Iranian artists' sculpture misrepresented online as real-life 'human-dog hybrid'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 19, 2022 at 11:09
3 min read
By AFP Philippines

A video has been viewed millions of times in Facebook, TikTok and YouTube posts that falsely claim it shows a "human-dog hybrid". Comments on the posts indicated some social media users believed the claim. But the clip actually shows a sculpture by two Iranian artists spliced with unrelated footage about animal testing.

The video was shared on Facebook on August 4.

It begins with footage of beagles being transported and caged, before cutting to a clip of what appears to be a cell under a microscope.

It then cuts again to footage of a hairy human-like creature lying in the corner of a room.

The text superimposed on the video reads: "Human hybrid Human & Dog. Watch til the end".

Screenshot of the false post taken on August 18, 2022

The video was viewed more than six million times alongside a similar claim on Facebook here; on TikTok here and here; and on YouTube here.

Comments on the posts indicated some people believed the video shows a real-life human-dog hybrid.

"I like science but dude, what the hell," one wrote.

"These experiments are now becoming too much," another commented.

In fact, the video shows a sculpture by two Iranian artists.

'Sculpture of imaginary creature'

A combined reverse image search and keyword search found a photo of the sculpture published on the website for the Georges-Philippe and Nathalie Vallois art gallery in the French capital Paris.

According to a press release on the same page, the photo is from a 2022 exhibition by Iranian artists Peyman Barabadi and Babak Alebrahim Dehkordi -- also known as Peybak.

Responding to the false posts, the artists told AFP their artwork is "just a sculpture of an imaginary creature."

"It's made of sponge and robotic parts for its movement of breathing," they said.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in one of the false posts (left) and the photo of the sculpture published by the art gallery (right):

A representative for the art gallery separately told AFP the video shows the sculpture they exhibited.

"We have exhibited [it] at the gallery and [it's] NOT a human-dog hybrid at all," the representative said.

"We are amazed that such nonsense can pop up in the minds of people!"

Unrelated footage

The other clips in the video have previously circulated in YouTube posts that do not mention human-dog hybrids.

Clips showing the caged beagles were taken from longer footage published by animal rights group Last Chance for Animals on November 30, 2017.

The post's description says the footage was taken from an undercover investigation at animal testing laboratories in 2016.

"This footage shows how beagles are housed improperly abused and thrown away when their 'usefulness' expires," reads the caption in part.

The clip that appears to show the microscopic cell corresponds to this YouTube video on a France-based health channel from May 12, 2013 titled "FIV ICSI".

ICSI -- an acronym for intracytoplasmic sperm injection -- is an in vitro fertilisation technique through which a single sperm is injected directly into the egg.

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