Polona Tratnik1
Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto
from a Philosophical Perspective 
Abstract: With her series K-9_topology, Maja Smrekar is challeng-
ing anthropocentrism by linking biology and culture, in particular
addressing interaction between human and animal species. The
artist builds upon the recent scientific findings that it is not only
the dog species that has been domesticated; the domestication that
took place during evolution is to be considered mutual. Not only
has the dog been mastered by the human, but dogs have had an ac-
tive role in “using” the human species for a more comfortable sur-
vival as well. Both species coexist. In the project Ecce Canis Maja
Smrekar built upon the sense of smell as an interface used to trigger
the emotional connection between the species.
Hybrid Family is another project in the K-9_topology series. In
this performance Smrekar nurtured a puppy. By submitting herself
to two and a half months of physiological training, she achieved
milk production in her breasts. The artist refers to this process as
to the process of becoming, of becoming-animal, becoming-woman
and becoming m(Other). She is deeply rooted in her own experi-
ence at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, when “liberal capital-
ism finally struck hard into the newborn Slovenian economy”, as
she writes in her blog: her parents lost their business, house, cars,
forests, meadows and vineyards, and her father committed suicide.
She finds her own way of resisting, which is in submitting herself
65
Moni tor  ISH (2017), XIX/2, 65–80
Izvirni znanstveni članek
Original scientific article
1 Dr. Polona Tratnik is Dean of Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studio-
rum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities. E-mail:
polona.tratnik@almamater.si.
04 - PolonaTratnik  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 65
to a “dog-human kinship relationship as a radical intimate action
of ‘returning home’”. 
In  the  present  paper,  the  process  of  becoming  mother  is
analysed in relation to the process of becoming animal. Further-
more, the process of becoming (m)Other is particularly examined
with reference to the mother-and-child unity, applying the Umwelt
notion and a Hegelian, existentialist feminist and post-structuralist
discussion of  identity and difference. The process of becoming
(m)Other is finally examined as a biopolitical statement or inter-
vention with the investment of the artist’s body. Its purpose is to
re-gain the position of power, i.e. to perform an act of resistance to
bio-power on and through bodies.
Keywords: biopolitics, Other, bio art, Maja Smrekar, bio-power, per-
formance art, K-9_topology, Hybrid Family
UDK 7:606
Biopolitični manifest Maje Smrekar s filozofske perspektive 
Izvleček: S svojo serijo K-9_topologija, Maja Smrekar izziva atro-
pocentrizem s povezovanjem biologije in kulture, še posebej pa na-
slavlja interakcijo med človeškimi in živalskimi vrstami. Umetnica
gradi na najnovejših znanstvenih dognanjih, da ni samo pasja vrsta
tista, ki je bila udomačena; udomačitev, ki se je odvijala med evolu-
cijo, se mora smatrati za obojestransko. Niso samo psom zagospo-
darili ljudje, ampak so tudi psi imeli aktivno vlogo pri “uporabi”
človeške vrste za svoje bolj udobno preživetje. Obe vrsti sobivata.
Pri projektu Ecce Canis je Maja Smrekar gradila na čutu za voh kot
vmesniku, ki se uporablja kot sprožilec za emocionalno povezavo
med vrstama.
Hibridna družina je še en izmed projektov v seriji K-9_topolo-
gije. V tem performansu je Smrekarjeva vzgajala kužka. Z dva in pol
meseca trajajočim fiziološkim treningom je dosegla, da se je v nje-
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nih prsih začelo proizvajati mleko. Umetnica o tem procesu govori
kot o procesu postajanja, postajanja žival, postajanja ženska in po-
stajanja (druga) mati. Globoko je zasidrana v svoje izkustvo na za-
četku 3. tisočletja, ko je, kot je zapisala v svojem blogu, “liberalni
kapitalizem končno globoko zarezal v novorojeno slovensko gospo-
darstvo”: njena starša sta izgubila podjetje, hišo, avtomobile, goz-
dove, travnike in vinograde, njen oče pa je naredil samomor. Sama
je našla svoj način upora, ki se izraža v tem, da se podvrže “odnosu
pasje-človeškega sorodstva kot radikalnemu intimnemu dejanju
‘vrnitve domov’”. 
V pričujočem prispevku je proces postajanja mati analiziran v
povezavi s procesom postajanja žival. Še več, proces postajanja
(druga) mati je še posebno pod drobnogledom glede na enotnost
mati-in-otrok, z uporabo pojma Umwelt in heglovske, eksistenciali-
stične feministične in post-strukturalistične diskusije identitete in
razlikovanja. Proces postajanja (druga) mati je na koncu preučen še
kot biopolitična izjava ali intervencija z investicijo umetničinega
telesa. Njegov namen je ponovno pridobiti pozicijo moči, torej iz-
vesti dejanje upora bio-moči – vaja moči na telesu in skozenj.
Ključne besede: biopolitika, drugo, Maja Smrekar, bio-moč, upri-
zoritvena umetnost, K-9_topologija, Hibridna družina
0     0     0
With the series K-9_topology, Maja Smrekar is challenging anthro-
pocentrism by linking biology and culture, in particular addressing
interaction between human and animal species. The artist builds
upon the recent scientific findings that it is not only the dog species
that has been domesticated; the domestication that took place dur-
ing evolution is to be considered mutual. Not only has the dog been
67
Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
04 - PolonaTratnik  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 67
mastered by the human, but dogs have had an active role in “using”
the human species for a more comfortable survival as well. Both
species coexist. In the project Ecce CanisMaja Smrekar built upon
the sense of smell as an interface used to trigger the emotional con-
nection between the species.
Hybrid Family is another project in the K-9_topology series. In
this performance Smrekar nurtured a puppy. By submitting herself
to two and a half months of physiological training, she achieved
milk production in her breasts. The artist refers to this process as
to the process of becoming, of becoming-animal, becoming-woman
and becoming m(Other). The project is deeply rooted in her own
experience, as she writes in her blog. At the beginning of the 3rd mil-
lennium, “liberal capitalism finally struck hard into the newborn
Slovenian economy”,2 so her parents lost their business, house, cars,
forests, meadows and vineyards, and her father committed suicide.
In this regard Hybrid Family is her way of resisting the neoliberal
power over the bodies and lives of people.
Becoming mother
Maja Smrekar bought a young puppy, which had been taken away
from its primary dog-mother, and adopted the role of its new parent.
In addition to ensuring a new home for the puppy, as any ordinary
dog keeper would, this new parent ensured its nurture in the most
literal sense possible, by breast-feeding it. Let us consider the sig-
nificance of this act more carefully.
With breast-feeding the puppy and the artist connect biologi-
cally, if biologically means through and with investing their own
bodies. The artist “hunts nature”. She has not only become a sort
of social parent to the puppy, ensuring care and protection. Becom-
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2 http://majasmrekar.org/post-no-1-history-of-tears. 
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ing the breast-feeding “parent” to the puppy puts this human dog
keeper in a corporeal relationship with the dog.
“Naturally” milk is produced within the exchange process be-
tween mother and child; the production is realised by the mother
but evoked by the child. The mother’s capacity to produce milk is
enabled only by the child’s evocation. The production of milk by the
woman’s body is thus a process that originates from the tight con-
nection between the mother and the child, or the unitymother-child.
Breast-feeding is a process significant for the mother-child for-
mation, in which the two are mingled together. Julia Kristeva as-
certains that in this phase the child does not yet have a narcissist
attitude, which only develops after the intervention of the third, who
becomes the object of the mother’s desire. The third breaks apart
the dyad. According to psychoanalysis, this moment signifies the
beginning of the process of autonomisation or the formation of the
self.3 In our case we are not paying attention to the moment at
which the formation of the self begins, but to the moment which is
originally performed here, that is, the moment at which the mother-
child formation is established. The project thus establishes the sit-
uation before the moment of quitting the breast-feeding, in which
the boy is protected against regret that he is no longer a breast-
feeding baby or a girl, as ascertained by Simone de Beauvoir, since
from then on he will embody his transcendence and his arrogant
sovereignty in his sex.4 If this moment signifies the becoming of
the first or the second sex, to paraphrase de Beauvoir, the project
performs a “reverse” process of becoming: of becoming the breast-
feeding mother for the artist and of becoming the human breast-
fed baby for the dog.
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Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
3 Kristeva, 1987.
4 Beauvoir, 2010.
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Mother and child are in this formation of breast-feeding min-
gled to such a degree that they exist as an entity. Rather than the
other of the child’s self, the mother is a part of the child’s own sub-
jectivity, of the child’s own self. 
This moment of unity could also be examined with a reference
to the notion of the Umwelt, introduced by Jakob von Uexküll.5 The
early 20th century zoologist and one of the founders of ecology,
Jakob von Uexküll, examines the notion of the environment that is
bound to an animal. For Uexküll animals don’t experience the same
world and time. The bee, the tick and the fly that we observe don’t
move in the same world or share the same world with us, the ob-
servers. Each Umwelt is a closed unity within itself. 
For Uexküll there exists also die Umgebung, a rather objective
environment which, however, changes according to one’s perspec-
tive, since there is no objective space per se: there is only a forest-
for-a-woodcutter, a forest-for-a-botanic, a forest-for-a-wanderer, etc.
Uexküll does not find much interest in the notion of die Umgebung,
but offers a very interesting examination of the structure of die
Umwelt, in which the world and the animal are intrinsically or exis-
tentially linked. 
Uexküll takes into consideration the case of a tick. The funda-
mental aspects of the structure of die Umwelt, the environments
that are valid for all animals, can be derived from the example of
the tick. Out of the egg crawls a not yet fully developed little animal,
but even in this state it can already ambush cold-blooded animals
such as lizards, for which it lies in wait. Once the female has copu-
lated, the eyeless and deaf creature finds its way to a warm-blooded
animal, from which it pumps a stream of warm blood. Uexküll as-
certains that the tick uses the sense of smell and has no sense of
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5 Uexküll, Kriszat, 1934.
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taste. It takes in any liquid, so long as it has the right temperature.
For the tick it is existentially relevant to get the meal: after getting
it, it will fall to the ground, lay its eggs and die. The tick gets into a
“functional cycle as a subject and the mammal as its object”.6
In die Umwelt there are carriers of characteristics or signifi-
cance; in semiology these would be marks [Merkmalträger], which
are also carriers of meaning [Bedeutungsträger]. These carriers are
all that interests an animal. An animal has receptive organs that are
designed  to  perceive  the  mark  [Merkorgan]  and  to  react  to  it
[Wirkorgan].
Uexküll believes that his explanation of the subject – object in-
terconnectedness in die Umwelt has finally connected biology to
Kant’s philosophy by emphasising the decisive role of the subject,
because there can be no time and no space without a living subject.7
By analogy with Uexküll we can postulate that in the case of the
child and the mother,  the child undertakes a role similar to the
tick’s. The functional cycle of breast-feeding makes the mother the
object of the child in the sense that she is required for the child to
survive, she is the child’s host, the nourisher, the food, the existential
expansion of the parasite child. Together they form this significant
environment, die Umwelt, which is a closed unity within itself. We,
not being part of it, don’t share their world. And there is one sig-
nificant conclusion that we have to formulate at this moment: there
is no mother per se, there is no objective mother, the mother is the
mother-for-the-child. The fact that the artist voluntarily undertakes
the “objectification” of herself for the puppy by becoming mother-
for-the-puppy though breast-feeding, as well as through becoming
the puppy’s social parent, opens up a new dimension of the project.
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Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
6 Uexküll, 2010, 50.
7 Ibid., 52.
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One should not forget that the dog keeper is legally responsible for
ensuring proper care for the animal. The role of the caretaker is
somehow similar to the role of the parent. However, the dog is con-
sidered the dog keeper’s property, an object with an ability to suffer,
which is why suffering may not be caused. Yet the punishment for
the violation of a child’s or a puppy’s rights tells the most about the
hierarchical difference between human and animal, as agreed upon
in a given society. The difference between the two species has been
recognised within historical materialism, as ascertained by de Beau-
voir, which ensured a relevant recognition that “[h]umanity is not
an animal species; it is a historical reality”.8 If Maja Smrekar is be-
coming mother-for-the-puppy, this makes up a significant dimen-
sion of the process of becoming, in which she is simultaneously
becoming an animal-mother. With objectifying herself for the dog,
she is resisting the policy by which domestic animals are consid-
ered proprietorial objects of humans. The hierarchical differentia-
tion of human and animal species is here subverted.
Becoming animal, becoming other
Saying that one is becoming an animal seems senseless since man
is an animal, a speaking animal, if we agree with Jacques Derrida.9
For Martin Heidegger, however,  there exists a difference be-
tween animal and human and stone; it lies in the relation of each
of them to the world: “the stone is worldless [weltlos]; the animal is
poor in the world [weltarm]; man is world-forming [weltbildend].”
The origin of Heidegger’s consideration of the relation between the
being and the world is to be found in Uexküll: what Uexküll defined
as marks or carriers of meaning, Heidegger calls disinhibitors, and
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8 Beauvoir, 87.
9 Derrida, 2008.
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what Uexküll defined as die Umwelt, Heidegger calls the disinhibit-
ing ring. Heidegger examines the relationship of the animal to its
disinhibiting  ring  further  in  order  to  define what  he  called  the
“poverty in the world” characteristic of animals. Heidegger differ-
entiates between animal existence in the world and the mode of the
human world. The mode of existence proper to an animal is signi-
fied in its relation with the disinhibitor – it is in a state of captiva-
tion. As an example of captivation Heidegger presents the case of
a bee described already by Uexküll. A bee, placed in front of a cup
full of honey, begins to suck it, then its abdomen is cut away, yet
the bee happily continues to suck while the honey visibly streams
out of its open abdomen. The animal is captivated, stunned, but
also taken away, blocked [benommen], as well as taken in, absorbed
[eingenommen]. The animal is essentially captivated and wholly ab-
sorbed in its own disinhibitor. It cannot truly act in relation to it, it
can only behave.10
The animal is being-alongside-itself: the animal does not recog-
nise the situation, the bee does not recognise the presence of too
much honey neither the absence of its abdomen. It is taken by [hin-
genommen] the food. “This being taken is only possible where there
is an instinctive ‘towards …’ [treibhaftes Hin-zu]. Yet this being taken
in such a drivenness also excludes the possibility of any recognition
of any being-present-at-hand [Vorhandensein]. It is precisely being
taken by its food that prevents the animal from taking up a position
over and against [sich gegenüberzustellen] this food.”11
The baby is taken by the mother’s milk. When the animal comes
in contact with its disinhibitor, it gets taken by [hingenommen] the
73
Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
10 Agamben, 2004, 52.
11 Heidegger, 1995, 263; original in Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe, vols. 29–
30,  Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt–Endlichkeit–Einsamkeit,
Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1983, p. 383.
04 - PolonaTratnik  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 73
food, it is captivated, because the “very possibility of apprehending
something as something is withheld [genommen] from the animal,
and it is withheld from it not merely here and now, but withheld in
the sense that it is ‘not given at all’”.12We can draw an analogy with
the captivation of  the animal and  the breast-feeding child. The
breast-feeding  baby  gets  into  a  disinhibiting  ring.  The  baby  is
driven toward the breast. It gets into instinctive drivenness “to-
ward”. Being taken by the milk prevents the child from taking up a
position over the milk or apprehending something as something.
In this case, however, the subject experiencing the “poverty in the
world” is not the animal as in the case discussed by Heidegger, but
the child, which is a pre-state of human being.
The captivated subject, the breast-feeding child, does not, ac-
cording to Heidegger’s theory, fulfil the criteria for a human being.
The difference between man and animal lies in the human capabil-
ity to act in relation to the world or to act against it, according to
Heidegger. It would not be correct to say that this child is becoming
human through the process of breast-feeding or this performance.
Recalling Derrida saying that man is a speaking animal, let us re-
flect upon the communication aspect. Uexküll refers to the decisive
role of the subject expounded by Kant when conceptualising the
notion of die Umwelt to show how space and time depend on the
subject, the animal in our case. Kant introduces the notion of exis-
tence of things for the subject. So how does the baby exist for itself?
The environment, time and space are formed according to the sub-
ject, they exist for the subject. But as a being in the state of captiva-
tion,  the  child  is  not  capable  of  apprehending  something  as
something. Accordingly, it is not capable of apprehending itself.
The same holds true for the animal. There is a certain difference
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74
12 Ibid., 253; original, 269.
04 - PolonaTratnik  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 74
between the baby and the grown-up. If man is a speaking animal
and other animals are not speaking, the baby is a non-speaking an-
imal, an animal as all other non-speaking animals. The mother, on
the contrary, is a speaking animal.
One might say that the mother is capable of reaching the state
of being-for-herself. She is thus a conscious being, and it is con-
sciousness that makes the difference between human and animal.
On the other hand, Jean-Luc Nancy disagrees that consciousness
is the criterion and claims there is no difference between man and
animal. There is no consciousness, but there is exchange.13
Let us consider the breast-feeding performance as a communi-
cation event. Jean-Luc Nancy recalls Edmund Husserl’s reflection
upon the silent voice of the self, talking to itself, listening to itself.
The self communicates with the self. One aims to be present to one-
self. Yet to see oneself can only happen if there is a difference be-
tween presence one and presence two. There is an “Augenblick”, a
moment, it takes a while. The self starts to go to the self, but the self
will never find itself. There is a différance at work. With this term
Jacques Derrida refers to the double meaning implied in its root:
the French verb différermeans to be different from or to delay some-
thing. The delay of the différance is an infinite delay. To be becomes
suspended. It is a continuous, never ending process of becoming.
If the baby has no capability to apprehend itself as itself, to be
present to itself, it does not even start to go to the self. The mother,
by contrast, has the ability to aim to be present to herself as the
mother. Yet this to be, the identity, is suspended. The mother enters
the continuous process of becoming mother.
75
Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
13 Jean-Luc Nancy in a Ph.D. seminar for the Humanities program, Alma
Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis in collaboration
with the Global Center for Advanced Studies, 30th August 2016.
04 - PolonaTratnik  23. 11. 2017  13:50  Page 75
Considering the existence of an identity, Hegel introduced the
notion of an other. The relationship between the two, the mother and
the baby, is essential for the establishment of their identities. It is
the baby that makes the mother the mother. According to Hegel,
something is existence, determined by its relationship to others:
“[s]omething is a determinate existence, this something is in rela-
tionship to others, and also to a perceiver among these others.”14
Identity is being established not essentially, but through a dif-
ferentiation process in relation to that which something is not, i.e.
through negative relational defining. Something is defined through
relations and differentiations, negations (and confirmations). 
Furthermore, for Hegel, something is also becoming. The two
moments are not those of abstract being and nothing, but an exis-
tence, something, and another existence, which is the negative of
something. “The other moment is equally an existent, but deter-
mined as the negative of something – an other. As becoming, some-
thing  is  a  transition,  the  moments  of  which  are  themselves
something, and for that reason it is an alteration – a becoming that
has already become concrete.”15
With breast-feeding the puppy, the artist positions herself in
a kinship relationship with the dog. She enters a process of differ-
entiation and of becoming the negative of herself as a speaking
animal, that is, as a non-speaking animal. At the same time the
puppy enters a process of becoming human. Humanity enters its
differentiating  identity,  the  identity of a non-speaking animal,
which has the speaking animal as its other. This equalisation of
the two processes of becoming is significant for the artist. Agam-
ben’s finding that “[t]he total humanization of the animal coin-
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14 Hegel, 2010, 64.
15 Ibid., 90.
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cides with a total animalization of man”16 is a relevant reference
in the K-9_topology.17
In short, we will focus upon the political implications of this
equalisation. But first we need to shed light on the artist’s struggle
for de-hierarchisation, since the two species do not enjoy political
equality. The original positioning of the artist lies in making herself
a disinhibitor for the puppy. In this disinhibiting ring she does not
take over the “higher” state of being as regards the relation to the
world, but a “lower” one, as far as one can gather a hierarchical po-
sitioning of the human, animal and stone in Heidegger. She enters
a transsubstantiation process of becoming a “defined” being, an an-
imal, as Heidegger comprehended the animal. At the same time the
animal becomes “privileged” with its transition to the human.
Becoming a non-speaking animal is, however, at work also in
the mother-child formation through breastfeeding, if we infer from
Heidegger that the baby is a “defined” being as well as other ani-
mals. It is the state and the relation to the disinhibitor that defines
the being as “defined” or “non-defined”. The “defined” being is not
in a state in which the subject would be able to apprehend some-
thing as something or itself as itself, or in which it would aim to
reach a comprehension of itself. In this state the subject surrenders
to the instinctive drivenness “toward”, it is the state of captivation.
With putting herself in this state, Maja Smrekar can discard the
“privilege” of the human to be a “non-defined” being. As this project
demonstrates, the mother is not a mere host that harbours the par-
asite, the breast-feeder: rather, she is captivated in her own turn by
the breast-feeder in this functional cycle. The one who gives suck
is dependent on sucking, as the whole process of breast-feeding is
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Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective 
16 Agamben, 77.
17 <http://majasmrekar.org/k-9_topology> 1. 11. 2016
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dependent on the breast-feeder. The existence of this breast-feeding
Umwelt is  established on breast-feeding,  since without  sucking
there is no milk. Therefore, it is relevant to conceive the Umwelt of
the breast-feeding mother and the child, as well as the Umwelt of
the artist and the puppy, as an exchange circuit.
For Maja Smrekar this physiological captivation is of extreme
importance. It becomes her means of resistance: “Becoming (- ani-
mal) is a molecular process: in my case the molecular process of
my pituitary glands being so much triggered by systematic breast-
pumping, they would get connected with hormone prolactin to ac-
cumulate milk  in my  body. As  a side  effect  of  that  triggering,
hormone oxytocine increases, which evokes empathy.”18
Biopolitical resistance: becoming bare life
“I hunt nature and culture hunts me,”19 says the artist in the title of
another K-9_topology performance. Aiming at becoming “nature”
is aiming at escaping culture. Maja Smrekar aims at becoming
“zoē”, bare life, the domain once reserved only for animals. But what
can we say today of the distinction between zoē and bios? Accord-
ing to Giorgio Agamben, the anthropological machine produced
humanitas by de-ciding every time between man and animal. There
is a “total management” of biological life at work today, that is, of
the very animality of man. Humanity “has taken upon itself the
mandate of the total management of its own animality”.20
Maja Smrekar responds to the situation in which bio-power is
being exercised on and through the bodies, as ascertained by Michel
Foucault. “As an artist I feel I need to use my own body (and bodies
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78
18 <http://majasmrekar.org/post-no-2-involution-of-m-mother> 19. 10. 2016.
19 The title of another Maja Smrekar’s performance with wolves.
20 Agamben, 77.
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of my dogs) to re-gain the position of power. To re-gain my body. Our
bodies.”21 The project of becoming (m)Other is to be comprehended
as a biopolitical statement or intervention with the investment of
artist’s body for the purpose of re-gaining the position of power and
her own animality, i.e. as an act of resistance to bio-power. 
Her artistic gesture is additionally to be read as a response to
neoliberal capitalism: “The global economy threatens to homoge-
nize people by means of the lowest common denominator – the abil-
ity to consume.” The artist feels the urge to resist by using her own
economy of emotions: “Therefore I am submitting myself to the
dog-human kinship relationship as a radical intimate action of ‘re-
turning home’.”22
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tell, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
BEAUVOIR,  S.  de  (2010): The Second Sex,  trans.  by Constance
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