Thoughts on the Thesis, Performativity and Theatricality

 Long time no post: much writing and rewriting of the thesis, and production of practical works (and performances) have held me back from posting lately. But with my viva now approaching, it seemed like a good time to catch up with some reflective thinking - some of it still sketchy - on what I'm doing, how, why, and for whom.

Performance and Performativity

The research poster I created earlier this year addressed my sense of theatricality as an artifice that knows it is an artifice, citing place as a space for performance to occur. Therein, the ubiquitous nature of the red curtain which is knowingly a backdrop which operates solely as a backdrop to focus on the action, and hide the domestic banality beneath. The curtain as a signifier of theatricality, of artifice: the knowledge that what follows is not fact, but a narrative composition.

My sense of dress and the theatrical in terms of display, action and dress. The sense that there are layers beneath which are more 'real' as in (Layer Upon Layer). Theatrical garb/performance as an overt acknowledgment of the theatricality of being, the knowing that what is presented is a fabrication of some sort. There is artifice at work, often knowingly and explicitly, but as to how  deep is dependent upon the subjective  readings of the performer as a person, beneath the acknowledged layers of artifice (hats, gloves, boas etc.) To a point I can separate work from person, though any attack upon a performance could be seen as a veiled ad hominem, but on the reverse, I can always flip the argument to refer it to a persona rather than the person beneath.

Theatre of performance, theatre of objectivity. The 'sex object' aspect. Who is my audience? Who are my audiences? Qualitative: as distinct from Shirley, who disavows working FOR any kind of audience. My work demands audiences plural, but they will vary for each area of my work and pracvtice. My webcam paying audience will not be the same as my Hardwired or Punk Opera audiences. As Sprinkle says, her audience grows along with her - but also, they vary according to my works. My live performance is dependent upon some level of give and take (e.g Bump n Grind requires "the dreaded audience participation" - a lack of which has actually informed how far to take the piece, as discovered on my opening night of the Dundee Fringe, 2023).

My work is presented 'as is'. A nonbinary body subject to subjective readings of the person and self (note the Fringe reviewer's use of 'she/her' pronouns on my show). I do not 'aim' to be accepted or 'read' as anything, as in a drag show - I am simply me, embodying my own sense of me, being, self. My work relies upon audience, only in the sense that each member of an audience will ‘read’ me in their own subjective way.

Is there a sense of 'connivance' at work within female and trans-generated porn whether amateur, or especially, professional - in the sense of 'pleasing the crowd' and therefore tending to conform to standards of heteronormative expectation - to what extent is the dominant culture internalised?* (I recognised this tendency within myself long ago, and aimed to subvert it (e.g. my comix which led to the ‘phiz/phys’ concept), and utilise it in whatever way I could, rather than trying deny its over 40-year influence upon me.

Fragmentation as a theme – interconnectivity between related, and also disparate, elements and works (or components of works). Fragments of the artist’s self and persona are presented via monologues, personae and other imagery, sometimes with autobiographical references.

Fundamental element of all works is the non-binary body, physiognomy and/or persona, via either drawn representations, performative personae, or biographical/auto-ethnographical narratives.

‘Incongruity’ is an element but one which is often not explicitly presented or referenced – leaving this to a subjective reading of any persona, as an aesthetic, social etc. judgment on behalf of the viewer (A Punk Opera presents a spectrum of gender from hypermasculine thug, to squeaky-voiced girlish female lead). Those who view the performer simply ‘as they are’ will be unlikely to consider the incongruity present, but works are made with the expectation and knowing that many will, and that various readings of characters in, say, A Punk Opera or Weimar will affect an audience’s view of those characters’ sexuality as a result.

The DIY, the domestic, the unpolished, the raw and the natural are all aesthetic elements which reflect a body of work made mostly without ‘high’ sensibilities or veneers, hence frequent references to anarchism, punk, and DIY, plus the natural readymade material of the performer themselves as a medium. Immediacy, then, is an important element of the performative, whether in live public interactions (gigs, open mics, festivals) or online (webcam work).

Energy, attitude, emotion and personal lived experience are foundational forces behind many of the works, specifically the preference  for live iterations over any single ‘canonical’ recording. The obliteration of ‘canon’ as well as structure are two of the main themes of A Punk Opera.

Work informed by adult/porn material (whether soft – striptease) or hard (Howard, Sprinkle) references not sex but bodies, revelation, and tease (itself used as a device to deter biological essentialism and present gendered  ambiguity),  a theme founded in the necessity of presenting a solo performer who does not interact sexually with others. Or else – as in Do you think it’s OK, Lilith of the Valley and 2 Minutes of Sketchy Noises, discuss real-life interactions with others, others’ views of the self, and in the latter two examples, the artist/performer’s place within a specific online adult hierarchy. Hence the creation of works in ‘problematic’ genres seeks to address the research question of whether such material can ever produce positive, body-affirming, validation or empowerment. Again this is subject to individual audiences’ perceptions, and readings of the performer.

The responses of real people in real time is an element used by the performer to further fuel performance – whether it be online, or in a live situation.

Weimar embodies the performative and theatrical elements of its source material, 1920s cabaret, Brecht, Berg’s Lulu and Bob Fosse in general, with immersive characterisation also featured heavily in ‘Jack Robinson’, in which one persona is maintained throughout seven short monologues (and one dialogue). My characters, like most fictionals, exist within the world of the words they speak. Most are nameless - only in Hardwired, the Punk Opera and Incredibly Queer Transition do characters have biographies and names outside of the immediate text (in terms of a past which life which has informed their current states).

The works are designed to either suggest a ‘new normativity’ (i.e., to normalise what is still referred to in ‘alternative’ or non-standard terms) or to challenge preconceptions, prejudices, assumptions about what ‘is’ or is not’ acceptable within certain genres or modes of behaviour. This owes its fundamental affirming, positive origins to Juliet Jacques’ appeal for an Écriture trans-feminine.

A couple of the final AI-generated images in the Trans Bodies 101 series, being of a disturbing nature, sit uncomfortably alongside other explicit images which may be read as pornographic. This is intentional, for where there is sex, there is violence, as Chapter 3 of the thesis makes clear, and the series is also intended to be experienced sequentially (providing, it is hoped, a deliberate cessation of any hint of erotic frisson that may possibly have been built up over the preceding images). Transwomen remain overtly sexualised in media, and are also subjected to violence, dark realities which the artist’s work otherwise rarely touches upon (the other example, Do you think it’s OK?, being a catalogue of sexual harassment the artist has personally received in public over the years). The reasons for not addressing these points more openly is strictly socio-political, as the artist no longer considers themselves a frontline activist.

Thesis chapters and case studies are referenced within various works as follows:

Ch. 1 – A. Sprinkle. Main sources: L. Kipnis, D. Torr, S. Marcus.

Relevant practice-based works: 42^nd Street, Striptych, Bump ‘n Grind, Shemale Porn 101

Ch. 2 – J. Howard. Main sources: Ogas & Gaddam, Bakhtin via Stam, Marcus

Relevant practice-based works: Trans Bodies 101 AI-generated series, What Do Guys Want to See…?, Questioning Cartoons series

Ch. 3  – ‘Shirley S. Willing’. Main sources: Sade, Bataille, Ruberg, Marcus

Relevant practice-based works: Last Transmission

Evolving Gendered Selfhood and Current Art Practice

 Sometimes, simply reading an essay or text can provoke an entire essay of thoughts and observations in response - and during the weekend's Storm Malik power outage, I had little else to do but read (and keep warm). A detailed browsing of Julie Serano's critique of Blanchard's 'autogynephilia' theory opened my eyes (Autogynephilia: A scientific review, feminist analysis, and alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model, The Sociological Review Monographs: 2020, Vol. 68(4) 763–778, DOI: 10.1177/0038026120934690).

I had occasionally pondered myself as being something of an apostate for not necessarily denying that theory, as I have known various people who say they have it, or have had it, and I certainly felt I had something very like it through the earlier stages of my own history (most strongly when I still felt very 'part-time', and the whole thing felt like a fun escape into another body, another world - a kind of embodied virtual reality experience). However, as Serano points out, cisgender women have recently been reported to see themselves in the same manner as described by the original Blanchard research - which focuses only on the paraphilic nature of transwomen's attraction to themselves (without considering that other genders also exhibit such behaviours - or why). Serano's alternative model of 'FEF' (female embodiment fantasy) holds more water in the light of other genders' views of themselves - and just over a year go, my attention was drawn by a close friend to this public story:

KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN SHARES ARTICLE ABOUT BEING AUTOSEXUAL ON POOSH LIFESTYLE WEBSITE

and a short quote which suddenly made a lot of personal sense:

"27 Dec 2020 ... “It could mean dancing in the mirror in a cute outfit. If feeling sexy independent of someone else has ever turned you on, that's autosexuality..."

Another term to add to my vocabulary, and one which managed to tick another box for me - specifically my deep interest in erotic performance (doing, as much as viewing). On a further note, the first rock artist I ever 'got into' was Iggy Pop, c. 1986, and the second was Queen, maybe 6 months later - both featuring performers who exhibited ambiguous behaviours on stage, and as it turned out, both who were not unaccustomed to stripping off clothes in front of their audiences either (Fred Mercury invariably going topless through the course of a show, Iggy notoriously going full-frontal). I would argue that these performance traits in those I grew up admiring can be classed on some level as autosexual, and are performed with or without any audience expectation or approval - the performer simply does their thing, saying "here I am, this is me" - an attitude I embodied myself during the webcam porn work of 2020, and which was almost always backed with suitable music, as well - Iggy & the Stooges' 'Search & Destroy' and 'Raw Power' being special favourites.

'Selfie after Iggy c. 1986', 2020

My own earlier experiences of this kind of behaviour was always complex, because until the personal revelations of the past few years I always viewed myself (internally, and visually) in very strict binary terms: 'him', or 'her'. I knew I wasn't trans because I had no interest in transitioning, yet I had known that from an early age I had always been able to view myself (at least in socially-constructed terms) as 'Otherly',  a point Serano addresses in some detail when remarking upon the generational difference in manifestations of what is classed as 'cross-dressing': 

"In the 30-plus years since Blanchard conducted his original research, there have been massive shifts in transgender awareness, visibility, legal recognition and access to healthcare and resources. Today, ‘late-onset’ trans women are not necessarily forced into a crossdresser stage, as they can readily access information about transgender lives via the Internet or trans peers. Instead of engaging in secretive crossdressing and fantasy, many of these individuals come out as nonbinary, genderfluid, trans dykes, or queer women, and they often begin presenting femininely and/or socially transitioning as teenagers or young adults. And this lack of a secretive ‘crossdresser stage’ largely explains why these younger trans women experience far fewer FEFs than their counterparts from previous generations (Nuttbrock et al., 2011a, 2011b)."  (Serano, p. 773)

Whilst I often write and speak out against the inherent dangers of 'putting people into boxes' via invented taxonomies, the recent cultural expansion of LGBTQIA+ selfhoods finally helped me make sense of myself, and allowed me to see myself comfortably as 'in between' the gender poles, predominately in a physical, biological manner (also influenced by Ian Hacking's notion of "making up people" - not in the sense of jumping on a trendy buzzword bandwagon to associate oneself with a newly-identified and publicized 'disorder', 'condition' or state of being, but rather in the freedom and understanding engendered by such, providing new ways of understanding people that was not possible before). The currency of terms like 'genderfluid' and 'nonbinary' allowed me to embrace and rationalize all the various aspects of myself, revelations which I spent several years exploring in artworks through my DJCAD art school career from 2017 onwards. My early attempts at 'pinup' or glamour self portraiture from the early 2000s always obscured the genitalia, as I saw this as being contrary to my expression of femaleness at that time. The effect of this was to render any full-frontal imagery as something of a lie - an exposure which doesn't expose, and which I'm now re-exploring in work for this very course, playing specifically with the ambiguity of what is hidden and inviting the viewer to fill in the gaps in their own mind. 

Typical 'arty' self-portrait from 2004, loosely after Irena Ionescu - note extensive body hair,
which I didn't always consider to be specifically 'masculine' (or at least 'unfeminine') - and still don't

Very rare early full-body shave from 2004

In many of the new works to date, I have been trying to define the space between the erotic and the pornographic - to consider where one ends, and another begins, at least for my own personal practice. The question has been addressed countless times and will continue to be argued no dobut for as long as these genres exist, but my specific point here is to create something that for me at least exists in the realm of the erotic, being that which is deliberately poised to elicit a certain type of response, but by ambiguity, hiddenness or the reluctance to exhibit complete revelation or explicitness, stop short of that which can truly be said to be pornographic. As an art historical example: Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' may be rightfully termed erotic, but I fail to see how 'pornographic' can be a justifiable description, unless a viewer finds irresistible attraction to female figures shaped like shoeboxes. For me, the erotic may or may not be explicit but one requirement is essential: that the viewer utilise their imagination to some extent. Whether it is to consider what lies beneath a flimsy wrap, what the other side of a figure might look like, or the story behind a specific scene or pose. The erotic must embody more than a mere presentation of skin or flesh, and may be ambiguous, playful, teasing, coy or quite blatant - but this, I'd say, is necessarily tempered by 'something else', some element of hiddenness. Pornography tends to rely upon total openness, literally "leaving nothing to the imagination", both in the specificity of sex as well as gender - and by blurring this line by simply being myself, my aim is to mystify that aspect, cast it into shade, and focus upon a 'semblance' of being that is both of itself and hinting at something else. In a sense, I may even be creating a kind of visual mythology, perhaps influenced by the often Classically-inspired photographic works of Joel-Peter Witkin, and my own studies of alchemy, Gnostic and pagan systems. My habit of hiding from view the genitalia both of myself as performer ('Untitled Sculptural Objects', 'Endura' and 'Lateralus'), and characters I draw (cf. 'Nip n Tuck', 'Ambiguous Content'), is not borne out of coyness but as a further means to this end of presenting the ambiguous, the possibly-this-but-also-possibly-that, a gendered form that is one or the other, or both, or neither, or many. 

Removing the area of the breast from any zone of visual interest - illustration from 'Sinister Rouge' (2020)

In the same way that my comic-book feminine characters often wear black T-shirts which flatten and obscure any form, detail or outline of the breasts beneath (a traditionally hyper-sexed element of mainstream comic-book art - and even lots of subversive, underground and radical art too), I believe that the current art-practice trajectory is an exploration of this 'blurred line' between concrete things, hard-and-fast either/ors and this-or-thats - a notion I now recall playing briefly with over a year ago, with a small work made early in my MFAAH (2020) entitled 'The Blurred Line', and which may indeed have been the early foundation for current art practice:

The purpose here was to literally blur the lines between genders, and the perception of gender  - what makes a gendered photograph? Is there such a thing as a gendered pose? The presence of the guitar signifies the posed nature of performance, after Bruce McLean's “Nice Style” (his 1970s “World’s first pose band”) and the accordingly striking, yet empty, gestures employed by those in the public eye. The blurred image is rendered as the indefinable, the ambiguous - echoing the self of the artist who exists in a 'blurry' position between gender poles. The binaries of black and white are deliberately manipulated to create a 'middle ground' of actuality, a 'grey area' of subdued polarity – in which the artist exists as an ambivalent individual who oscillates between, yet is composed of aspects of both, these poles. These images grew out of Gerhard Richter's painterly blur technique used, e.g, in “October 18 1977”.