______________CONNIE MENDOZA
__________________PROTOTYPE _PROTOBODY
THE MONKEY WOMAN
Monkey-Woman is an alter ego sum of many trans-temporal and multi-spatial female identities. The idea of multiple subject enjoys wide currency in ethnic studies, as well as feminist and postcolonial thought. Monkey Woman propose to add to the idea of gender and race, the idea of a double human and animal consciousness. Monkey Woman project pretend too reconsider and review the confusion of this terms in the science history.
Monkey-Woman is inspired by the 16th and 17th century science documents. The research starts with the story of an Orang-Utang female captured in Angola in 1621. She was then transported to Amsterdam, handed over as a present to Frederik Hendrik Prince of Orange and later donated to science.
The famous Dr.Tulp portrayed by Rembrandt carried out various surgical operations on the Monkey-Woman. Nicolaes Tulp refers to the Monkey-Woman in the third volume of “Observationum medicarum” (1641), where he describes the “human qualities of an Orang-Utang”.
Carl Linnaeus, the physician, botanist, and zoologist, who established the taxonomic bases of binomial nomenclature for fauna and flora, was a pioneer researcher in biologically defining “human race”. In Systema Naturae (1767), he established five human-race taxa: (i) the Americanus, (ii) the Asiaticus, (iii) the Africanus, (iv) the Europeanus, and (v) the Monstrosus, based upon geographic origin and skin color.
The sub-races were the “four-footed, mute, hairy ”Homo feralis (Feral man); the animal-reared Juvenis lupinus hessensis (Hessian wolf boy), the Juvenis hannoveranus (Hannoverian boy), the Puella campanica (Wild-girl of Champagne), and the agile, but faint-hearted Homo monstrosus (Monstrous man) sub-races: the Patagonian giant, the Dwarf of the Alps, and the monorchid Khoikhoi (Hottentot). In Amoenitates academicae (1763), Linnaeus presented the Homo anthropomorpha (Anthropomorphic man) race of mythologic, humanoid creatures, such as the troglodyte, the satyr, the hydra, and the phoenix, incorrectly identified as simian creatures.
“Observatorium medicarum” (1641)
