Intel­li­gent Design, 2008

HD Digit­al video, 16:9

08:47 min.

Filmed in Santa Cruz, Galápa­gos, Ecuador

Cam­era and sound by Mar­cus Coates

Pro­duced by Galápa­gos Con­ser­va­tion Trust and Cal­ouste Gul­ben­ki­an Found­a­tion Galápa­gos Artists’ Res­id­ency Programme

Dur­ing a res­id­ency on the Galápa­gos Islands, Ecuador, Coates spent many hours with the cap­tive giant tor­toises at the Charles Dar­win Research Sta­tion. He filmed two Galápa­gos giant tor­toises unsuc­cess­fully attempt­ing to mate. Des­pite their pre­his­tor­ic oth­er­world­li­ness, he was drawn to the human-like vocal expres­sion in their efforts.

‘Intel­li­gent Design’ is an idea developed by a group of Amer­ic­an cre­ation­ists in the 1980s in oppos­i­tion to Darwin’s the­ory of nat­ur­al selec­tion. It pro­poses that all life, because of its ingenu­ity, must have been designed by an intel­li­gent cre­at­or. Coates’s foot­age of the failed attempt to mate ques­tions the idea of per­fec­tion that this assumes.