Man takes vacation from being human, becomes goat

 By 
Max Knoblauch
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Some people use their vacation time to go to Disney World. Thomas Thwaites used his to become a goat.

Having commissioned prosthetic limbs in order to make the experience more authentic, the England-based designer lived among a goat herd for three days in September 2014. An exhibition of Thwaites' work with the goats will be made available to the public in London next month.

Thwaites told Mashable in an email that the project came out of a desire to simplify his life; to take a vacation from his problems.

"My goal was to take a holiday from the pain and worry of being a self-conscious being, able to regret the past and worry about the future," he said.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Aside from the prosthetics, Thwaites prepared by studying the cognitive and physical aspects of what it's like to literally be a goat. He visited a behavioral psychologist and neurologist to study "turning off" parts of his brain in order to think more like a goat. He spoke to an expert in animal locomotion to nail down their movement. Even further, he met with a biologist to see about making an artificial rumen (a part of the goat's stomach) in order to digest grass.

To put it simply: He did not take this lightly.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

According to Motherboard, the farmer whose herd was grazing with Thwaites thought that the goats had accepted him.

Thwaites wrote a book about the experience, called GoatMan: How I Took a Holiday from Being Human, which is set to publish in April 2016.

Take a look at a few more images of Thwaites' time as a goat below.

[nggallery id="23958" layout="list" title="top"]

H/T: Motherboard

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