Exploring the layers of meaning ascribed to any performative act, series of gestures, clothing and other 'coded' associations - and the possible results when conflicting, even opposed, semiotic systems collide in the same space. This started life as an idea for a live drag show routine, and has been elaborated for a domestic setting.
Playfulness exploring a serious mode of presentation/assumption on the part of the viewer with performer (dressed, and initially acting consistent with being) as a dominatrix which then becomes evident that I am "only playing" in that mode cf. Sartre/Laing.
Thereby we have layers on top of layers which then peel themselves away to expose new layers underneath, and the collision of multiple opposing personae materialized in the same physical form - a reflection of the non binary and trans person, who must deal with being in-betweenness, and duality. But also: which of the layers that we see is the 'real' or 'true' one? Are any of them?
The aim is therefore to play with semiotics and signs - to encourage belief in one 'type' or 'form', and then subvert that with revelation of another, opposing character or type (cf. the underlying 'masculine' biological body upon which is draped the signifiers of a certain type of 'femininity', which then devolves to another - opposite - 'type' of femininity (in the way that the male body has mapped upon it signifiers of the 'opposing' gender, thereby creating a 'third gender' which presents as neither).
So the old 1+1=3 equation of the hermaphrodite/ambiguous form created from juxtaposing the other 2.
The sequence was continued in The Final Layer, which parodies the conventional striptease routines common in the 1960s-1970s.
