Animal Attractants (2019)

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Animal Attractants layers my early morning routine with deer hunting sounds and scents in order to boost my feelings of aggression, virility, and attractiveness so I can be more socially successful in the mid-thirties mating zone of Highlandtown, Baltimore. In a series of videos viewers  see me workout, meditate, and groom before leaving my house for the day. By pairing my morning routine with hunting sounds and scents I am reprogramming my subconscious to believe I am participating in manlier American activities - making my working out more macho, and impregnating my less masculine activities like meditating and grooming with more testosterone. 

In Animal Attractants I am experimenting with ideas of self-improvement through the subconscious, conditioning, and the placebo. Because I already associate hunting with a type of aggression and masculinity I have never participated in, exposing myself to those sounds and scents might make my morning routine more efficient at sculpting a new essence. If someone giving you a glass of wine and telling you it is good can affect how it tastes to you, then hunting sounds and scents that American culture have told me are more masculine can affect how masculine I feel. By layering these sounds and scents over my early morning routine I can carry boosted feelings of aggression, virility, and attractiveness with me through the day into Highlandtown bars in the evening. By making some aspects of my morning routine unpleasant, such as the strenuous workout or the strength of the deer scent, I increase the chances that my subconscious will run with the idea I am engaged in building my aggression.