Gathering the Threads: Revisiting Myth as Reference

Last week's storm of Wagnerian proportions, appropriatyely enough for me, was reaching its peak as I delivered my first public paper (on the Old English interpretation of the Valkyries) to the 'Doing Things with Old Norse Myth: A Research & Cultural Symposium on Mythological Processes', Aarhus Old Norse Mythology conference series, Reykjavík, on 26 November. Whilst seemingly not directly related in any way to this current line of research (the paper is a very abbreviated form of my MFAAH Humanities essay for Old English texts class), I wanted to use this big step into the academic realm as a means to rethink how my many and varied influences and interests cross-pollinate the work I do. Whilst the paper dealt with literary, linguistic and mythological concerns, at its heart still lies my interest in 'non-standard' beings, forms and entities: in this case, a class of female spirits who 'de-sex' themselves to operate in a masculine environment, to the point of 'cross-dressing' into male war-gear, with shields, helms and armour. This radical breaching of social and gendered boundaries is hardly alien to my recent studies of trans, non-binary and queer aesthetics andpersonhood. Several of the other talks, too, intersected my own interests and work (whether in their approach to archaeological human remains, artefact relics or literary/mythological body forms), and I was able to make some very interesting contacts in the field. As a result I'm already thinking about a new paper for next year's Aarhus event: on the topic of the female voice in myth and literature, its sonic use in certain contemporary genres of music (e.g. Viking metal, folk metal), and its tendency to be dissolved negatively into 'noise' by misogynistic concerns with reference to Gnaomi Siemens' notions of the ancient female voice as queer.

All this also gives me the chance to revisit one of my original research proposal questions: why certain non-standard forms, such as the hermaphrodite, the androgyne, the 'queer' or otherwise subversive influence (cf. Loki, in the Lokasenna) persist in mythological, legendary and poetic narratives (existing happily in theory) and yet are marginalized and oppressed in practice.

This is all early-career stuff at the moment, but the most exciting aspect of delivering the paper was how it has managed to re-unite the multiple threads of my source materials and reinvigorate my reference points.

Where have all the opinions gone..?

 As discussed recently with my first supervisor, I've already encountered one of the potential stumbling blocks in this line of research: we cannot force people to react, or interact, with a work, or with anybody else. Hoping to rekindle the kind of debates and discussions on gendered aesthetics I used to have on Deviantart.com when I was a member there 2007-2017, I rejoined a month ago and posted the three images comprising the '3 Questioning Cartoons' series. Despite several hundred hits apiece, zero comments and a few likes each (which I would more than happily trade for actual feedback) are all that have been received to date.

I later posted a photographic pinup work from the first semester of my MFAAH and discovered that even the trolls now no longer have the courage of their own convictions:

Whilst getting into fiery debates about self-image, gender identity and trans rights isn't my best idea of a good time, part of the point of this research is to understand why people insist upon thinking a specific way, and the fact they continue to do so is why this research exists at all. It occurs to me that 'comment culture' and feedback have become deprecated in recent years thanks to other social media and forms of interaction, where all that matters is a single 'like' or 'dislike' click, and number of 'hits'. That, and the tendency for many to explode with fury at the slightest provocation, the mindset which sees any form of response (that is not 100% cuddly-positive) as beyond offensive and a flagrant breach of their human rights, and it's no wonder that some just choose to not enter that arena in the first place. But being in the arena, one expects to be met with furious tigers and big guys swinging swords, not tumbleweeds and distant, unanswered cat-calls.

I must be one of the few artists or internet users around who longs for the days when people just posted whatever the hell they felt like saying...all in the interests of research, of course.

The Beginning: The Proposal

Starting at the beginning: the revised, abbreviated, and fairly rough proposal which was accepted by my supervisory team in autumn 2021, and which frames all the work, research, thinking and tangents which follow.
Title: Towards an Ontology of Gendered Aesthetics: Surveying Topologies of Self and Other in Performance, Society and Media

Description: A practice-led exploration, analysis and critique of the non-binary body in representation, in private reality and being, and in the public consciousness

Research Questions:
Why do some symbols persist universally in human collective consciousness (e.g. the hermaphrodite being, myths of gender-swapping beings/heroes, shamanistic bi-gendered ambiguity) and are yet ridiculed, challenged and suppressed in society and culture?
What constitutes an “acceptable” depiction of a non-standard body – is there such a thing? In what contexts?
Why can ‘niche’ areas like stage performance in an arts context and pornography seem less exclusionary of the Other in gender identity than the general public sphere?

Influenced by trans writer Juliet Jacques’ call for an écriture trans-féminine (after Cixous, see http://julietjacques.com), I hope to explore areas of experience and inner vs outer perception: for example in sexual contexts (e.g online interactions), and in general perceptions – a return to my ‘phiz/phys’ (physiognomy/physicality correspondence/duality) and how the Sartrian ‘look’ of the Other builds (or destroys) the inner sense of selfhood, creating a very real ‘hell’ that is ‘other people’ for those of non-cis gender. My own recent experience in online sex work (documented privately at some length last autumn) may shed some light on the darker (i.e., less illuminated, often ignored/stigmatised) side of non-cis/het being and lived experiences, responses, and interactions. This field of investigation helps to respond to 2 of my initial research questions:

1. What constitutes an “acceptable” depiction of a non-standard body – is there such a thing? In what contexts?
2. Why can ‘niche’ areas like stage performance in an arts context and pornography seem less exclusionary of the Other in gender identity than the general public sphere?

Trans discussions of sexual experiences may be accused of paraphiliac undertones (e.g. autogynephilia¹, fetishized cross-dressing, auto-erotic narcissism) but this must not bar the genuine lived experiences of others from being regarded on the same level as cis/het or gay/lesbian expressions of queer sex, attraction, and problems (attitudes, prejudices) encountered therein. A key text here: Julia Serano, Whipping Girl.

As recent MFAAH work has covered much mythologically-inspired practice, I’ll use the myth/collective unconscious aspect as a starting point, through references to hermaphroditism/bisexuality (cf. Juliet Mitchell, Feminism & Psychoanaysis).
Reiterating the flattening of high/low socio-cultural dichotomies (cf. Takeshi Murakami’s ‘Superflat’ theory) and interrogating those same existing structures (cf. Foucault, Stallybrass & White writing after Bakhtin on the grotesque body and carnivalesque – also Linda Neade, The Female Nude) - exploring the rhizomatic forms of such structures and where these structures break down (or don’t), and where fetishized constructions and judgement values are applied in a specific non-cis context (whilst acknowledging limited work already exploring, for example, non-fetishized attraction in males to transwomen – see Evangelista, 2020). As I already have a documentary body of work from these experiences, I’ve (tentatively) begun a series of photographic pieces echoing both the artist-as-sculpture concepts of Bruce McLean (‘Nice Style’ pose band, ‘Pose Works for Plinth’) and the fetishistic sculptures of Allen Jones (‘Women as Furniture’) in which I respond directly to the gaze of viewers, conversations, demands and comments received during my 5 months of online wor in 2020². Hence, the performativity of trans selfhood and how performance constructs the self through the reactions gained from others in a certain symbiosis (expectation→ reaction → fulfilment). Another key text: Laura Mulvey, Visual & Other Pleasures.

Returning to the phiz/phys concept of perceived gender aesthetics, what constitutes gendered (usually arbitrary/essentialist) human features and body parts? Hence, drawings/renderings of ‘difficult’ (ambiguous) comic-book style portraits and subjects as a response to the 2018 Comicsgate debacle, and negativity directed against my own works in this field over the years: thus, a challenge to fixed positions of ‘gendered faces and bodies’, and exploration of the narrow field of cis/het male expectation with regard to the aesthetics of female characters and representation (as well as trans/NB characters³). This may then move into public anonymized surveying.

A starting point for possible research outcome: Penthesilea (film), Mulvey & Woollen, 1974.

1 Admittedly a controversial term, which warrants further analysis as my work hopes to cover not only the trans/NB person as perceived by the Other, but also how such persons perceive themselves, and behave/display themselves as a result of this inner perception (as well seeing Self as Other).
2 From an ethical and data collecting point of view, such statements and attitudes may have limited value – one issue raised against the Stanford ‘gay face’ study was that it utilised image data pulled from adult dating sites. The best use of these messages might be the informing of art practice rather than as ‘hard’ data or research, given the circumstances in which most of them were created – although they do present a spectrum of attitude and perception towards the author in a specific anonymised, social context, from a broad cross-section of male viewers – wherein, the intersection of race, nationality/culture, language, and even income became apparent.
3 Traditionally, female readers are far happier with androgynous figures than males – hence the great popularity of Japanese anime and manga among queer and female fans and creators.