
Chimp Portraits (2006) - brudgers
http://franknoelker.com/collection/chimp-portraits
======
pgt
Reading the captions is incredibly saddening:

"She spent the next 11 years living in isolation as a research subject. ...
She fell into an extended period of depression and was treated repeatedly for
rashes and sores on her neck and wrists inflicted on herself during anxiety
attacks. She also suffers from the 'phantom hand' syndrome, which has caused
her to bite all of her nails to the quick, rubbing them until there is nothing
left." \- [http://franknoelker.com/collection/chimp-
portraits#Rachel,20...](http://franknoelker.com/collection/chimp-
portraits#Rachel,2002)

------
downer60
Some of them look a little cagey or intimidating, but a few of them give off a
really friendly, reliable persona like they'd be your best friend in a
heartbeat.

Toddy, for example, looks like a really easy-going, reasonable lady:

[http://franknoelker.com/sites/franknoelker.com/files/styles/...](http://franknoelker.com/sites/franknoelker.com/files/styles/work_500/public/images/work/13/toddy2002.jpg)

...kind of a horrible life story, though, by human standards.

It'd be really interesting to interact with them, and see how far away the
personality is from the portrait's impression, when interacting with them in
real life.

It's hard not to feel guided by an instinct to judge a book by it's cover,
when looking at those faces.

Meanwhile, based on the descriptions with each picture, most of them are
horribly depressed and traumatized by experiments or isolation. I can't really
conceptualize what a couple of hundred "knockdown" experiments [0] with "punch
liver biopsies" might be like.

Sounds unpleasant.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_knockdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_knockdown)

~~~
jackcarter
"Knockdown" doesn't refer to gene knockdowns:
[http://www.releasechimps.org/research/overview/knockdowns](http://www.releasechimps.org/research/overview/knockdowns)

See the upper-right chimp (Binky) for confirmation: "In eight years, this
young male known as "Ch-665" was knocked down 136 times-mostly for cage
changes and tooth cleanings."

~~~
downer60
Well, today I learned. I feel like the use of specialized jargon doesn't help
communicate the experience or idea the artist would probably like to convey,
by including those kinds of details in the captions. The definition for the
term needs to be provided as a footnote, each time it gets used under that
context, since non-experts are among the audience.

You have to figure that chimpanzees are psychologically advanced enough that
it's really the totality of an experience in a lab cage that ruins them.
Getting shot with tranquilizer darts is more or less the icing on the cake,
adding insult to injury.

I'd suspect that after, on or around knockdown #20, the maximum amount of
trust has been eroded, and a chimpanzee is pretty much done with being around
people, but especially the ones that dart them.

------
ggm
Very good, very depressing. I felt a strong compulsion to read each chimps
bio.

------
zmix
Each one so distinct!

------
starbeast
And we call chimps violent.

