This project explores humans and rats, and what we can learn by exploring the boundaries between the two. With reference to Jimmy Reid’s Rat Race speech, I began my research by investigating the symbolic weight of the rat, and how language is used to connect different species. Eventually, I undertook a week-long research project which combined the Situationist technique of dérive with nocturnal living, with the aim of observing both human and rat behaviour. I set up a trail camera to collect footage of rats, and I spoke to as many people as I could, with the goal of connecting the dots between members of different species which both find refuge in the night. Degree show presented an interesting challenge for me as I had to figure out how to best represent the volume of writing, conversation, footage and feeling generated by my research. My choice of material reflects the austere, cold and clinical nights I spent wandering around the city centre. The rat can never reach its goal, orbiting the mouldy pie with the same futility found in our current urban capitalist model. By finding these parallels between this work and the real world, we are encouraged to consider a failing society in which people are reduced to vermin – the Rat Race.

For a week in April, I undertook the process of ‘becoming rat’. I became nocturnal, sleeping from 8:00 until 14:00. I lived in the Sink Space in Stow, dividing up the space into chambers for each of my daily activities. I walked around all night, becoming overly familiar with my immediate surroundings. I observed Sauchiehall Street come to life, people start and then end their shifts as the new day rolled in. I watched the gulls, the rats and the foxes. I met some wonderful people: Gary, Aldo and Akai to name a few. The whole time with the noise of the roaring M8 soundtracking every observation and every interaction.