Finding time for a rare post hereabouts whilst taking a break from thinking about the practice-based research, and what may be getting presented at my exam. The outright ban inflicted by Youtube against my video account there has, following an initial period of disbelief, turned into more fertile ground. I hadn't expected to be making any new work specifically for the examination, but this incident has fuelled some concepts. One is a garish 1960s/70s-style exploitation poster, inviting the viewer [the unsuspecting examiners] to "see what was BANNED by Youtube!!!" or something to that effect. Humour and parody are rarely far away from the surface of my work, and I believe it is an underrated element of certain forms of art practice.
I've already addressed this happening in an endnote in the written thesis, which may or may not make the final draft. Far from a personal sniff at falling foul of a site's Ts & Cs, I find this may have far-reaching implications if the 'sex & nudity' policy is actually analysed:
The key phrase is right at the top: "meant to be sexually gratifying" (my emphasis). I appealed the decision of course with this exact phrase outlined and dissected, to no avail. Because seemingly, two seconds of a non-erect penis at the end of a performance poem is "meant to be sexually gratifying". That therefore means that, according to their own Ts & Cs, Bump 'n Grind is genuinely pornographic and made with pornographic intent. And there I was thinking it was a piece of burlesque performance made in pursuit of a PhD, but seemingly an American AI bot run by a Surveillance Capitalist data-harvesting operation knows my work and my intentions better than I do.
Thankfully, I already had a Vimeo account up and running.
Do I consider this some kind of silencing of trans and NB artists and voices? No, not as yet. But it's an interesting, if disturbing, thought, and one that can only provide further fuel to my current creative output.
