Sound Installation, 2007

"In today's highly specialized and complex society, modern Man comes into contact with more people in one day than our ancestors did in a lifetime. It has become necessary to speed up the process of attachments, and it is more difficult to develop meaningful relationships.... Loneliness is not knowing others: it is not being known by others.... [Pets] permit their owners to be themselves so that they can risk self-disclosure and form attachments." Psychologist Judy Harris http://www.animaltherapy.net/Premise%20&%20Promise.html

“No Ordinary Love” is a large-scale installation that both explores the relationships people have with their pets and interrogates the voyeurism implicit in watching and listening to people who are obsessed with their pets. 

 I am interested in this subject as I believe many of these relationships are indicative of a society that is so fast-paced and result driven that people feel left behind, isolated and often very alone.  People find it hard to build strong, deep bonds with others because the structures for interaction are anonymous and fleeting.  The act of ‘humanising’ a pet in order to have that link, that bond that people so desperately need, lays bear a failure or a gap in today’s society: where people feel let down, or abandoned by others and seek solace in the unconditional love and affection of their animals.