gender-and-adornment

dissemination▻ is the act of spreading something, especially information. This includes not only publications and poster presentations done at conferences but also any multimedia presentation and software distribution, and other forms of communication.

 legitimacy▻ of knowledge is a notion that a knowledge is considered to be true or correct, based on academic or professional research.

misgender▻ refer to (someone, especially a transgender person) using a word, especially a pronoun or form of address, that does not correctly reflect the gender with which they identify. 

frame▻ dictates/constructs the conditions within which you are conducting research. The term raises questions about its use in socio-cultural research, more precisely in method of interviewing.

rapid response▻ is a new strand to museum collecting activity. Objects relevant to collections are purchased within their own time with the expectation if they potentially will take their place in history.

pastiche▻ is the imitation of the style or character of the work of one or more other artists.

digital narcissism▻ a term implying that the wider cultural shift to narcissism is now being partially shaped by the digital revolution.

kinky▻ appealing to unconventional tastes especially in sex; also : sexually deviant.

And if I wander down the wrong road,
It's alright baby, just let me go,
If I get tired of all those assholes,
It's alright cause I want them to know.

I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit,
Rough shit, same shit,
Hey Jesus come on down and save us, save us, rave on.

And on the road I ride through Richmond
Rich man, You know the business I'm in
And feeling sorry, makes me feel mad,
Someday, uh baby, I play to win.

I'm sick and tired of all this bullshit,
Rough shit, same shit

Excerpt from “bullshit” by Grace Jones
album: "Warm Leatherette" (1980)

Excerpt from "Unlimited Capacity For Love” by Grace Jones
album: "Living My Life" (1982)

And now I must add another to love in my life,
It's one thing to say, to do is another,
If I'm capable of adapting without pressured expense,
In a schizoid society in a classic moral sense,
Unlimited capacity for love,
Unlimited capacity for love.

How young I am now, stop counting the weeks,
We're safe from the void, where they're still counting sheep,
Put the phone to the floor, you'll hear my heart beat,
Some people get married, but I'll never cheat,
Unlimited capacity for love,
Unlimited capacity for love.

The end's not in sight, it's gone way too far,
This could turn out another unwinning war,
It wasn't inherited, certainly not a joke,
So many human hearts, hanging in hope,
Unlimited capacity for love.

////////Publication of/on Queer Archives and Testimonials

Those publications provide four different takes (in terms of format, accessibility, site specificity) on the memorialisation of gay and/or lesbian lives through collected ephemera, diaristic accounts, and personal stories. Three were presented by guests to the residency: curator Natalie Hope O’Donnell introduced us to Sam Hultin’s Oslo version of I am every Lesbian, for which volunteers recited personal stories (of coming out, of meeting with, of separating from, of first kisses, of clandestine militant get-togethers etc) on the spot where these events were originally lived. Loraine Furter presented Speaking Volumes, and Brussels Almanack Lesbian, two projects tied to efforts of assembling a Lesbian herstory (both global and site-specific). Queer Zines, meanwhile, is a diaristic anthology of Gay, Lesbian and queer, urban zines produced over the last 50 years in North America and Europe, advocating for the archive ( fragmentary, subjective, roaming) as a counter-cultural site of history-making.

Together, these provide consciously fragmented cartographies of absent spaces, events and bodies, which have found fragile permanence in printed or spoken words. They also consciously depart from more academic efforts to make communities visible, and propose self-reflexive economies of queer memorialisation (see in particular the representation of authorship, acknowledgement, budget, distribution, and the “finished” in Loraine’s 2 contributions), in ways that are inclusive and non-hierarchical.

Hultin, Sam, I am every Lesbian - Oslo (Oslo: Munchmuseet on the Move, 2016)

Furter, Loraine, Speaking Volumes version 0.4 - Art, activism and Feminist Publishing (Brussels: Loraine Furter, 2017)Self-published, intermediary working version)

Gysel, Jessica, Mia Melvaer, Loraine Furter (eds.), Brussels Almanack Lesbian, (Brussels: BAL, 2018)

Bronsons, AA Philp Aarons (eds), Queer Zines, (New York City: Printed Matters, Inc, 2008)

Congrats to the happy couple!!!

Claiming of space as self expression
Granting space is the allowance of freedom to raise consciousness of interests, but also allows the right to choose levels of engagement.

Cross-boundaries: The personal and the academic
The different departing points: a personal emotionally driven artistic process, a personal theoretically driven art process, a personal political societal pursuit

/////Online and in-print dissemination: Weee-heee!

The residency focused in part on potential methods of dissemination for the material collected by residents over the course of their research: interviews, photos, films, and/or texts. We were interested, in particular, in how graphic / information designers and researchers are rethinking the articulation between online and in-print publishing, and testing varous forms of online usership. We met with Karen Grønneberg at PUB (a platform for exploring and discussing the act of publishing; http://p-u-b.org), talked to Loraine Furter and Sarah Magnan (both of whom are working on an online feminist archive, http://justfortherecord.space/). The references they shared with us analyze a range of dissemination formats, and touch upon: the book as diagram, and “the way in which as they come into combination, both computers and books change”; the common denominator between books and digital interfaces (“a schematization of parts”); the haptic potential of digital images; platforms for producing grassroot archives. These first references and instruments of digital self-sufficiency percolate nicely with the last two: more user-centric (psycho)analyses given to us by prof. of media and communication Steffen Kruger, that circle around the impact of digital media on the construction of subjectivity.

Fuller, Matthew, “Nobody Knows What A Book Is Anymore”, in Report from the Gutenberg Galaxy (Blaker), available online here.

Avanessian, A., Hennig, A., 2018. Touching Screens, Photographic Futures. https://www.fotomuseum.ch/en/explore/still-searching/articles/154786_touching_screens.

https://prepostprint.org

http://osp.kitchen

http://hotglue.me

MacRury, Ian and Candida Yates, Framing the Mobile Phone: The Psychopathologies of an Everyday Object, in Digital Media, Psychoanalysis and the Subject. 11(38), 2017, pp. 41-70. http://aseestant.ceon.rs/index.php/comman/article/view/11517/5044

King, Vera, “If you show your real face, you’ll lose 10 000 followers” – The Gaze of the Other and Transformations of Shame in Digitalized Relationships, in Digital Media, Psychoanalysis and the Subject.11(38), 2017, pp. 71-90. http://aseestant.ceon.rs/index.php/comman/article/view/11504/5043

/// The pop cultural proxy wars of Mexican masculinities

A smaller cluster of publication comes directly from resident Aleyda Rocha, who has been collecting data and stories on the relationship between masculinity, homophobia and narcocorrido in Mexico, focusing on the recurrent (and evolving) trope of the soldier-hero. She shared with us an article contextualizing the transformation of narcoculture and the discourses of heroic masculinity via the comparative analysis of two video clips: The Good Example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUfGi4UlRcc) and its parody, The bad example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkLv4eeEK0). She added, for good measure, a text that influenced her thinking of the distribution of violence on the Mexican territory.

Núñez Noriega,Guillermo, “El mal ejemplo”: masculinidad, homofobia y narcocultura en México

J. Shapiro,Michael, Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War (University of Minnesota Press, 1997)

Does language constraint sources of knowledge?
The mastering of a dominant language dictates the content, academic references and culture focus.

This site was produced by participants in PRAKSIS (Oslo) Residency 9, Adornment and Gender: Engaging Conversation. The residency was developed in collaboration with Benjamin Lignel (FR) and Norwegian Crafts, and involved Tone Bjerkaas (NO), Auli Laitinen (SE), Matt Lambert (US), Nanna Melland (NO), Darja Popolitova (EE), Aleyda Rocha (MX), Mallika Roy (US), Ella Heidi Sand (NO), Shweta Sharma (IN), and Ahmed Umar (NO).

PRAKSIS (OSLO) TEAM
Nicholas John Jones - Founding Director
Charlotte Teyler - Development, Research & Coordination
Rachel Withers - Co-founder of PRAKSIS

PRAKSIS PUBLIC EVENTS
Meet the residents, 26 April, 2018
Adornment and Gender: A Tentative Discussion Benjamin - introducing research conducted with Namita Wiggers, 2 May, 2018
Symposium, Gender and Adornment - Engaging Conversation, 26 May, 2018
- Including Mah Rana, Loraine Furter, Sarah Magnan, Natalie Hope O’Donnell, Eivind Reierstad, Sille Storihle, Lara Okafor, Darja Popolitova and Aleyda Rocha

GUESTS INVITED TO SPEAK WITH THE RESIDENTS
Knut Astrup Bull Senior Curator at the National Museum, Dept. of Design and Decorative Arts.
Steffen Krueger Postdoctoral Fellow - Department of Media and Communication at the Oslo University.
Kathrine Tolo Professor of Clothing and Costume Design at the Design Department at KHiO.
Natalie Hope O’Donnell Curator - Munchmuseet on the Move, Chair of the board - The Norwegian Association of Curators.
Susanne Demou Øvergaard, Director, Skeiv Verden

VISITED SPACES
GALLERI FORMAT speaking with Irija Øwre (Director)
KUNSTHALL OSLO speaking with Sille Storihle (Artist, Co-founder of FRANK)
KUNSTNERFORBUNDET speaking with Kjersti Solbakken (Director)
KUNSTNERNES HUS
KUNSTPLASS CONTEMPORARY ART speaking with Vibeke Hermanrud and Henriette Stensdal
LOUISE DANY speaking with Ina Hagen (Artist, Co-director of Louise Dany, Vice-chair of the board - UKS)
and Daisuke Kosugi (Artist, Co-director of Louise Dany)
NORWEGIAN CRAFTS speaking with Hege Henriksen (Direktor) Andre Gali (Critical theory and publications), Lars Sture (Curator) and Tonje Kjellevold (Extral relations and Grants). OCA (Office for Contemporary Art Norway) with Katya Garcia Anton and Antonio Cataldo (Curator)
PUB speakinng with Karen Grønneberg (Co-Founnder and Graphic designer at Eller med a)

WORKSHOP
Mah Rana (UK) Artist, psychologist, and writer
Loraine Furter (CH) and Sarah Magnan (FR) Graphic designers inspired by Open Source practices

Tone Bjerkaas...is interested in un-gendered, sustainable clothing-making and designing the generic.

Auli Laitinen...is interested in talking about how adornment is visualizing and materializing cultural norms and behaviour.

Matt Lambert...is interested in the body as site for discussing the ethics of representation and appropriation of subculture.

Nanna Melland....is currently working with play, violence and aggression.

Ben Lignel...is interested in how publishing acts react to and shape the political terrain they are deployed over.

Darja Popolitova...is interested in talking about eroticism that can be found within the tactile engagement of jewellery under the condition of digital culture.

Aleyda Rocha...is interested in DATA HUMANISM and the power of inclusion and exclusion in technology.

Mallika Roy...is interested in talking about exchanges that create embodied experiences of empathy.

Shweta Sharma...is interested in paradoxical tools of adornment.

Heidi Sand...is interested in the relationship between jewellery and body and in how that relationship is perceived by the viewer.

Ahmed Umar...is interested in the relationship between religion, traditions and gender.

/////Politics of drag, performances of gender

Multiple texts were referred to, quoted from, looked at, or read out loud in relation to the politics of drag and the performance of gender, starting with Butler’s seminal “Gender Trouble”, and expending outward and onward via various later re-qualifications, re-interpretations, alternative readings and critiques. A handful of these references are listed belown.They include Maja Gunn’s investigation into subcultural negotiation with dominant systems via fashion and Renate Lorenz' “Art Queer”, both of which acknowledge the impact of subject matter on method (“performative research”, and “Freak theory” being the catchphrases here). The last three texts were brought up during conversation between Ben and Matt on a train traveling from Oslo to Moss, and were then further referenced throughout the residency. The interviews conducted by Namita Wiggers and Ben Lignel, while central to these discussions, are not yet published, and therefore not listed here.

Butler, Judith, “Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions”, in Gender Trouble - Feminism and the subversion of Identity (New York & London : Routledge, 2002

Halberstam, Judith “Jack” and Del Lagrace Volcano, The Drag King Book (London: The Serpent’s Tail, 1999)

M. Bailey, Marlon, Butch Queens Up in Pumps - Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2013)

Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (ed.), Nobody Passes: rejecting the rules of gender conformity (Berkeley: Seal press, 2006)

Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (ed.), That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (New York : Soft Skull Press, 2008)

Gunn, Maja, “Performative Design”, in Body Acts Queer, clothing as a performative challenge to heteronormativity

Lorenz, Renate, Queer art – a Freak Theory (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2012)

K. Puar, Jasbir, The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017)

Chen, Mel Y., Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012)

Muñoz, José Esteban, Disidentifications Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015)

/// Cultural perspectives, intersectionality, inclusivity

hooks, bell, Where We Stand: Class Matters (section on feminism and class power) (London: Routledge, 2000)

hooks, bell, The Will To Change: Men Masculinity and Love (section on feminist manhood) (New York: Washington Square Press, 2004)

Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007)

Tsang, Wu, "In Order to Fall Apart as Human Beings, We Need First to Be Able to Live." In Queer (Cambridge: MIT, 2016). 211-12.

K. Puar, Jasbir (ed.) and Tavia Nyong'o (cont.),Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017)

The concept of intersectionality was brought up early in conversation, to countract simplified perspectives on identity work. The fisrt three references touch upon the dangers of looking at gender as a stand-alone construction when multiple other factors should be examined, and examine the cultural perspectives and lenses being used when discussing gender. Wu Tsang’s short text, meanwhile, warns of the appropriation of queer bodies as part of the money-producing economic of the art world, but also about the author’s diverse positions as theorist, performer in drag (as opposed to drag performer), cultural agent and possible complicit actor in cultural politics. Jasbir Puar’s book, finally, analyzes how the othering of certain groups or bodies in the name of unification can become a mechanism for nationalism and creating inclusivity at the expense of the other.

The following texts have been used to reflect on the residency as mechanism for emotional bonding - and the queer familial structures that have been built as a result of interactions that have been catalyzed by the residency, and have occured both inside and and outside its formal parameters.

Ahmed, Sara, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007)

Haritaworn, Jin, Queer Necropolitics. (London: Routledge, 2015)

Muñoz, José Esteban, Crusing Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009)

This site was produced by participants in PRAKSIS Residency 9, Adornment and Gender: Engaging Conversation. The residency was developed in collaboration with Benjamin Lignel (FR) and Norwegian Crafts, and involved Tone Bjerkaas (NO), Auli Laitinen (SE), Matt Lambert (US), Nanna Melland (NO), Darja Popolitova (EE), Aleyda Rocha (MX), Mallika Roy (US), Ella Heidi Sand (NO), Shweta Sharma (IN), and Ahmed Umar (NO).