Individual Lemming by Attila Szilvasi

The Norwegian Lemming is a rodent mammal, native in North Scandinavia. This small gopher-like creature has the peculiar habit of gathering in groups and looking for new territory every 3 or 4 years when they overpopulate a certain place and there is a lack of food. During this migration they face several natural obstacles, some of them die and sometimes they throw themselves into the sea without sense in large numbers. That gave rise to the legend of lemmings committing mass suicide.

However one of my generation’s first associations about the Lemmings is one of the most popular computer games of the 90’s, the Lemmings. In this game, different from the original example, some lemmings helped the group to achieve their goals. But still this didn’t make them look different from the others. At that time during the game I used to think about whether they really all the same inward? There might exist among them an Individual Lemming…