Hortus Semioticus 13 / 2026 — 4

Abstract: This paper explores the act of biotranslation and artistic strategies for translating between human and animal worlds through the work of Ukrainian writer and multimedia artist Yevgenia Belorusets. Based on the ecosemiotic approach – particularly the concept of biotranslation – it examines how the artist questions anthropocentric representations by engaging with hybrid forms and cross-species perspectives. Belorusets’s The Cycle of Lectures on the Modern Life of Animals (2021) employs literary and photographic media to stage role reversals between humans and animals, thereby de-automatising perception and inviting readers into alternative umwelten. Through the lens of zoosemiotics and the semiotics of hybridity, the paper demonstrates how Belorusets creates imaginative translations of animal consciousness that resist mimetic representation. Her practice is interpreted as an ecosemiotic act that reshapes our cultural relationship with the nonhuman, questioning the hegemonic human position in knowledge-making and representation. Ultimately, the paper positions contemporary art as a site of ecological reflection through semiotic experimentation.

Keywords: biotranslation, ecosemiotics, artistic representations, Ukrainian art

Looma tõlkimine: hübridne elu Ukraina kunstniku Jevgenia Belorusetsi ilukirjanduses  

Abstrakt: Käesolevas artiklis uuritakse biotõlget ja kunstilisi strateegiaid inimeste ja loomade maailma vahelises tõlkimises ukraina kirjaniku ja multimeedia kunstniku Jevgenia Belorusetsi loomingu näitel. Ökosemiootilisele lähenemisele, eriti biotõlke kontseptsioonile tuginedes uuritakse, kuidas kunstnik seab kahtluse alla antropotsentrilised esitusviisid, kasutades hübriidseid vorme ja liikidevahelisi perspektiive. Belorusetsi teos Loengute tsükkel loomade kaasaegsest elust (2021) kasutab kirjanduslikke ja fotograafilisi vahendeid, et lavastada inimeste ja loomade rollide vahetust, deautomatiseerides seeläbi taju ja kutsudes lugejaid alternatiivsetesse omailmadesse. Artikkel näitab zoosemiotika ja hübriidsuse semiootika prisma läbi, kuidas Belorusets loob loomade teadvuse kujutlusvõimelisi tõlkeid, mis vastanduvad mimetilisele esitusele. Tema praktikat tõlgendatakse ökosemiootilise aktina, mis kujundab ümber meie kultuurilise suhte mitte-inimlikuga, seades kahtluse alla inimese hegemoonilise positsiooni teadmiste loomisel ja esindamisel. Lõppkokkuvõttes positsioneerib artikkel kaasaegse kunsti semiootilise eksperimenteerimise kaudu ökoloogilise refleksiooni kohana. 

Märksõnad: biotõlge, ökosemiootika, kunstilised esitusviisid, Ukraina kunst  

Animal representations in art often act as embodiments of prevailing social attitudes toward nonhuman life and reflect broader ecological issues. Additionally, the creation of hybrid or mixed human-animal characters gives room to reflections on the animal within humans and humans as animals. Both themes are central to the artistic practice of Ukrainian artist Yevgenia Belorusets, who works at the intersection of literature, photography, and social activism. 

In this study, I aim to apply the concept of biotranslation and an ecosemiotic approach to the analysis of the artist’s fiction book The Cycle of Lectures on the Modern Life of Animals (2021), interpreting this artistic text and its multimedia extensions as an act of biotranslation. In this way, I am addressing broader questions such as what artistic strategies and imagery are employed to translate animal umwelten, how artistic practices relate to ecoactivism, and what artistic research can contribute to zoosemiotic inquiry. Using Belorusets’ work, I investigate how art can perform acts of biotranslation – not simply representing animals, but translating their umwelten into forms accessible and meaningful to human audiences. This process, situated within ecosemiotic and zoosemiotic approaches, opens a deeper discussion on how the appearance of animal representations in culture – and contemporary art in particular – can reconfigure the human-animal relationship and challenge the boundaries of anthropocentric thinking.

Biotranslation through the arts

Biotranslation, as a term, was coined by the German biologist and semiotician Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) and introduced primarily alongside his early biosemiotics ideas to describe the transfer of messages between the perceptual worlds (umwelten) of living organisms (Uexküll 1982), Uexküll describes biotranslation as “a general process in message transfer between the umwelten of organisms, including both intraspecific and in some cases also interspecific translation” (cited in Kull, Torop 2003: 315). Originally, it was formulated to extend the idea of translation beyond human sign systems and to situate it within communication processes across species. When discussed in relation to literary texts or other forms of art, biotranslation can be understood as a process “when the umwelt of another species is mediated to human readers in the form of literature or any other communication type characteristic of the human species” (Tüür 2016: 234). In this context, the arts – whether literary or visual – act as communicative systems of humans, creating a space for attempts to translate the nonhuman experience – particularly that of animals – into human semiotic frameworks. This occurs not just at a metaphorical level, but in some cases also on the level of reorienting perception.

Applying the concept of biotranslation to the arts, it is necessary to see it as built in the structure of the broader phenomenon of translation, which “can be situated along a continuum between conscious and unconscious processes” (Kull, Torop 2003: 316). Kalevi Kull and Peeter Torop distinguish two types of translation: eutranslation (logotranslation), as a conscious and directed act of translating, and biotranslation (protranslation), as an unconscious semiotic process. Rather than opposing one another, these processes run in parallel: eutranslation is languagecentred and operates on the level of explicit intention, while biotranslation emerges from embodied, pre-cognitive engagements with the world. However, even conscious translation “assumes an unconscious component, and every eutranslation assumes biotranslation” (Kull, Torop 2003: 316).

From this perspective, art that represents animal experience participates in a dual process: it consciously translates (eutranslates) the animal umwelt into human language (text, images, installation), while also relying on deeper, unconscious semiotic operations (biotranslation) that enable interspecies perception and empathy. If we see the artist as a translator, then biotranslation appears in many ways more fundamental than logotranslation. Logotranslation is limited to operations at the level of human language only. Instead, biotranslation, which involves an instinctive, sensory-level understanding of nonhuman species, may be a more essential key to interspecies communication. Still, one should keep in mind the differences and the limits of human-animal signification and the necessity of appealing to the reader’s imagination.

On the semiotic approach to animal representations and hybrid lives

Human representations of animal lives are thus not objective observations, but culturally embedded reconstructions – shaped by, and shaping, our own speciesspecific lifeworlds. To interpret such processes, I draw on the semiotic methodology for analysing animal representations developed by Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür (2014), along with Tüür’s (2016) further work on the textual presence of animals. These approaches reveal how cultural outputs, especially literary and artistic forms, mediate nonhuman perspectives and contribute to the shaping of human-animal relationships.

The way animals are represented in the arts and culture influences the broader social discourse and attitude towards nonhuman lives, which means artistic representations of animals can be regarded as a form of ecoactivism. For instance, an act of visual ecoactivism can take the form of depicting animals in ways that differ from human ideas of attractiveness, helping to draw attention to the lives of ‘less cute’ or less favoured species. As Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür (2014: 11) argue, “there is no such thing as a neutral or uncultured flow of signification in human life”, and our umwelten are deeply shaped by the representations made by someone else – by the artist, director, journalist, or writer. In this context, artistic practices that seek to represent animal lives participate in the construction of social reality. Acknowledging such power of representational practices, a choice to approach animal worlds through the frame of biotranslation can be influential and seen as an ecoactivist gesture. Biotranslation, as both an aesthetic and ethical strategy, destabilises dominant anthropocentric modes of seeing. By mediating animal experiences, even on the level of imaginative worlds and guessing, giving animal characters the role of narrators in the text, or showing equally weighted roles in human-animal dialogues, artists can set in motion new structural change.

One particularly generative strategy within this framework is the artistic creation and depiction of human-animal hybrids. Tiziana Migliore suggests that hybrid figures function as semiotic devices that foreground the tensions and entanglements between species (Migliore 2018: 221–223). Similarly, Nelly Mäekivi and Riin Magnus propose the concept of hybrid natures to describe how blending human and animal traits in literature and visual art can express more-than-human ontologies (Mäekivi, Magnus 2020: 1–7). These semiotic approaches show that hybrid lives in art are not only symbolic but also semiotic interventions – forms of thinking and sensing otherwise. Essentially, the artist’s act is to create a situation or a space where the animal in humans can meet alloanimals, and the human in animals can meet humans. A similar aesthetic strategy can be seen in contemporary artists like Annette Messager, Damien Hirst, and Maurizio Cattelan, who ironically challenge conventional representations of nature through the means of visual art.

Such theoretical perspectives offer valuable tools for analysing Yevgenia Belorusets’ work, which interrogates and resists anthropocentric frameworks by representing human-animal relations in the context of socio-political upheaval. Through a semiotic and ecocritical lens – particularly via the concepts of umwelt, biotranslation, and hybrid nature – her narrative practice participates in both representing and reconfiguring interspecies relationships. Her work becomes a space where new ecological subjectivities might emerge.

Using the example of the artist’s works, I want to describe the wider picture of the relationship between contemporary art and zoosemiotics, and animal life in general. Contemporary art, often defined simply as “the art that is being made now” (Smith 2009: 1), appears as a hybrid subject that always questions itself. But its ability to comment on socially relevant and globally shared issues makes it a powerful actor in shaping opinions on different topics, including the topicof human-animal relationships. As one of the qualities of contemporary art, Terry E. Smith puts it: “The question of what is shared and what is distinct between self and other, between one thing and another […] These questions inform every detail of the incessant negotiation between contemporaries, be they persons, animals, or things” (Smith 2009: 3). In this way, I would like to consider the arsenal of artistic methods and techniques in action – showing how limited the anthropocentric point of view truly is.

Yevgenia Belorusets and her multimedia project

The Cycle of Lectures on the Modern Life of Animals (2021) is a collection of literary and photographic narratives focusing on the relationships between modern humans and animals. The book is dedicated to the overlooked revolution in the field of animal protection that has taken place in Ukraine in recent years. Through her work, Belorusets sheds light on transformations within society. She considers attitudes toward animals as markers of social change and better selfunderstanding. She increases the visibility of the work of many initiatives and activists that had previously remained underground.^[1] The book is based on numerous interviews conducted by the artist. It was first published in June 2021 in English by isolarii (New York) under the title Modern Animal. From the publisher’s perspective, the book impartially explores how humans and animals shape and use each other within the context of a post-Soviet country, sometimes blurring the boundaries that distinguish them.^[2]

Zhyvy Kutochok / The Living Corner (2019–2021) is a photography series (the visual part of the book) in which Belorusets captures moments from the everyday lives of animals, treating the photos as documents for future studies of animal life. The title refers to the practice of organising “living corners” in Soviet schools and kindergartens – spaces intended to teach children how to care for plants and animals. In practice, however, they were often “small and dark spaces in classrooms where animals were kept within a frame of dogmatic pedagogical strategy. To teach children to love animals meant to teach them to see all of nature as clearly hierarchically subordinate to humans”.¹

The book is structured as a series of short essays, some of which take the form of lectures or lecture notes. The lecture format references Soviet pedagogical practices and rhetoric, while simultaneously highlighting the fragmentation of knowledge and the pseudoscientific approach. The entire project can be seen as a form of irony directed at the dominant role of the human, who chooses animals as objects of research, asserting their hegemony over knowledge.

Belorusets proposes a series of narrative experiments in the book by altering the position of the narrator. This causes a defamiliarisation effect, influencing the reader’s perception. For instance, in the second lecture – possibly delivered by an animal – humans are examined as objects, and the lecturer provides students with answers to future exam questions, such as: “If a human being needs the forest to live in, but an animal needs it too, whom will you give preference to? The right answer is ‘yes’” (Belorusets 2021: 11). In the first lecture, a similar role reversal occurs, albeit more subtly. The author takes all the clichéd phrases that humans use about animals and swaps the roles of animals and humans. It’s hard to believe that “each animal sees in a human only its own reflection, or the reflection of its own qualities” (Belorusets 2021: 7) – and not vice versa – but it might be true as well.

These kinds of experiments aim to reveal deeply rooted societal beliefs, established through the hegemony of the educational system, and often perceived as theoretical and far removed from real experiences. They are contrasted with the everyday challenges faced by both humans and animals, as well as the often-unseen work of activists. Part of the book includes the names and projects of Ukrainian activists who contributed to the creation of the essays through their work and interviews.

Yevgenia Belorusets’ literary work offers a space for exploring hybrid animal representations – beings that merge human and animal characteristics, both physically and metaphorically. These hybrids complicate our understanding of identity and consciousness, particularly in situations of social tension. Among the examples of hybrid animals in her stories are the following:

• Human–bird hybrid (Parents pushing the son out of the nest) (Belorusets 2021: 68–72)

A human figure learns from the instinctual behaviour of birds. This metaphor draws on animal practices to reflect emotional estrangement and the necessity of separation. The survival instinct in animals is transferred to a human context, highlighting emotional detachment and the pursuit of autonomy.

• Hippopotamus–rhinoceros hybrid female fighting a tiger (Belorusets 2021: 75)

A female hippopotamus–rhinoceros recounts a surreal battle with a tiger. This internalised animal conflict reflects the speaker’s perspective on gender relations and male domination. The narrative becomes an absurd projection of human gender roles onto the animal world – a metaphorical critique of power and imbalance.

• Chicken with a human soul (Belorusets 2021: 78–82)

In The Lecture on the Soul, a woman claims that her sister’s soul has entered a chicken, which now lives with two souls. This uncanny transformation blends the absurd with the mundane, reflecting the strange logic of life under extreme conditions. The soul transfer suggests the persistence of memory, kinship, and hybrid life forms, with the chicken appearing as a victim of magical manipulation.

• Frog Kiss Story (Belorusets 2021: 73–74)

A frog with a crocodile-like face – or wearing a crocodile mask – refuses to transform, defying the expectations of fairy-tale logic. This quiet resistance challenges normative ideas of change, improvement, and masculinity.

• Animal-Wife (Belorusets 2021: 38–45)

A woman becomes indistinguishable from an animal in her partner’s perception. This disturbing transformation into the animal Other critiques objectification and the dehumanisation present in certain intimate relationships.

Describing the difficulties of analysing such animal representations, I would start with the problem of the nature of the object. In the artistic vision previously described, we encounter animals with human characteristics and humans with animal qualities – on both physical and mental levels. The animals in Belorusets’s work, in a sense, have been described in ecosemiotic terms:

Whether there is always a ‘furry’, very much real animal that corresponds to a given animal representation is an open question, insofar as animal representations may also involve fantasy creatures with vaguer or fuzzier ancestors in real-life terms. (Tønnessen, Tüür 2014: 6)

In the artist’s text, there are no fantasy creatures as such. However, humans reenacting animal behaviour or animals speaking human language appear from time to time. Do these almost-hybrid characters correspond to real people or animals – only on the level of metaphor? Imagining animals thinking like humans, and vice versa, becomes an intriguing experiment: an attempt to exchange roles and to access animal consciousness. At the same time, it appeals to the necessity of embracing the animal within the human and learning to cope with instinctual drives.

Another difficulty in describing animal representations lies in the attempt to fill a gap that remains inaccessible to human consciousness:

Art, including literary creation, relies on carefully selected, elaborated, and sequenced representations of the reality that is accessible to us, as well as of the imaginary realms that need mediation in some art form in order to be shared between humans. (Tüür 2016: 222)

I would describe Belorusets’ art as a translation of imaginary realms into forms that, ultimately, shape our perception of reality. Her works suggest a particular viewpoint – a critique of the dominant human perspective – often conveyed through irony. However, as the imaginary prevails in the work, this process of biotranslation does not function in the same way as in nature writing or traditional art grounded in mimetic principles. What becomes important is the artist’s commentary on the necessity of coherent biotranslation – whether by artistic or scientific means – of animal umwelten. By inviting readers to use their imagination, she emphasises the importance of doing so, since the animal’s consciousness remains fundamentally inaccessible to us. Seeking possible solutions to this, we explore the potential of positioning ourselves within another umwelt, a process made more accessible through artistic experimentation. As Tüür states:

We as humans, especially in our written communication, cannot deny our perspective outside the limits of the umwelt of our species: we always perceive and conceptualize the world around us as representatives of the human species. Literary representation, however, enables us to create possible worlds and to position ourselves as if in other umwelten, without actually having to shapeshift. (Tüür 2016: 234)

The possible world created in Belorusets’ project invites readers to shift between the roles of human animals and alloanimals, engaging in a series of surreal stories. What becomes evident through these experiments is the impossibility of avoiding the imposition of human modes of thinking onto animal and hybrid characters. Consequently, one possible approach to representing animals here lies in creating points of encounter between the human and the animal within the reader. Allowing this imaginative interplay between these modes of being within the reader can, in part, be considered an act of biotranslation. 

Another key aspect of animal representations in contemporary art lies at the intersection of perceptual and ecological semiosis. In Belorusets’ work, perceptual semiosis is significant, as her representations are intentionally created for reception. Through both text and photography, she engages the viewer in confronting stereotypes and conventional attitudes toward animals. The multimodal nature of her project – which extends into the realm of exhibition – further deepens this engagement, inviting reflection across different sensory and conceptual levels.

At the same time, ecological semiosis plays a central role in her work. Rather than focusing solely on individual perception, Belorusets explores how animal representations are shaped by collective cultural frameworks – by meanings and assumptions that circulate widely within a society. These representations reflect shared ideologies, not just personal interpretations.

Within this context, the concept of hybridity becomes especially relevant. Hybridity appears both thematically and formally – in the merging of human and animal qualities, and in the blending of documentary and fictional strategies. Such representations raise questions about identity, beauty norms, and social inclusion.

The hybrid animal representations in Yevgenia Belorusets’ work are not just surreal devices – they are tools for critical perception, allowing access to suppressed experiences, emotional estrangement, and cultural critique. Through her multimodal storytelling, she practices a form of imaginative biotranslation that does not seek to mimic the animal but to expand human empathy and perception. This practice acknowledges the limitations of our species-bound perspective. It also asserts the necessity of artistic experimentation as a way to reconfigure relationships across species boundaries. Through such representations, we are asked not only to reflect on how we perceive animals, but how animality already inhabits us.

Zoosemiotics and artistic methodology: Empathy, deautomatisation, and activist perspectives

Another notion I address in this paper is the role of art, artworks, or artistic methodology in the context of zoosemiotics. What does artistic research contribute to zoosemiotic inquiry? Is art even important for fulfilling zoosemiotics’ mission? Tønnessen and Tüür summarise Martinelli’s view of zoosemiotics’ goals:

the mission of zoosemiotics, in its relation to the humanities, is twofold: first, to examine whether properties that have been conceived of as uniquely human are in fact so, or whether they appear in the animal kingdom (or even larger realms of life) beyond humanity as well. And second, to examine the role of animals in human life and culture (Tønnessen, Tüür 2014: 12).

The mission of art, in this case, aligns with the examination of the role of animals in human life. Art aims not only to represent but also to organise the experience of engaging with representation, shaping attitudes and social trends in society.

Empathy

The human ability for empathy, in my interpretation, is a central element in the perception of Belorusets’ work. It aids attempts to understand the animals’ umwelt, even without prior knowledge. Empathy – understood as “a complex capability enabling individuals to understand and feel the emotional states of others, resulting in compassionate behavior” (Riess 2017: 74) – can be developed through artistic engagement, particularly when one positions oneself in the umwelt of another.

Imagining ourselves as animals, as well as envisioning animals as humans – both visually and metaphorically – is not a scientific method but a purely artistic one for getting to the essence of experience. It requires imagination, intuition, and the ability to share feelings. Empathy is therefore key in both the creation and perception of animal representations. It can also lead to shifts in ecological discourse at the societal level. How humans treat animals often reflects how they treat each other.

Deautomatisation and the Activist Perspective

I do not underestimate the effect of deautomatisation, which makes Belorusets’ work especially impactful. The concept of ostranenie(defamiliarisation or deautomatisation), proposed by Viktor Shklovsky in 1919 (Shklovsky [1919] 1990), remains highly relevant when analysing her artistic strategies. Her stories and images challenge the audience to encounter the ordinary – animals, domestic routines, human relationships – in unfamiliar and often disquieting ways. This effect becomes particularly strong when the works present the surreal in mundane settings.

However, the power of deautomatisation may feel attenuated when it comes to the theme of hybridity. In many ways, we are already culturally conditioned to see hybrids through the long history of mythology, folklore, and visual tradition. Yet, Belorusets gives hybridity a new contemporary edge. In her stories, hybrids are not grand mythical figures but marginal, awkward presences – a sister reincarnated as a chicken, a woman gradually perceived as an animal by her partner, or birds whose behaviour mirrors human estrangement. These are not spectacle-driven hybrids but quiet, unsettling ones. They function less as fantastic creatures and more as figures of otherness – representing those who live at the edges of normative social structures, raising concerns central to Queer theory and anti-normative critique.

Belorusets’ characters celebrate difference, vulnerability, and the refusal to fit in. Her hybrids suggest that human and animal attributes are not opposites but entangled forms of being – each carrying meaning, dignity, and emotion. It is telling that in her work, the hybridisation is often unbalanced: the human becomes chicken, the woman becomes animal – not through costume or fantasy, but through subtle shifts in perception and narration. These beings occupy liminal zones. They are neither fully human nor comfortably animal, neither completely metaphorical nor entirely real. It is an artistic choice to build a narration about animal lives, how to translate animal unwelten, and what methods and images to use to create emotional and conceptual impact. But seeing humans and alloanimals as co-living organisms that share traits with one another, and immersing readers in similar liminal, hybrid states, shows how the processes of biotranslation align with artistic strategies of representation.

Conclusion

The artistic practice of Yevgenia Belorusets offers new perspectives for examining the complex relationships between humans and animals in contemporary art. Through her multimodal projects, she challenges conventional views, blurs boundaries, and reflects on societal attitudes toward animals. Belorusets’ multimedia approach, as seen in The Cycle of Lectures on the Modern Life of Animals, amplifies the voices of activists and animal rights initiatives in Ukraine. Her work becomes a platform for empathy and introspection, urging viewers to confront the ethical consequences of human actions on the nonhuman world.

Analysing her practice through the lenses of semiotics, empathy, and biotranslation, we see how she uses art to mediate between human and animal umwelten. Her representations of animals, often imagined or anthropomorphised, act as translations of inaccessible perspectives into forms that human audiences can engage with. Belorusets does not claim to fully access the animal perspective but foregrounds the limits and potentials of imagination as a tool for bridging this gap. Her work thus contributes to the deconstruction of dominant anthropocentric narratives and promotes a more inclusive and respectful relationship between species by opening up a dialogic space where animals are not merely symbols but participants in shared meaning-making.

References:

Belorusets, Yevgenia 2021. A Series of Lectures on Modern Life of Animals. Kyiv: IST publishing – 128.

Mäekivi, Nelly; Magnus, Riin 2020. Hybrid Natures – Ecosemiotic and Zoosemiotic Perspectives.    Biosemiotics 13: 1–7.

Migliore, Tiziana 2018. The Mixed Category Human-Animal in New Anthropology and in the Arts. In: Marrone, Gianfranco; Mangano, Dario (eds.), Semiotics of Animals in Culture. Zoosemiotics 2.0. Berlin: Springer, 165–179.

Kull, Kalevi; Torop, Peeter 2003. Biotranslation: Translation between Umwelten. In: Petrilli, Susan   (eds.), Translation Translation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 313–328.

Riess, Helen 2017. The Science of Empathy. Journal of Patient Experience 4(2): 74–77. 

Smith, Terry E. 2009. What is contemporary art? University of Chicago Press.

Tønnessen, Morten; Tüür, Kadri 2014. The semiotics of animal representations: Introduction. In: Tüür, Kadri; Tønnessen. Morten (eds.), The Semiotics of Animal Representations. (Nature, Culture and Literature 10) Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 7–30.

Tüür, Kadri 2016. Semiotics of textual animal representations. In: Maran, Timo; Tønnessen, Morten;  Rattasepp, Silver (eds.), Animal Umwelten in a Changing World: Zoosemiotic Perspectives. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 222−238.

Shklovsky, Viktor 1990 [1919]. Art as Device. In: Theory of Prose. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1-15.

Uexküll, Jakob von 1982. The Theory of Meaning. Semiotica 42(1): 25-82.

Non-Academic Sources:

Beloruset, Yevgenia 2023. Yevgenia Belorusets. Available: https://belorusets.com.