Twenty Years Later: Revisiting “Animal Consciousness” and the Unexpected Journey It Started

In 2006, while studying at SAE, I produced a documentary essay entitled Animal Consciousness.

At the time, the project was simply an academic assignment. Yet the question at its center proved to be anything but simple:

What does it mean for an animal to be conscious?

The documentary gathered interviews and perspectives from researchers and specialists interested in cognition, perception, and the possibility that animals experience the world in ways that are richer than we often assume.

You can watch the documentary essay for Arte here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Aykt7PezCM

Producing the film required extensive travel and field work. Scenes and interviews were collected across Belgium and France, including Paris, Antwerp, and Knokke. For a student project, it was an ambitious undertaking, driven largely by curiosity rather than any expectation that it would influence future work.

Twenty years later, however, I find myself returning to many of the same questions.

From Documentary Film to Scientific Curiosity

Over the years, my artistic activities expanded into writing, documentary production, music, poetry, and experimental cinema through Lurch Productions and the Namasthay project.

At the same time, my professional life increasingly intersected with scientific and technological research through Ajinomatrix, sensory science, AI-assisted cognition, and more recently, animal communication studies.

This convergence eventually led to the creation of the Canine Communication Research initiative (CCR).

The original question never disappeared:

How much of animal experience are we currently able to understand?

The Emergence of Canine Communication Research

Recent years have witnessed growing interest in canine AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication), particularly through the use of communication buttons and other symbolic systems.

While enthusiasm has grown, so has the need for methodological rigor.

This has led to the preparation of the scientific manuscript:

“Methodological Safeguards for Exploratory Canine AAC Research Under Interpretive Uncertainty”

currently under review by the journal Animal Sentience.

The paper does not claim to have solved the mystery of animal communication.

Rather, it asks a more important question:

How can exploratory research be conducted responsibly when interpretation itself remains uncertain?

The challenge is not only understanding what animals say.

It is understanding how humans interpret what animals may be communicating.

Pretty’s Journey

Another consequence of this exploration has been the publication of Pretty’s Journey.

The book follows experiences, observations, and reflections inspired by Pretty, a dog whose behavior helped generate questions about communication, perception, and interspecies understanding.

Rather than presenting definitive answers, the book invites readers into the process of inquiry itself.

Because science often begins not with certainty, but with attention.

Toward Pet University

The educational implications of these questions have become increasingly clear.

If animal cognition and communication are developing scientific fields, then future generations deserve accessible educational pathways to explore them.

This idea contributed to the emergence of Pet University, an educational initiative designed to explore learning, behavior, cognition, welfare, and communication across multiple species.

The ambition is simple:

To create bridges between researchers, educators, animal professionals, and curious citizens.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

When I revisit Animal Consciousness today, I do not see a perfect documentary.

I see a beginning.

A young filmmaker attempting to understand a profound question.

Twenty years later, the tools have changed. Artificial intelligence exists. Citizen science has expanded. Animal communication research has become increasingly visible.

Yet the central mystery remains.

Animals continue to challenge our assumptions about intelligence, language, awareness, and consciousness.

Perhaps that is precisely why the subject remains so fascinating.

The anniversary publication of Animal Consciousness is therefore more than a retrospective release.

It is a reminder that some questions are worth pursuing for decades.

And that sometimes a student documentary unexpectedly becomes the first chapter of a much larger story.

Related Resources

• Canine Communication Research: https://www.caninecommunicationresearch.org/blog

• Pretty’s Journey: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Gabriel-Wayenberg-ebook/dp/B0DYK6QVMW

• Lurch Productions: https://www.lurchproductions.net

Keywords:animal consciousness, animal sentience, canine communication, dog cognition, animal behavior, animal intelligence, interspecies communication, canine AAC, pet university, animal research, documentary film, Lurch Productions, Gabriel Wayenberg, François Wayenberg