(em)Bodied Animal Training is a speculative portal, a device not for mere human fitness, but for rethinking kinship across species lines.
Created by Federico Godino and Natalie Blom, this sculptural apparatus invites humans to train their bodies and minds to imagine the world of the bat, an elusive, nocturnal existence that thrives in the shadows of Milan’s semi-abandoned spaces. It is not just a tool, but an act of reconfiguration, a deliberate displacement of the human gaze that asks: what might it mean to become the creatures we often ignore?
The project dismantles anthropocentric assumptions and repositions humans within the ecosystems they inhabit. The device itself resembles a gymnasium tool for sculpting the imagination, offering exercises in therianthropy: the ancient cross-cultural practice of inhabiting animal perspectives. Activating this speculative empathy, the sculpture asks participants to perceive the city as bats do, through vibrations, shadows and echolocative whispers.
(em)Bodied Animal Training insists on the political and ecological importance of what is left behind. It challenges the logic of endless city construction, reclaiming abandoned land as sites of resistance and kinship building. Here, humans and bats are no longer separate entities, but co-creators of a shared urban future, bound together in a fragile and transformative dance.