One of cinema’s foundational films, Thomas Edison’s 60-second actuality film Electrocuting an Elephant (1903) documents the tragic circumstances surrounding the first appearance of an elephant on screen. As the title makes explicit, the film records the killing of an Asian elephant named Topsy, a circus performer, in front of a small crowd at Coney Island. Topsy was fed poisoned carrots, electrocuted and strangled, with the electrocution ultimately killing her.1¹ The film was used to demonstrate the power of electricity, a new invention at the time, and was initially played on the Edison kinetoscopes. The ‘shock’ of the film, as Lesley Stern has described, functions like an electrical charge transferred to the body of the spectator, decentring human perception and knowledge.2²

中文翻译：

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大象的声音：Kirsten Tan 的 Pop Aye 与东南亚的环境对话

作为电影的基础电影之一，托马斯·爱迪生的 60 秒真人电影《电死大象》（1903 年）记录了大象首次出现在银幕上的悲惨境遇。正如片名所言，这部电影记录了在康尼岛的一小群人面前杀死一头名叫托普西的亚洲象，他是一名马戏团演员。Topsy 被喂了有毒的胡萝卜，被电死并勒死，触电最终杀死了她。^{1 1}这部电影被用来展示电力的力量，这是当时的一项新发明，最初是在爱迪生的电影放映机上播放的。正如莱斯利·斯特恩（Lesley Stern）所描述的，这部电影的“震撼”就像电荷转移到观众的身体上，使人类的感知和知识分散^{。2 2}