Hello. I'm Isha. I'm Katie Powell. And
I welcome you to kick off event part of the
2014 g B t gender bodies technology and performing the
human conference. Um, this is our third biannual
conference, and we're so excited. Thank you so
much for being here with us. You're in for
a real treat. I There is a long list
of people to think which I'm not going to do
now because I think we're very excited to get started
here. But what? You must know that there
are lots of people who are involved who are involved
in making this happen. Have student volunteers, graduate
student volunteers, faculty who have been coerced to ride
to help with this event and with the events happening
all day, tomorrow and all day Saturday. So
thank you all. You know who you are.
Thank you so much. Especially would like to recognize
Dr Christine who's hiding in the back. There are
, uh, conference programme says a little inaccurately that
we're co directing anyone who knows what's going on.
She's directing. I would like to turn it over
to Doctor and kill Kelly, who would like to
introduce our former thank you so much. Well,
the lights. Yeah, I better find the middle
of it. Um, that's where actors belong,
right? It's my great pleasure to introduce the Shark
Cartoonists Cartoonists. Right, Um, whose work I
think you will see. So I won't try to
describe it to thoroughly, but I just want to
read a list that is actually, uh, on
spinal on websites that talk about her performer, writer
, student, educator, mixed race transform Latina who
works with movement as a technology of change. I'd
add to that profound theorists having having read quite a
bit of the book that I'm carrying, which is
the transfer and quite an unusual thinker. She has
a lot of academic credential, starting with being a
provost, fellow and PhD candidate in Media Arts,
Um, at the University of Southern California. I
think this year you are You are visiting scholar in
the faculty of information at the University of Toronto.
But also she has solo and collaborative work that's been
seen in museums, galleries, biennials, keep notes
, community and public spaces around the world. Her
art collectivist called electronic disturbance theater two point about,
and I just like to stop for a minute and
say Disturbance is a really important work in what I've
what I've read and what I What I understood so
far about this performance. And as somebody who's sometimes
theorists and feminist performance theory at, you know very
often a performer and someone who is, like so
many other scholars in the field of feminist performance criticism
, looking for the gap, looking for looking to
articulate or at least play with or embody somehow the
the gap that exists in terms of our definitions and
descriptions of the body, particularly the body of performance
. Just that itself is fairly difficult, I think
, in the theoretical field you think about Judith Butler
, for example, and her idea of performative itty
, which I love but does not seem to me
to in any way access the kinds of issues pertaining
to the body. How hard whatever we call the
live invited real or the trance real body. So
I think that in my own work to, I
recognized what a gift it is to have a performer
who is a dance dance deep thinker, about performance
theory, about bodies and about gender and gender identities
. So I would say that these disturbances have been
needed for a long time in the field. And
that performance itself puts together most of the intellectual,
theoretical and as well as the gender body issues in
a way that can give us a multiple spectrum of
meetings rather than one. That is, it's touched
on top of ideas for on top performance. So
I think her disturbances embodied to use an old fashioned
word the space time and possibilities for making change.
Thank you. Tracked? Yeah. Uh huh.
Mhm. Uh huh. Mm mm. Okay.
Mm. Sorry. Mhm. Mhm. Yes.
We have traveled through time space across continents, across
the stars, through dialogues with ancestors in prayers to
the ocean. We are learning and teaching each other
ways of building homes while trying to undo what we
and our people have done. As settlers, we
are learning the spell so that instead of taking space
, we can bend and work and create our own
time space and build new homes and families that can
last longer than capitalism and ways of loving that can
sustain. And he'll hair braided in the stars,
arms around each other like a solar flare. Hearts
arching, glowing beams of celestial wind. Yeah,
there were 25,000 of us who came to this planet
even though 250,000 signed up for it. Then there
were a few 100 who came on government shuttles and
rockets, and a few years later, a few
100 more. It came on the pirate ships.
We gave up so much that we couldn't carry with
us friends, lovers, photos of our travels and
our families, homes, pets, parks and oceans
. We were held by rooms we cherished and decorated
skies we loved with our eyes. A few scientists
knew that methane was the problem. Once the polar
caps of our planet melted, the sun's rays no
longer reflected. The spiral began methane bubbling up from
the waters. In just a few years, the
colonizers civilizations, the order that had ravaged, endangered
the planet was destabilized, attacked, shrank, fell
. And the majority who knew through the eons that
connection with the planet with the self connection channels to
God's communication with spirits and souls were more important than
cell phones and WiFi. The majority began to organize
the planet again in their own fractal local ways.
Can anything across trans localities with respect and love in
a time of fragility and the closeness of death.
Yeah, we have found that this metal carries more
than heat more than electrons. We have found the
powers in these necklaces Bangles, hoops, nose rings
that connect us to our ancestors, our communities to
those who will come after us. This metal opens
portals through time and space sustains us in our travels
, through the stars, the leaves and the water
. And in our resting, we have found that
this metal is a portal metal. Still, we
have found ways to shift the light in the air
around us. At times we can be completely invisible
, going through border checkpoints and sometimes in our own
communities. At other times, we shift the light
to see each other, beaming with color red shift
plum shift blue shift to firms hunting non transfer lip
stain building knowledge so we can color shift into our
full spectral brilliance and hold our individuality in relationship.
Space is cold, dark. We travel in tunnels
underground that spit us into tiled rooms. We learn
technologies of warmth and give them to each other as
gifts. Walking above ground. I see a transporter
go past with a photo of a planet shaping my
imagination of this space I inhabit. Waiting the underground
tunnels, I see photos on screens of my home
planet's dying ecosystem. We have no home to return
to intergalactic diaspora. My father also took flight from
the violence of his homeland in a silver and orange
art in the sky. The icy surface of this
place is bright reflective. I watch it through the
windows, disappearing under snow again and again as we
hold each other tight to stay warm, we need
to build homes where we go to carry them with
us. And in us, I'm building a home
here on this planet of ice. I always felt
like an orphan, even on my own planet,
like there was no one to protect me but myself
shuttled around without ever feeling like I belonged anywhere between
races, cultures, genders and sexist. I built
a fence science, a science of learning to build
homes, learning to keep myself safe and that sometimes
letting others in. But I'm not doing it alone
from out of avoid. I'm doing it with so
much help from my love, who has lived here
always I know this place is my place. Now
, on other planets, the inhabitants stare at me
like an alien from a foreign galaxy, my body
not fitting their idea of human girl. But here
I feel at home safe, safe as a foreign
feeling. I'm just learning to relax into. And
I can't stop working to undo the laws, the
architecture that allows me to be here even while I'm
benefiting from them. The walls and agents and maps
that make both the settlers and the first peoples of
this place into aliens and need is oscillating and refracting
. Or they try to We will build a new
world, give this land back to its original inhabitants
and ask them if we can stay. This is
the only ethical option We have found that to travel
to other Galaxies and other times, we only have
to sit and close our eyes. The colonizers did
not know this. We have found that our bodies
contained Galaxies. I am the universe in my breath
that opens the capillaries in my asthmatic lungs, in
the blood that rushes through my veins in a mirror
structure of my breath in the heat that warms my
body carried through my blood and breath and the electricity
dancing in my brain Across synapses in the shape of
capillaries, veins, rivers, mountains, Galaxies The
universe works its ways. The universe is contained there
It unfolds inside of me when I sit and listen
and look at it with my eyes closed. A
book system. Mhm. Oh, yeah, right
, Sure. Mhm. Uh huh. Of course
. Oh, I have found that to be a
mother to myself and others, I have to be
able to hold, hold my own feelings, hold
space, hold power to hold with the strength of
softness to build a home. I have to be
willing to break ground to open space in dialogue with
others, to be willing to move on from past
homes. I've left behind bringing with me what I
need and what I've learned and stay here in this
place. I have chosen and face what comes with
dignity and integrity. Mhm. The ice storm came
and covered everything in ice every tiny branch of every
tree, flowers wrapped in ice looking like perfect spheres
, a multitude of ice planets hanging from trees,
leaves preserved in ice, and all their fragile complexity
. It tore down trees with the weight and took
out power to the colonies. It's hard to see
your planet dying. You don't want to accept it
for so long, even when you know it's so
close. Even though she's been ill as long as
you can remember, you've always done such a good
job of pushing those feelings away. Any chance of
thinking she'll die later, you'll take, and then
something happens that makes it so real again. The
airplane is dying soon, and now you have a
lifetime of unaddressed feelings to deal with. You have
to do something. You have to either go or
change. Everything inside you is not just a universe
, but a multiverse. Every heartbeat, a big
bang and a big crunch followed by another heartbeat.
Another universe, another big bang. Another big crunch
. Quantum mechanics would deny this, claiming different laws
apply at lower levels of scale. My mind and
my soul tell me this is true. I have
seen it. So many others have seen it.
And then after the ice storm came the cold,
it broke all the records, melted ice poles,
causing an arctic vortex, they said. These temperatures
are more common to Mars than to our planet.
I thought I could stay and save her my planet
. I thought I could just drop everything and stay
and care for her and help her live a little
longer. But then I realized how sick she was
, making me how sick she has been her whole
life. And I felt pulled to stay, even
though I wanted to go to the stars and have
a new unimaginable life. So I tried to stay
, but the air was thick with chemical smells,
the smell of human waste, the smell of chemical
cleaners to cover it up, the smell of an
atmosphere of resignation. And I couldn't breathe and the
people couldn't talk to me, couldn't make any sense
. And I felt like I was losing my mind
. And finally I was nauseous and could barely move
. Then I realized, when my lover said to
me, I feel like you're always trying to get
me to stay what I was doing, that I
had to leave and go into the stars and find
a new planet in a new universe and let her
die and live my own life. I journeyed back
home to the planet with no rain for the sun
is merciless. Only here I can find the healers
who can transform me in such radical ways. Putting
the planet into my heart After a week of resting
, praying and drugs unpacking again, the tornadoes are
coming. Yeah, heading to my new home,
swirling in snow and ice silence of arctic cold,
the slippery, transparent floor layer upon layer of hardened
water crystals. I realized that I can work for
decolonization of this new place because I must, because
I have nowhere to go where I am not a
settler. Because everywhere I go, I have to
thank the original pupils of the land and ask for
their leadership and guidance and work to create space for
them and step back because solidarity matters. My sick
and disabled loved ones have shown me when I need
help just to stand from the pain of transformation that
we need each other interdependence. We cannot just split
endlessly into smaller and smaller atoms, more specific groupings
, tiny electron clouds because that would only lead to
individualism. What we need is interaction. We have
to help each other to be able to survive in
these worlds and travel across the stars together More important
than anything else connected, connecting I trust more in
seeing your brown glowing skin on your shoulder amidst the
piles of blankets. When I wake up, then
I do the red sky of this planet amidst the
stacks of clouds. When you turn over and sleepily
smile at me with your full cheeks and bouncing black
curls I feel a warmth greater than that from the
sun on our icy homeworld together in the morning with
my skin on yours, I have a feeling of
home deeper and older than I knew I could feel
a home. I want more to stay in than
to travel anywhere else. Mhm, Yeah. Mhm
, Yeah. Mhm. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Okay, so we're gonna do a little talk back
, so I think keep the light slow, moderate
. We'll keep the lights low. I think I
can see pretty well. So it's all just sort
of moderate as best as I can. And we're
just going to talk with Yeah, mhm. I
want to start. Okay. Uh, your work
really inspired by anything? It sounded like sort of
like a scenario. Are you trying I'm Children inside
, man. One. Um, yes, yes
, yes, yeah, yeah. So I think
it's this piece as a kind of trans real piece
or as a kind of science by piece that,
like, blowers fiction reality. Um, and like
most of my work are like a lot of my
work people here. Okay. Cool. So,
yeah, like most of my work, and actually
a lot of it comes from everyday experience, But
you're seeing it through all the science, Which in
words, um and and, yeah, a lot
of it is everyday things that share in this room
experience like the polar vortex, which I actually stumbled
over. That was so funny. I should add
it anyway. Um, yes, Mhm. I
mean, it was also it's like I mean,
like, also, like, a lot of my
work. It's like a theory movement, poetry.
He so is also really inspired by people like Jack
Alexander's work and just crossing um, and take your
Butler lodge and Karen Barad. Uh huh. A
bunch of other people inside by hunters. Wow.
Yeah. Thank you for your movement. Seems so
fluid. And you everything was taking choreographed to improvise
. Um, it's like improvisation. parameters. Yeah
. So it's like, roughly program. It's also
really new work for me. I've only been working
on it for, like, a few months,
and a lot of my work is like, multi
year long project. And this project also has,
like, three pending funding proposals to turn it into
, like, an interactive web version and all these
other things. So he was receiving the first time
I've ever done in 25 minutes live. Yeah.
Of I'm curious about the choice. Youth voices,
Uh, as right I know you could do that
. What do you What do you think about,
um mhm, Yeah, I think that usually live
voice is better. Um, but I just do
both over for a few reasons. One is just
like, technicality of my working method. Was I
often, uh, I really tend CBD. So
things that are repetitive were really, really hard for
me. So, like memorizing texts, I've never
do that. Um, So I thought I'd rather
spend my time working on the movement and including the
writing than memorizing mostly. That's why Well, I
think it also disrupt eights just okay. It's your
own voice or what we call your own place the
projected so that for me to that was also just
speak from the Frank. I had, like,
two hours to set up this whole room, so
I thought I would rather do not worry about timing
cues with the tech person giving us. That was
amazing. You know, uh, and everyone So
yeah, it was also that technical thing that I
was like It would be more reliable to do the
person. Yeah, but also, I think there's
I guess you could come with. There's a certain
intimacy, each of the to the folks over.
I mean, I didn't record it in my room
tonight. Yeah, I mean, also voices like
a really? Was it something that I have really
been challenged by? It struggled with a lot in
my work as something that's often really gendered. Uh
, and so, like my early work becoming dragon
when I hadn't really worked on my voice. But
I also wasn't happy with my voice. I actually
used like a voice modulator, and I have been
dragging voice instead of a human boy. Uh,
well, now I think like you can barely understand
What? That voice, the same video. Yeah
, And what is this thing? I've been working
on a lot, So I figure I would rather
you hear my voice that is ready when I am
, like, at home and relax. Then my
voice That is nervous. Yeah. People are hearing
the nerves with thank you very much, Michelle,
I was curious about your relationship to the video images
, and, uh, it's kind of in the
round, and yet you were pretty much limited to
this spot in the limelight. And I felt that
it was that you wanted to burst free in a
way and sort of run around the room. And
I want to, uh, if if you could
comment on that if if you purposely limited yourself to
this area or if you had another venue, you
would be, um, somehow leaving yourself and your
your moves with the images which themselves are very interesting
. And there's a lot of text as well.
I You just say again that mostly this is here
because there's a column I actually thought that I would
be performing right there and well, being around and
everything. I also I was thinking about the views
as a kind of installation that could maybe be here
after the performances over part of my text is there
, um, also for accessibility. A lot of
times, it's good to have the text on screen
even though we have a um yeah. I mean
, what I'm trying to do with the videos is
just is again this trans real thing. I'm like
, trying to create this sci fi scenario out of
everyday experience. And a lot of this performance is
about traveling and moving. And these are like,
actual traveling images she makes on your way here this
morning. Um, yeah. Oh, I was
curious about the tension between the utopian and dystopian perspectives
. Like, I found myself as an audience member
of wanting to sort of box the overall commentary into
one or the other. And now, as you're
talking about traveling to them, I'm imagining maybe some
kind of movement back and forth. But I'm just
curious if you could speak to that. Absolutely.
I mean, one of the main inspirations for this
piece was this interview with Entering Ray Brown. She
talks about how in Octavia Butler's parable of the sower
, uh, in that series that they talk about
space travel and colonization as if it was unproblematic.
Uh, so that was like a starting place for
me was to, um, think about not just
the utopian, but think about the complexity of struggles
like decolonization. Um, and also really another main
inspiration was just looking at my own complicity and colonization
because I'm like, moving to Canada and, like
, really struggling for decolonization on the basis. So
it's like, uh, that is a huge contradiction
, I would say, or attention. Um,
so it's trying to wrestle with that in this piece
also, and think through that. Yeah. So
, yeah, I do try to avoid being just
disturbing all european. Yeah, thanks for all your
questions, everyone. Yeah, in the front.
I didn't question about the with I might incorrectly perceive
in your work as a shift away from a sort
of more technologically being an involvement to kind of like
being home alone in the space without the second life
out of the kind of like a lot of folks
with your mom, Um, as as paired with
a line in the piece that I noted around,
uh, community is that that you know that there
are things that are more important than my by and
cell phones and kind of like being away from that
sort of, like digital or virtual life to kind
of like, like, embodied presence that doesn't have
that communication and sort of hired how you're thinking about
that in this performance at this moment. Yeah,
thanks. That that shit is definitely very present.
That's very true. Um, for many reasons,
Um, I mean, the main reason for that
remain place that I think he came from was So
this is like a whole new series that you're saying
. But my last series, local autonomy networks,
um, was a project. So all my projects
are theoretical and they come from, they start with
a theoretical question, and then we have lots of
different forms. They're not trying to like, specific
medium. Um, so this one's mostly this question
. I think most of this question about decolonization and
being a settler being transfer at the same time.
Um, but the last project I was working on
for the last few years is called local autonomy networks
. And it was based around this question of,
um, as an artist. Can I build networks
okay to prevent so could I build networks people to
prevent violence and mostly again, coming out of my
experience as a trans women of color, of feeling
in danger and actually being physically attacked and stealing life
danger on a daily basis and my experience as a
survival of transit, sexual assault and wanting to end
to sexual assault? So that gradually started with electronics
? Because that's what I It is doing time doing
more informants using like clothes that were wirelessly network and
sensors in them. And so I was like,
Oh, I could use this for safety And I
started building mesh networks and then doing workshops people right
away to talk to communities about how they can build
prison evolution of strategies to keep each other safe with
mesh networking. Um, but, uh, very
, very soon into that project, I started getting
feedback from people that I wanted to work with,
keeping them safe like other trans women of color or
people of color or sex workers or people are in
this collective in Bogota, Colombia, and I kept
getting feedback people that was like, That's cool that
you make$100 mission of gratuity. Uh, if
I had$100. I would buy a cell phone
and all my friends for help. So, um
, mostly with both, we started working on non
low tech, uh, lo fi or no fly
approaches to communication for safety. Um, and I
think also, as it becomes more and more interested
in and committed to an understanding of decolonization been thinking
about how ways of de colonizing the digital de colonizing
technology. Um, so and part of what that
means to me is looking at things like commission networks
and wireless networks and understanding how we could do that
without digital technologies that rely on corporations and rely on
the specific set of Western acknowledges that result in contemporary
science. So trying to think about technology, really
probably. Um, so I don't think of this
work as being like like having no technology. But
instead, what I'm trying to do is think about
, um, number one thing about the body as
a technology and movement as a technology as a technology
of communication and also expression, um, and memory
movement, definitely as a technology, um, it's
a long answer. And also, um, they
were on the theory side. I've been really interested
lately. Din. So let's get in. Campers
work in this book called Life Afternoon Media, where
they say that new media theorists and artists don't we
don't any longer have to talk about or look at
. Or maybe that it's reductive to talk about and
look at specific technologies and devices like iPhones and iPods
or whatever, because we live in a sea of
technology, right? Like we're in this room with
cell phone signal and WiFi signal and streams and cameras
and temperature regulation and deodorant and oh, we're just
gonna see of different technologies, right? So that's
also what I'm trying to think about it. This
work is how, as a media artist, actually
don't have to bring technology anywhere like performances in public
space are 40 videotaped by multiple police cameras, more
by people on the street. Yeah, thanks for
asking my question. One, uh, thanks.
And yeah, study. Okay. Vibration. And
you know what money and the stories brings up.
I'm just doing it. It's We're not sure I
have some questions. Uh huh. But thanks.
That sandwich. Yes. Um, so science fiction
has been important method for me. Um, for
a number of reasons, one reason is at least
right now, I feel like science fiction resonates really
well with decolonization because we have these, like,
dreams and goals of a world that is de colonized
. But, I mean, no idea what that
looks or very hard to conceptualize what that looks like
. Uh, because you know everything about this conversation
that you're talking to me as if I was an
individual. I feel like these are all products of
colonialism. Um, and so I think science fiction
is really useful there. And, uh, for
for like, imagining possibilities and kind of experimenting prototyping
. Um, so yeah. So I've been reading
a lot of criteria, butler, and you know
how concerned. Um, but also part of why
I've been attracted to science fiction Or like I said
earlier to using methods that are trans real that are
like blending fiction and reality and not really specifying which
part is fiction, which is Reality is also I
feel like, uh, partly it's strategy to kind
of subvert the gender, gaze on transgender people,
which is often one of voyeurism. And, um
, yes, uh, I feel like there's this
potential in doing there's potential that I just danger that
I feel and I need experienced in doing work where
I'm like. Here's my real story In my real
life, that actually feels like, um not the
most productive conversation because I feel like if you have
the audience is like, Oh, you poor trans
person like that's not really helpful. You are,
you know? Yeah, So that's part of what
I'm trying to do. This work is like right
about my ideally experiences, but through a different lens
so that people can see them more clearly. And
I feel it's often a thing that happens in science
fiction like parabolas or so very be our everyday life
. Right or Children of men even feels like a
story about today. Um, and also I think
I was probably inspired by, um, do loses
, do these talks about transcription talks about phenomenology and
like looking at the world in such a way that
it appears to be an alien world. Um,
yeah, and I find that useful. And that's
also I feel like what I'm doing in this piece
is like picking out specific details and mentioning them.
And hopefully they seemed futuristic or a potential of pointing
to a different future. Also, I think that
both I think that being trans and being interested in
social change requires imagination. Um that requires the ability
to envision a future possibility and then make that possibility
. So, yeah, that's part of also long
. I'm interested in science fiction. It's just in
the exercise imagination features. Also, I was definitely
influenced in this way by sports science fiction by working
with the electronic disturbance theater and recorded doing guests,
Um, and also in the trans real body and
not guilty. Um, because, like with the
transporter immigrant tool, that was a precious I worked
on with the electronic, sir, considering where we
We made this app for cell phones that would help
people find water in the U. S. Mexico
border. And, um, and it was made
for really cheap cell phones that we could distribute them
. Um, and that project a lot of media
attention and was actually like investigated by police, who
found that we didn't break any laws, but like
plus a lot, a lot of hot, a
lot of excitement, but nobody ever used that.
But us There was one artist who walked across the
border with it, but in like a totally legal
context, Not just like walking. I think she
walked out across the with the Border Anyway, nobody
ever used to put us right. And so in
the collective, there's a lot of disagreement about the
value and importance and the goals of the project.
Something like, uh, some of us felt like
, you know, if this phone doesn't actually save
people's lives, that we just wasted five years of
my life. But Ricardo was very much on the
side of. It's a speculative project. It's a
speculative gesture. And if we have planted the idea
of people's heads that yeah, sure, you should
expect that people are crossing the border with GPS and
satellite phones and I don't know holographic camouflage technology.
Then we've done our job to start conversations and the
vote imagination. I'm so I'm really glad you talked
about imagination because I think that's the word that I
use in my classes all the time and encourage students
to think about feminine parking, right, So we
have to imagine that right. Otherwise, my video
. And so I've been really intrigued by thinking about
them in science versus feminist science So I was wondering
if you could talk about whether you think science and
feminist science, Um, kind of engaging, different
kind of imagination. Mhm. Yeah. Um,
so you mean come to science like your terms of
Dr Yeah, Just sort of how science evolved for
you and whether that's an evolution for you or I
. And if there's a tension there and because I
love it, I just provoked. Well, how
about that science? And so, um and so
I'm just thinking about whether we are thinking about complementary
and or whether there's differences that are important for us
to think about. Yeah. Um, so,
yeah, it's about from science and and what's between
that in federal science? But one I would say
that going back to that original question about this comes
from real experiences. I mean, it comes from
real imaginary experiences. It's definitely really inspired by being
in Toronto and by the very specific community art community
of trans color trans people of color and offensive color
in Toronto, partly because I, like, go
to their see their art every week, but also
because I'm really inspired by the work, conceptually and
so there's like a real conversation among friends of color
in Toronto about them. Science. It's something that
a lot of people do performances about, like plastic
or and can between Crosby. And it's really exciting
and interesting to me because I found the word from
science in a really, like an academic essay by
Lisa Dugan. Um, it's fairly old. I
think it was. I'm sorry, that's not old
, but it was, like from 96 maybe,
Um um um um So in there s a feminist
manifesto, they say, much like Donna Haraway says
that the cyborg manifesto is ironic and it's kind of
a joke, and then everybody took it too seriously
. Uh, Lee student and Kathleen McHugh also say
that, um, science is kind of a joke
, even though they're writing an essay about its possibility
. So it's exciting to me to see other people
doing it. Um, I think that there is
a very useful and important distinction between them. Dash
in is, um and mechanism. Um, in
that I think that I was talking to are really
interpreter about disappointment. Uh, that the idea of
fam Really? I think it's often shorthand for your
family. Um, but it's really also just like
an idea of femininity that's like maybe non normative or
maybe in excess of, uh, a more many
people would say traditional community. But the thing that's
important for me is that, um is not tied
to any particular biology. And of course, coming
is anything. It's a conversation we should have.
Yeah, I mean, also, I guess I
would say Fam nationalism is part of like feminism.
So there's that. You feel like this was critical
? Yeah, totally. Yeah, because I think
I'm up for much more feel like, Oh,
here's one in the back here and I really appreciate
this performance, especially the being Matthew of decolonization,
and I really appreciate it. I feel like what
you were doing with the conversation was to expand it
to violent modes of in habitation or habitation a planet
and thinking about Anthropologie centric forms of dominated forms that
said, like a certain kind of inhabiting destroys and
you're making these links also to gender identity. And
I really appreciated the conception of interdependence, and I
guess I want in. I mean, I think
I know about those things work together. It is
this how thinking about these, Uh, I mean
, I really appreciate that connection to the colonization in
a broader sense of a violent form of in habitation
. And this is how? Okay, Um,
yeah, thanks for your question. Um, I
think there's a pretty strong residents that we could see
between interdependence and relational theologies that are indigenous psychologies that
would, as opposed to, like, western ontology
is of separation individualism. So, um, like
, and Taylor writes about that not all people in
Mexico having an ontology of of congruence between all things
that it's different from representation. So, uh,
it sounds like a word being separate from an image
and representing that image. They're they're actually connected are
also just rejecting individuals. And so rejecting the fact
that I would be separate from you or that we
are separate from nature. Uh, this more relational
ontology would say that actually, we are not separate
. We're defined by our relations, were both becoming
whatever. Um and although I am, we're concerned
something. I'm still trying to figure out what decolonization
is ways of being like, inspired by and moved
to transform by indigenous worldviews without appropriating them. Um
, so that's a conversation. Uh, but I
think the interdependence that I mentioned in this piece,
uh, specifically coming from the more use in disability
justice context where a lot of disability justice activists are
advocating interdependence as opposed to independence. Um, as
a way of, you know, embracing again that
we're becoming together and we need each other and that
it's fine. We need each other. It's,
like, good and real that we need each other
. And I wouldn't have anybody to read my home
. It was just me. And so, yeah
, I think those two things are really good.
That's an answer. I mean, I think that
they're separate. I'm kind of bringing them together.
Mhm. I should also say, I feel like
this like since I said, this work is new
and critical comments or you can come. You can
also tell me critical comments, sector or, uh
, yeah, or questions are critiques about the ideology
or the aesthetics? Mhm. You know, everybody's
like Oh, yeah, so absolutely saw and found
a lot. Yes, I've come to return to
it, and I love being a mother himself and
he said a little bit there, being about learning
to depend on each other and It's okay. Talk
about that part of it. Yeah, Well,
uh, so mostly I keep saying, what's this
really about? Is this mostly what this is about
is actually me moving to Toronto because my partner look
there. Uh, and so, yeah, some
of these poems like that one that's on screen about
red shift are, like, you know, like
, actual relationship experiences of looking for lipstick we can
wear while making out there looking all over our faces
. Uh, and then I Yeah, it kind
of ends on a happy note. I don't know
if that's to fall, but ends on a happy
note. Uh, because I'm hopeful about these things
. So, yeah, the last poem is definitely
more of like a It's like a kind of integration
. It's kind of like a home about being in
place and working to build home and actually finding some
happiness there can move up. Mhm. Yeah,
a normal And mhm. So depending on the part
, I mean, I guess depending another part comes
from the fact that my partner is disabled. So
that's in there somehow. I don't know. You
know where I said that? Uh, yeah,
I did say my second to have a lot in
there. You probably don't know. I got a
lot to me, you know? I mean,
I think you know, I'm also like, even
even though it's science fiction, poetry. I'm actually
trying to write good sci fi. And I feel
like that involves a lot of elements. Like characters
. There's solutions, environment, conflicts. I don't
know if I succeed. Uh, boyfriend and I
wanted to be 1000 woman. Yeah, different.
All right. There was one line number five.
Right? But it was about time and space about
finding, creating I'm 3000. How did you try
to do that? Get? Yeah. And And
then how does how does that sound like someone?
I think I need to talk about a conversation.
Make sure that Yes. All right. Thanks.
Good question. Good question. Um, yeah.
So I mean, the Lyman, it's like early
in the beginning. That's like, instead of taking
space, we want to create space or create space
. Uh, sometimes because people space people say space
time. And I feel like that focuses on the
space. And I think in this piece, I'm
more actually interested in the time and and so Yeah
, I think that it's it's an attempt at thinking
the colonial strategy of of creating space in the city
. Um, and when I first was thinking about
it, I was thinking about it more, actually
, in terms of, like, business and maybe
this, like, hopeful utopian idea that we could
create space. But I think actually, it does
work in a the colonial context and in performing the
context because, um, I feel like performance is
mostly Yeah. Oh, okay. It's just I'm
going to try to articulate this well, but you
put together a really great question. It makes me
think a lot of things hoped that I can say
it well, so I feel like, um,
performance as we know it actually is like an ancient
tradition, right? And people like Richard Schechner when
you're a performance theory about how all people throughout all
time had performance practices, um, that, but
they looked like ritual or they looked like religion.
And I think that's potentially really problematic because it puts
far Western framework of performance onto other people's practices that
they might they might be thinking of in an actually
a religious way and not a secular way. Um
, but I still think that, uh, for
me, I'm I'm actually interested in in spiritual practices
that involve ritual. And I think a lot of
authors, like post Colonial, anti Colonial authors,
talk about the importance of things that are non secular
as a challenge to Western secular, colonial, buff
like Check Party and and Jack Alexander. So I
think that it's performances away from me to bring those
things together, uh, into something that does actually
make, like, a ritual space and so a
lot of performance. Mysterious right about limiting the liminal
space and performance, like the performance that by us
coming together and sitting here and saying like performance is
beginning, uh, with and then a liminal space
starts. Um, but also, this liminal space
theory often is called the magic circle of performance or
relates to games. Sorry place, but trying to
tie together a lot of things. So, yes
, I think that ritual and performance practice does have
the possibility of creating space that's outside of everyday experience
. Um, although it's like lemon oId right,
it's not totally outside of everyday experience. Obviously,
we're still here, but I think that there's like
you can see in so much performance practice things that
people have used a ritual because they put your body
in different states in your mind, in different states
or maybe creating space. So, um, like
, like, just repetitive gestures? Uh huh.
Change your body. Change the way your brain waves
are functioning or painful gestures or, you know,
like intense physical activity, like dancing, right.
It's your brand and state. These are all forms
of practices, and I think they come from ritual
practices. And I'm definitely interested in like Like I
mean, I just talked about spells imagining those things
, and I am actually interested in believing these things
. Um, and also a lot of the artists
that I'm really inspired by, like, other forms
of color. I've done work about this. Like
how green spiritual practice into art. Really? This
piece and let it begin movement or lack while having
from Yeah, Thanks. Um, I, um
uh huh. Okay. Well, let's see,
you're doing performance for maybe seven years now, but
only been actually, like, training and dance for
three years. Um, mostly doing that. That's
a way of, like, extending my range of
movement and developing an understanding new vocabularies about movement in
the body. I feel like it's really lacking in
a lot of theory, but it's like something you
know dancers think about and talk about all the time
is like ways to talk about training and learning.
I'd like move your this third, birdbrain, or
I don't know, like, right part of your
Tony's, Right? Uh, there's something that destroyed
their between. Like, here is a party that
don't in the body. So is that, um
and I tried to incorporate more original movement also so
, like repetitive movements that that had, like,
a residence for me to feel like something original,
they weren't actual like you can do to help.
They were related to things like casting circles or like
, transplanted movements. Um, also, I chose
to not I chose to do smaller movement, uh
, during the text so that you can listen or
so that everyone can listen of. Okay. Yeah
, I've tried in the past, like dancing with
music and voice over and video at the same time
. And many people have said that things can't really
can't watch and listen. At the same time,
I have to pick up um also in contrast to
like my previous practice, which was much more invested
in history of performance art and in like being a
performance our artist, and that a lot of that
work is really focused on identifying limits and machining and
challenging them. Um, my current practices more committed
to stability for me. Um, and I think
also this comes partly from, uh, reading lots
of transgender studies and looking at the ways that Trans
people are often like used in queer theory as this
figure of absolutely rebellion or transgression, even at the
cost of their life. Um, so I'm really
interested in theory and art that actually finds lives that
are sustainable, uh, and also maybe, like
mundane everyday. Um, so definitely a part of
this performance was just about doing things that I'd like
to, um, some of the advanced movement was
definitely like George ships. So I wanted to go
back to more question a little bit in terms of
talent, gestures and the movements, and articulated very
well. But do you find in writing, then
either before or after or be writing in your in
your head while you're moving? Does the writing is
thinking theories in a written test that, influenced by
part responses to the movement way. How does that
happen for you? One person at all? Yeah
, It's great question, I When I started this
piece, my goal was to make more movement and
text integrated. So the first few pieces that are
all the pieces that are like we have found this
, uh, those pieces I was like developing movements
as I was reading pieces. Uh huh. That
is they kept working on a project by I find
that account that isn't working on it. I actually
just went back to, like, just writing.
Um, probably because writing is something that's always accessible
. I can break wherever I am. And dancing
often is not accessible. Um, especially in winter
. So going often requires, like, finding space
, uh, at least in time, a big
indoor space, right. So I can't just answer
at home. I felt that, um, so
part of the party was like writing, and then
we moved together part of it. Then we're going
to actually like writing a bunch of text and then
developing movements out of the concepts in the text.
Um, so some of those movements are like a
lot of those movies really inspired by things in the
text. Like this idea of what? A little
being that, um, like every day, elements
of torment are not just a superficial, shiny things
, but that they Yeah, connect us to ancestors
to people in the future to our loved ones.
So some of the movements are about the government.
Like putting on a necklace or putting on makeup?
Yeah. And of so I mean, definitely the
dance movements are, like, kind of stylized anti
versions of those every directions. And so sometimes I
do work with In other performances I've done work with
very impressed where I, like, invite participants to
do whatever they want. A lot of times,
that movement is more like just every day. Um
, lot, I decided not to. Mhm.
Good issue. Sorry that it's super so maybe one
more. Oh, right here. So it'll be
talk a little bit about your choice to use history
rather than clothes. And if there are any puts
you that you do, um so mhm. Yeah
. Mhm. Okay. I mean, I'm really
interested in Algeria. Lawrenceburg have actually read a lot
of the last few months and interested in the fact
that she says, Finally write poetry. Uh,
you know what she seems to write? A lot
of what we might say is pros Um yeah,
but also a particular talks about poetry as a kind
of, um, she doesn't say methodology, be
impressed. But she says, But I would say
methodology of the oppressed. I'm really interested in science
as the methodology of the oppressed. Um, and
she talks about poetry is something that is accessible to
impress. People are so accessible to live. Maybe
you have to work and don't have the time to
write a novel. Um, and I find that
country, I mean, for one. That's just
the thing that, like I've enjoyed writing, Um
, but for two, there's something about poetry that
I think actually goes well with my a d D
. Uh huh. Actually, I have been learning
in the last few years, and my structure by
a d. D. I didn't even know that
. But I think that performance as opposed to,
like, painting maybe it's a demonstration of that or
that poetry is something that suits my on the way
. No Euro atypical brain works in that I write
poetry like when it comes to me, and it's
short experience you had. Also, I feel like
poetry for me has, like, a potential,
and it begins being evocative in a way that does
. Doesn't, um I mean, I think there's
like a There's a potential slippage. Is the potential
for the reader to like, read a poem and
read more of what's not explicitly stated versus where,
like versus like reading Octavia Butler like the experiences that
she's very precise. You're getting this, like,
convincing view of this dystopian place I'm more interested in
, like, opening. Did you have to?
Okay, okay. So thank you all so much
for being here. Um, we have a reception
that you have to physically leave this building to get
to go across the street to another building. But
we have a team of student volunteers in these black
G B T T shirts that are going to help
get you all there. So I want to invite
you all as many of you can join us for
an hour or so. An hour and a half
to the center for the Arts, which is,
uh, on alumni drive across the street. But
you have to make sure that you accept the library
. One particular you're nothing will help you to do
that. Um, but before we go to the
reception, we just want to thank a bunch of
people. And so we'll be doing this throughout the
conference, I think. But maybe some of you
are here tonight That won't be joining us for the
rest of the conference, so I want to thank
um, Amy Split is hopefully somewhere and making us
have Amy knows what she did, but Amy has
coordinated all of the performances. So Misha is the
first of many performances that for those of you that
are going to participate in the conference, we're going
to get to enjoy. And Amy has been our
goddess in terms of performance coordination. So I really
want to thank her and Scott Ryland. There is
so thank you so much because Scott helped us with
the space and it wasn't the it wasn't our first
or second or maybe even 10 favorite space for performing
. But the space that we had and, uh
, Scott really helped us make it just as things
were really really appreciative and I want to thank the
whole conference Planning Committee. So those people that are
here, I think Megan South is here, and
I think Ray and Street here is here for getting
Oh, maybe is not here. Uh, Leah
and Holly. I think I think they might be
. Yeah, they went to check on that.
Okay, so the conference planning people and so I
have just spent amazing our weekly meetings. I'm going
to miss them very much, honestly. Different cultures
. Planning this conference was planning committee was outstanding.
So So when you see people in black T shirts
and then my story, you are here, Megan
, Katie, uh, Alicia, I think,
are the only three that night that are helping with
the conference. And those are students who have been
to this semester. We taught the inaugural version of
the Gender Bodies and Technology course, and those students
are participating in the conference. And so a few
of them are here tonight helping you get to the
center. But I really invite any of you that
are participating in the conference. Just say hi to
them because it's been a really interesting experience to integrate
the conference and the class. And so we read
beaches work. And we read Jennifer Robinson's work.
Who is our other keynote? Who's here tonight and
show in Barcelona. 13. So, um,
so we've had a very, um, integrated gpt
semester. So, um oh, my goodness.
Way. I can't say enough about who emerged from
us. A split found her And from student Radford
and who has just shown up for us in this
incredible way in a very short way. Haven't even
met yet. Thank you so much. And and
hopefully for also doing lots of troubleshooting and massaging of
the conference this semester and introducing way. Thank you
all. And please come and leave with us at
the question across the hall. So I'm gonna Yeah 1049 --> A:middle L:90% .