Evolution of
Protective Coloration
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1. Sensory Signals warm-up exercise outside Animals navigate their environment through their senses, interpreting the signals it provides. Although other species do not use language in the human sense, they communicate in many ways — through warning or camouflage colours, vocalisations, gestures, and countless other cues. Animals have their own communication systems; we humans simply lack the ability to fully understand them. In human life, spoken language and other verbal cues are central, but our vision is just as dominant in shaping how we interpret the world. We constantly read facial expressions, gestures, colours, and visual signals in our surroundings — often reacting to them faster than we consciously realise. Yet the messages carried by our other senses easily fade into the background. What might happen if we set aside both speech and the dominance of vision for a moment and focused instead on the other sensory signals around us? What new information would emerge from our environment — and how might it guide us? Instructions: This exercise is done outdoors, exploring the school yard and its near environment. The chosen area should ideally be calm enough for allowing silent and focused time for participants. Materials needed:
Task: What kind of signals and information you get from the environment through your senses? Observe, which colours, shapes, smells or sounds attract you, and which ones you turn away from? Move around the area, and make visual or verbal notes and sketches about these observations and impressions. It's good to have minimum of 20 minutes up to 1 hour for the exploration, as it takes a while to tune in to the environment. It can be useful to start the exercise with standing in silence with the group, eyes closed, to get time to land into the environment and quiet the mind. Did you find something new from the familiar surroundings? – – – – – – – – – – 2. Strange creatures club What sort of warning and protection signals can we think other creatures to have? The task is to create a collection of imagined plants or insects that communicate with their environment using a colourful variety of signals. Participants can use the notes from the sensory environment as a supportive material for this exercise. Materials needed:
Instructions: In small groups, on individually, create your own imaginary plant or creature, that uses either protective or warning colours against predators. Who does it want to protect itself from, or who does it want to attract? What kind of shapes, smells, colours, sounds or other means it uses for protection or warning signals? What kind of and environment it lives in? What is the new species called? You can also make use of the information heard in the lecture, and sensory notes you collected outdoors as your inspiration. Every group will brainstorm together the characteristics of the creature, then drawing or painting it on cardboard or big paper. The ready creatures will be introduced to others, and ready works can be then be exhibited as a collection of strange creatures club. If there's more time: * Groups can improvise a simple soundscape for their creatures, capturing it with eg. phone recorder. * Working technique can be a small installation, or sculpture, of the creature instead of drawing. Participants can work site-specific outside, where the group chooses a living habitat for the plant / creature, using the materials found from the environment (together with clay, string, etc.). * The work can be finished off with a little tour on created art trail, where groups can present their work. |