culture. The representation of animals in traditional and digital photography is discussed in relation to the technologies of visual culture, human-animal relations, the companion animals debate, the social history of cats, and species interactions in urban culture. The highly ambiguous physical and symbolic status of cats and the proliferation of human-cat networks in urban and electronic space are part of an emergent 'post-human' landscape in which the mutual dependency of diverse animals is more important (if no less volatile) than the unique qualities of distinct species.