24INTRODUCTIONsuch realistic register. In this context, indexicality is the tipping point
that mobilizes semantic apparatuses inscribed in works of art. The focus
on indexicality that characterizes speculative taxidermy is intrinsically
bound to the new urgency gained by biopolitics in the context of the An-
thropocene—the acknowledgment that a painting and photograph of the
same animal occupy ontologically distinct dimensions despite their shared
model, that such ontological distinction plays an active semantic role in
the encounter with the work, and that the links between indexicality
and realism constitute a central node of current preoccupations in con-
temporary art practice in a broader sense. It follows that speculative
taxidermy is defined by a deeper investment in materiality and indexical-
ity—an investment devoted to exploring shared physical and ontological
vulnerabilities concealed by the naturalization of past human/animal in-
stitutionalized relationships. But furthermore, in speculative taxidermy,
the mapping of these vulnerabilities takes place in a productive scope—the
aim of speculative taxidermy, in opposition to botched taxidermy, is not
simply to highlight a generic “wrongness” but to specifically address the
biopolitical register as a fundamental natureculture site of production in
human/animal relations.
The term speculative taxidermy therefore defines a category of actual
taxidermy objects, or indexical representations of them, that first and
foremost pose questions about what taxidermy may be or do in order
to unravel complex interlinks between humans, animals, environments,
discourses, and practices. The semantic ruptures proposed by the
materiality of animal skin in speculative taxidermy, heightened by the
manipulation of form, engage in speculation on the interconnectedness
of networks that ref lexively shape human/animal relations through
specific biopolitical registers defined by sociopolitical and ecological
frameworks.
In this context, the term speculative references the speculative turn
that, since the 2006 publication of Quentin Meillassoux’s Après la Fini-
tude,^40 has revived enthusiasm in the tradition of western philosophy. The
term implies the renewed investment in the materiality of objects that in
speculative realism has been more concretely addressed by object-oriented
ontology and new materialism.^41 The term expresses the deep unease and
dissatisfaction with the limitation with which the term taxidermy con-
notes a vast range of animal-derived objects that have transhistorically