Notes on: Buller, H, Johnson, E., Robinson, D., Rundle, S. Sagan, D. Schmitt, S., Schrader,A., Spicer, J. (2017). [Schrader and Johnson] Considering Killability: Experiments in Unsettling Life and Death. Catalyst: feminism, Theory, Technoscience 3 (2) 1--15. http://www.catalystjournal.org Dave Harris [Useful for considering some practical ethical dilemmas rather than the abstract responsibility constantly advocated by Barad] This arose from a workshop with marine biologists, social scientists and artists. The main topic was 'patterns of life and death witnessed in marine invertebrates' (2). There is a tendency to grasp these anthropomorphically, but there are other narratives, and killability varies according to different contexts, so we can talk about 'entanglements of human and animals agencies'. Each participant contributes a small piece relating to their field. Generally, killability when applied to animals 'makes their killing automatically permissible' and this is a way of not taking responsibility. There are clearly specific variants — for example laboratory mice and livestock are routinely killable, but not cats and dogs. Here, we might gain insights from feminism for science instead of the usual other way around, leading to 'a more reflective account of laboratory practices' focusing on response-ability. So each participant was asked what killability meant for them, whether it related differently to individuals and masses, how past deaths might come to 'haunt or animate our present' (3). Responses varied, but some main points emerged: Killability is a problematic categorisation, assuming a clear division between life and death [challenged by some invertebrates]. Animals are killable in different senses — for example livestock depend on killability for their very lives, while others are killed in the name of 'justifiable sacrifices in the laboratory'. A particular paradox arises if we have to kill animals to develop knowledge about them [in their own interests], and the whole issue of responsibility is often ignored. A visual artist talks about techniques of seeing in the laboratory that can both generate intimacy and distance from nonhuman subjects [as a way of dealing with guilt]. There may be a 'choreography of death' (4) , where we represent the living through the dead [in taxonomy involving dissections, or in museum exhibits]. Rundle. In order to investigate the effects of environmental stress, we usually have to kill animals, or at least nearly kill them. It is sometimes particularly difficult to see embryos that have been killed, especially if they are microscopic. We may become aware of these deaths only after suitable 'bio-imaging technology' (6). There is still a tendency to display, as video exhibits, only healthy development, not 'dying and malformed embryos', anticipating public hostility, even where the point of the research is to protect the planet. He has collaborated with artists to install live snails in a gallery, where they subsequently died, raising further dilemmas. Robinson. Invisibility helps us kill animals, and actually looking at things distances them, in laboratories as well as in arts workshops. Close attention to biological functions also screens out the more general sense of 'being connected to, and a part of the vitality of life' (7). She has also been involved in 'ethical' killing in laboratories  where killing became a ritual [ you anaesthetise fish first] , and talked to a PhD student who was trying to remember the uniqueness of each subject — she thinks this might be 'describable as intra-action where ethical thinking can take place' [but I think of it as a way of coping in scientific practice — acknowledge responsibility, pause for a respectful moment, say sorry, and carry on anyway]. Schmitt investigated taxidermy animals in museums, and, inevitably translated their work 'into choreographic, participatory audiowalks'(8) in a project called 'How to Not Be a Stuffed Animal'. There are some paradoxes with storing stuffed animals as museum objects — they have to be preserved against rotting and being attacked by insects or other outside life, to help 'taxidermy animals can animate our present' (9). Life is taken in order to construct 'lifelike movement', and all the preserving and stuffing processes are of course hidden from the public. There may be a particular dilemma with rare animals. Spicer loves marine life, but knows that there is a paradox — 'one has to use invasive techniques or even sacrifice animals, to obtain measurements, but at the same time it is the love for, and fascination with, these creatures that drive the investigation' (10). Even non-invasive techniques involve removal of the animals from their natural habitat. Some of the major marine animals are not even considered as animals by the general public. Some are strange enough to question the whole issue of life and death — a 'flatworm which receiving 6 cuts to the head will produce new heads' or sea anemones which can produce buds after being cut, or even sponges 'which after being sieved can reconstitute themselves into a viable animal'. Some animals might not even have an obvious 'natural' end to the life cycle — jellyfish die only if they are eaten or if they experience an accident. Otherwise they turn into a dormant state which can persist for 'many tens of years' and be revived when conditions are right. So it is not easy to decide if the species is alive or not at any particular time — these 'research subjects… may outlive the researcher' (11). Buller argues that 'only the companion animal, the functional animal and the nuisance animal… along with the food animal' is killable. Prohibitions against killing is unique to human beings [even Derrida says this], and we know that '"there will never be sufficient reason"' for Haraway. Farm animals are defined by killing, so they are 'killable long before they are killed, before even they are born' [thank God he didn't talk about haunting]. They are property. They exist to be killed, so it is not even easy to pin down what their state of being actually is — as animal or as produce? It is common to kill male animals and birds soon after birth, and, with genetic engineering, they might not even be born at all. We do not grieve over the killing of farm animals [apart from anything else, they prosaically become profitable at that point]. One paradox is that if we kill animals 'using gas below atmospheric pressure, the heart needs to be electronically started to facilitate bleeding'. All we can do is kill responsibly, and 'learn to let live responsibly' (12) Sagan says that death is necessarily linked to life just as shadows are to objects. So invertebrates with psychical life patterns like the ones we have seen 'can anthropomorphically be described as "immortal"'. 'Not all animals age'(13), and again it is anthropomorphic to think so: some die rapidly after mating, others do not seem to age or can even become stronger and better over time. Some marine algae may even 'kill themselves to prevent the greater death of mass infection' by viruses, and thus 'resemble human immune cells'. We tend to be far too anthropocentric and zoocentric. Our bodies themselves require deaths of microscopic others 'who may be sensate without our knowledge' even though they might contribute to our 'sensorium'.