REFRAMED POSITIONS

Reframed Positions I began referring to all art as “critique Back in ‘86, the NEA was in trouble Terre Thaemlitz in conversation with affirming its object,” because no matter for some federal funding having trickled Lawrence English how precise and harshly critical one’s down to Robert Mapplethorpe, and analysis may be, when it is funded by Andres Serrano’s “Immersion (Piss the same corporate or federal agencies Christ).” I don’t think either of them one is criticizing, it all goes to show the were actually directly funded, but they LE Thanks for agreeing to this TT It’s all really cliché, actually. benevolence and open-mindedness of got some funds from an exhibition that conversation Terre, I appreciate the time. Fagbashed queer from the American the sponsors. was partly supported by NEA funds, or I thought, in the context of this survey Midwest who grew up being told he You know, one more way for rich something random like that. But I mean, of your work, Reframed Positions, it’d was good at drawing - while also being assholes to feel good about themselves despite all the uproar about injustice, I make sense to flesh out the themes and simultaneously told never to pursue and convince others that they give a was like, why the fuck is anyone surprised questions that comprise your artworks it, and that she should be a doctor or shit, because they paid some artist that our right-wing government run by to date. I also felt it’d be useful for helping lawyer or whatever conservative parents to say bad things about them. The religious zealots doesn’t want to fund this people visiting the exhibition to connect considered good husband material back artist is nothing but a court jester in stuff? with the pieces and understand how it is in the day - finagles his way into a New this scenario. I couldn’t see us as being I realize the hypocrisy of saying this your practice has travelled structurally, York art college as a means of escape. anything else - and I still can’t. Of course, while currently getting a chunk of my if in no other way, in parallel with these This was back in 1986, after just turning this also shows my “American-ness” in annual income from EU-funded events, themes. 18. that a more European model of federal but I still am not naïve enough to think any I’m interested to trace how you arrived As a child I only had exposure to the art funding was utterly foreign to me. of this money business is on the level, nor at producing the kinds of audio-visual most general and watered-down notions And as a result, I never grew up with to confuse my employment in “creative pieces that have come to define your of “Fine Art,” so at age 18 I started with the sense of entitlement that one’s industries” as something other than just work over the past two decades. I’m painting as a goal. Cooper Union was critique of a government or agency a job. To the contrary, when I look at the especially interested to understand how a good place for that. It was intensely should be funded by them. I mean, I can EU arts, I see how it mostly operates in a experiences you had early on, during Modernist, with most of the studio understand the right to federal funding as very insular sphere of pseudo-political your time studying at Cooper Union, work coming out of it still trapped in a utopian democratic concept, but it also rhetoric, and becomes a kind of reified and before too, shaped your interests. expressionism, with an occasional tinge strikes me as a position of tremendous arena of faux social organizing. You know, Moreover, how the experiences of of early minimalism. I think the most compromise. that great populist myth that art and creating the earliest works included in conceptual full-time faculty was Hans I just never understood how anyone music change the world, which is a huge this exhibition were responsible for you Haacke, but I wouldn’t have access to one could actually be surprised when, say, means of distracting people from actually moving away from fine arts in its most of his classes until my third year, by which the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts helpful and necessary forms of social conventional sense. Back then, how is it time I had already outgrown the artist [NEA] refused to fund anything but the organizing. exactly you arrived at painting? Is it fair to fantasy enough to just see him as another most vanilla projects or artists. ...But what was that you asked about say that was the first significant, publicly high-budget corporate artist, “critical” or painting being my first publicly visible visible investigation into creativity for not. investigation into creativity? I’m a you? And more importantly how it was bit thrown by your accusation that I you came to depart from painting? am interested in “investigations into creativity,” let alone significant ones. [Laughs] REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE Well, lets not call it an accusation as much as a provocation. [Laughs] And certainly by age 15 I was actively This positioning of language might be doing things that represented my body something I return to as we speak, as I as a living middle-finger to the rednecks know how important language and its around me - gender fuck clothes, extreme capacity to construct discourses (thanks, hair, make-up, etc. Foucault) and identities is, within your So if I think back to those days, and work. that mindset, if there was a first “serious TT You know I’m not interested investigation” for me at Cooper Union in creativity, authorship, authenticity, it wasn’t about painting. It was about Terre Thaemlitz senior originality, or any of that stuff, precisely finally gaining access to texts and other high school yearbook because the ideological functions of those media that provided me with language photo proof (1986) terms is so entrenched in patriarchal myth for thinking about the social functions building about men giving birth to the of power, and the social construction of world - which in its crudest form is literally identities. Language for that gut feeling the Judeo-Christian god myth that weirdly some of the social problems I had continues to frame our notions of secular experienced came from without, and how society. In particular, I want to keep in mind that informed things within. I’m talking investigation in most of my work how we have arrived at the traditional about really basic things like a concept notion of men giving birth to the world - be of historical materialism from The LE Consider me itching then. it an old patriarchal deity in the sky, or the Communist Manifesto, Juliet Mitchell’s Humanist male artist as progenitor of his Psychoanalysis and Feminism, Michel TT With regard to how I stopped painting, there actually was a specific moment that I can own work through which culture is birthed, Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, John recount - it was either the final crit of my second year, or end of the first semester of my third etc. So let’s put all of that kind of “creative” Berger’s Ways of Seeing, George Grosz’ year. To set the stage, I had been focussing on doing minimalist drawings and paintings for about language to the side, if we can. Instead, The Art Scab, Constructivist manifestos, a year, and getting a lot of flack about it from both my instructors and other students. This went let’s look at my interest in painting as a etc. These were not the things students as far as students “keying” my paintings with scratch marks and things like that. Their logic, youth in relation to the social conditions were supposed to focus on when studying as students duly instructed in the teleological western art canon - from realism to pointillism of a queer outcast with no real cultural at Cooper, but they were the things to abstraction to minimalism and so-forth - was that a young person such as myself at that education of any depth, whose rejection of that caught my attention and helped time could never have accumulated the self-knowledge and understanding required to make conservatism in her upbringing was more deprogram a lot of deeply engrained minimalist work of any depth. Minimalism was something that had to be arrived at, and evolved educated by a kind of Midwestern Punk bullshit. Most importantly, learning what into ever so gradually, like mastering classical piano before attempting improvisational jazz. So and New Wave mentality - simply because “essentialism” is, and moving away from it they felt I had to be put back in my place. Sometimes real life is cheesier than the worst teen that was about as complicated as critical as far as possible! [Laughs] movie, isn’t it? So with that context in mind, it was during a final crit at the end of the semester. thinking was allowed to get in those regions. (For those unfamiliar with art-speak, a ‘crit’ is when you present your work to a professor and Clearly, that theme of anti-essentialism Like most young queers at the time, I classmates for their ‘critique.’). has continued over the decades. If you blamed myself for my own ostracism. You need to satisfy the curatorial itch to plot I was presenting two very minimalist paintings that were made with industrial lacquers on wood. know, like most abused people, I bought a course, I suppose that is the recurrent They were monochromatic, with extremely precise and flat surfaces with no signs of gesture. The crit into the idea that I brought it upon myself. went awful. Everyone hated them, said they were “emotionless” or some other bullshit that showed our ideological disconnect, and just couldn’t place them in their model of the art canon.

3 4 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT To be honest, the paintings LE I understand that at the same It wasn’t about qualifying those things as art - which I was totally not interested in - were completely referential to things time as working on these paintings, you but simply about fulfilling school requirements for producing studio work. They were like the early works of Frank Stella, were also investigating more relational mostly guest professors, who were less conservative than the tenured faculty. Around whose first interviews often focussed approaches, testing out expectations that time I had gotten my hands on a book compiling manifestos of GAAG (Guerilla on Marxism and notions of creating around and within various public spaces, Art Action Group), which were a kind of post-Fluxus group that was more interested in paintings that sought to minimize and specifically how people assume they politics than art, and they did a series of performances and attacks on the MOMA and gesture or representational illusions as should behave in particular settings. I other New York museums, around issues of financial corruption, political support of a kind of demonstration of materialist wondered if you could speak to these right-wing and corporate agendas, cronyism, etc. philosophies. You know, that whole interventions. minimalist movement to confront the I imagine the MOMA Beeper piece viewer with objects that are so brutally was in fact your first exploration into deprived of illusion and representation sound and space, at least in a non- that their sheer presence as nothing club environment, is that that correct? other than the object as-is would shatter This work and the Newport subway the viewer’s world view, banish the interventions both seem to explore a ghosts of spirituality and illusion from sense of interruption, a breaking of the their minds, and snap them into a purely expected codification of public space materialist way of seeing the world. and a subversion of expectation and [Laughs] Well, that was what I was going in some respects control at various for, and nobody was having it. After the personal, social and institutional levels. crit, the arguments with classmates How is it you consider these works now? continued in the halls, and at one point How did they inform where your work someone whose work I truly despised moved to from there? I was inspired by this, and along with - just the worst pseudo-expressionist TT Yes, so while all that painting my collaborator in a lot of things at that representational painting you can imagine drama was happening, I was also involved time, John Consigli, we came up with the an art student making - said point blank, in various direct action and social beeping devices as a way of adding to the “You’re saying all this stuff, but in the end, organizing groups like WHAM! (Women’s already existing ambient sounds of the you’re still making paintings. I just don’t Health Action and Mobilization) and museum just enough to push them over get how what you’re doing is any different ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash the edge and make them a distraction from what I’m doing!” A weird wave of Power). In fact, after I gave up painting, in for viewers. The idea wasn’t to make the calm hit me, and I said, “You’re right,” and order to complete my studies at Cooper people hear beeping, but to clutter the never painted again. I can’t remember and get a diploma I used to seek out already existing noise of air vents, doors, that classmate’s name, but I owe her a big professors who supported non-studio elevators, etc., to the point that it all thanks. Fuck, I haven’t thought about this work, and would allow me to present became conscious and shit in so long. It makes total sense that it things like T-shirts or placards made for broke the presumed neutrality all happened when I was a teenager. demonstrations as “studio work.” of the “white cube.” Real kid stuff. John Consigli (left) and Terre Thaemlitz (right) preparing for “Church Lady” disruption of anti- abortion clinic blockade (c.1988)

5 6 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT We also did other projects If little twists, ironies and sarcasm So the “queer ratio” is not about being a Of course, I’m talking more about within the Cooper Union’s galleries that so easily fall flat, of course it will be queer, it is the subset of people within any my recent projects like Soulnessless focussed on exposing how gallery spaces even more difficult to try and unpack audience that is actually able to receive and Deproduction - not the posters or were constructed to create an illusion of processes of reification, ideological the messages in familiar terms. I must beeping devices. But I suppose all of the neutrality in which viewers can focus on production, the naturalization of gender presume the majority of people in any projects are linked by an attempt to foil art objects as if they existed in a social and sexual binaries, racism, classism, etc. audience will be encountering unfamiliar expectations around the performance of vacuum. We were very interested in the I think anticipating miscommunication terms and concepts. At the same time, I media within a particular space. Those cultural and political ramifications of that makes way more sense than marching don’t want to do the liberal bullshit thing early works were pretty lame, and show kind of ideological neutralization of highly forward with a naïve belief that a of pandering to the mainstream. I insist that I was really lacking the kinds of funded and politically connected social majority of people will “get it.” That’s just on making it the audiences’ burden to language and strategies I needed. It’s spaces, how the majority of people fell mainstream marketing bullshit, and will do the labor of trying to understand the understandable. I was a kid. Allowing for for the illusion, what that meant socially usually result in things that are more unfamiliar. At least, I try to insist on that. failure - even relying on it - is how I slowly speaking, and how art functioned in terms manipulative than informative. We all make concessions. But when I do, built the kinds of language and strategies of propaganda for the agendas of LE What does this question of I try to make the concessions and I use today... which are also still lacking, those institutions. comprehension and, as you suggest, ensuing hypocrisies also an active part of course. John also helped with the silk screen ambiguity of an audiences reading mean of the works. printing of the subway adverts, and for how you approach what you do? putting them into subway cars with me. TT The conventions we carry about I think we printed 100 of each. We’d take how media is supposed to function them into the subways at night, removing makes it incredibly difficult for most the actual Newport ads and replacing people to receive critical media or culture them with our prints. We almost got jamming in non-standard ways - whether caught once or twice, but managed to it’s a gallery, or a concert hall, or a night run off before the police could get us. It’s club, or a subway car. I call that small funny, years later I was describing them percentage of possible comprehension to someone at a party or something, the audience’s “queer ratio.” Even and they said they had actually seen if I am performing for an explicitly the “Ass Grabbing!” poster and thought LGBTQRSTUVWTFLMFAO* audience it was a real advert. I mean, that raises - which is usually not the case - the another ongoing theme in my work, majority still almost always identify with which is the need for producers to keep conventional, mainstream definitions of low expectations around audience Gay, Lesbian and Trans cultures, so that comprehension - not in an “I’m smarter the kinds of anti-essentialist analyses than you” way, but in terms of how difficult I am producing will inherently fall flat it is for people to see or hear things in simply because most people are filtering terms other than how we are culturally them through essentialist, or “born this programmed to see or hear them in a way,” perspectives. given context. Video still from Deproduction (2017)

7 8 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE Before moving on, I wanted to pick I’m ceaselessly impressed by your The historically hard-fought agendas of to function, with the West and wealthier up on this idea of the ‘queer ratio’ and also capacity for situating your ontology deregulating/decriminalizing “perverse” nations relying on continually cheaper touch on essentialism. I realise this is my within a very, and I use this word with sexualities and genders has fallen to labor elsewhere - often in explicitly non- rampant optimism showing. [Laughs] But respect, approachable series of modes. the wayside, as contemporary LGBT democratic countries. as much as I concede these perspectives Whether it be the story of your father’s movements focus almost entirely on Isn’t it curious that with all of dominate in the day to day - hell, social experience of the Christian Brothers and demanding our re-regulation, demanding globalization’s cultural “advances” there change is glacial at the best of times, and his resulting circumcision in Soulnessless, our documentation and registration have been almost no newly emergent we seem to be dwelling in ‘fair times’ at or the repeated image of Astroboy’s birth within the humanist bureaucratic canon democracies - and the few that have most - do you feel this ratio has shifted in Lovebomb, or the micro-narratives of those who qualify as “human.” We hear emerged are so fragile they could be lost in favour of audiences being more open, that form the first half of Deproduction nothing but “born this way” arguments. without notice? or at least available, to consider these - these are examples of how you create I realize that in the fight for legislative Meanwhile, at this stage in late- reframed discourses that sit in excess of opportunities that can really open up protections, “it’s not a choice” is an easy phase capitalist globalization when the the a priori positions you’re eluding to? a pathway for engaging with complex, sell to an essentialist, heteronormative West likes to take pride in delusions of painful and intense subject matter. I’ve always thought of your pieces as mainstream that has internalized and egalitarianism, for us to culturally conceal a means for opening up spaces within TT No, I don’t think today’s audiences naturalized patriarchal gender and sexual the slavery upon which we exist takes which new questions can be forged. I are more open. To the contrary, I think the binaries beyond question. However, more than physical distance - more know from my own experiences with your perceived liberal-humanist “openness” as I have written and spoken about than the physical export of labor which work over the years, I’ve been positively in contemporary audiences is a con, and countless times, this is an inherently anti- became standard economic policy under confronted on several occasions and we are actually in a highly sophisticated democratic stance. It is, in fact, a feudal Reagan and Thatcher in a supposed age would argue these moments has lingered moment of reactionary conservatism. and aristocratic stance in which we claim of decolonization. Concealing it requires with me in ways I did not expect, but have Of course, this deception is a traditional a birth-right determined by the blood in an incredibly deceptive and manipulative come to value deeply. I sense that often part of liberalism, which has always been our veins. That is not a process I can ever ideological indoctrination that breeds our the way you interrogate these issues rooted in maintaining a status quo that is support. Any “born this way” argument for cultural faith. leaves a great deal of space for audiences friendly to petite bourgeoise aspirations. receiving rights is fundamentally different And I’m sorry to say mainstream LGBT to become personally engaged at a micro from a democratic movement rooted in The sensation of openness is a function agendas are also utterly symptomatic of level with what might on first appearance a collective choice to reduce violence of reification. It is a classic example of that indoctrination. It used to be that the seem a macro issue. against LGBT people. ideological production which inverts mainstream demanded heterosexuality actual social relations. Relations that not And again, our current cultural and binary genders to the exclusion of all only remain steeped in hierarchies, but investment in essentialist notions of else. Well, the great liberal revelation of are in fact reinvesting in family, clan and LGBT gender and sexuality is utterly today’s era is that the mainstream only tribal relations as the defacto “logical” site symptomatic of this moment in history requires our heteronormativity! It simply for social support and services - which, when capitalism reigns supreme, needs us fags and trannies to behave as as I describe in Deproduction, is precisely detangled from Cold War notions that “decent” people with “the same dreams what is culturally required for today’s capitalism is inherently “good” and as everyone else” - legally sanctioned capitalist societies to destroy what inseparable from democracy. No, in fact, marriages, monogamy, two-parent minimal social services have been capitalism functions better with slavery. It nuclear families, enthusiasm for jobs, established through democratic functions better without labor and social military service, home ownership, methods. protections. Historically, this is how it and so on. has always functioned, and continues

9 10 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT In particular relation to trans How many times have I heard MTF’s Mainstream transsexual support This is the very core of anti-essentialist visibility, it is unquestionable that for most on hormones explain away their networks are ill equipped to help those analyses, because social strategies people in this world “transgendered” loss of orgasm as a “natural part of who wish to opt out, because they allow for self-agency, whereas socially is synonymous with “transsexual” - becoming a woman,” invoking all the represent the potential for doubt or organizing around essentialist notions precisely because transsexuality is essentialist patriarchal bullshit about the regret or simply something else - and that of biological predispositions literally the form of transgenderism that is deprioritization and disbelief of women’s complexity is currently irreconcilable eliminate any potential for self-agency, most invested in notions of gender- sexual desires such statements carry with a culture of unquestioningly affect- right? “It’s not a choice” has come to reconciliation with the patriarchal binary. with them? Today, even “anti-institutional” affirmative Pride™. With all of today’s sound very comforting, but it is not a It is the form of transgenderism that queer movements have standardized queer- and trans-openness, look at how statement of agency. “makes sense” to the heteronormative “self-medicating” with hormones. In far we are from culturally facilitating non- And of course, this is precisely why patriarchal mindset. It is also the form particular, traditionally butch dyke medically-mediated relationships to trans mainstream globalization emphasizes of transgenderism that is entwined with scenes have been transformed into testo bodies. Farther and farther! liberal humanist models of diversity multi-billion dollar medical industries scenes, with intensely regimented peer These are just part of the reactionary rooted in identity-driven essentialisms, whose primary goal has always been pressure for testosterone intake and conservative undercurrents to that because it ideologically robs us of the heteronormative conformity. mastectomies. perceived openness you and most other conceptual possibility for choices. It Today we shudder at the outdated I mean, people outside the trans world people I meet seem to claim typifies distracts us from identifying or even notion of medical institutions attempting usually don’t realize that the types of today’s audiences. Meaningful long-term conceptualizing the social mechanisms to “cure homosexuals,” and yet today’s procedures undertaken by both FTM’s change is not possible so long as we live which perpetuate our oppressions. And gender transitioning therapies are literally and MTF’s are not simply generic medical in a world where “it’s not a choice” can the result is a preservation of existing a financial redirection of those very practices prescribed by physicians, that only infer biological predisposition - as power relations. research funds away from sexuality to are then simply accepted by patients. opposed to the possibility “it’s not a gender. It is increasingly commonplace to There really are fashion trends around choice” because of brutally real material give children experiencing gender crises which hormone cocktails and surgeries social processes which rob us of choices, damaging hormone blockers, rather to get. And they all cost a lot of money, and render our consciousness incapable than feminist tools for coping, organizing and enslave the transitioned to ongoing of conceiving of ourselves outside of and living within an unsatisfactory and debt, medical maintenance, etc. It is gender and sexual binaries, gender and limiting gender binary. We are still being a hardcore 21st century subscription sexual essentialisms. duped, still being experimented on, cut, lifestyle, and those who eventually opt out In fact, I too would say when it comes physically and chemically deprived of - who are numerous, by the way - find little to sexual orientation (the selection sexual function, deprived of the ability to social space for sympathy or support. of sexual object choices) and gender orgasm. Socially, it is about equivalent to dropping identity, for the overwhelming majority And despite how many of us may out of a 12-step program, or a religion. of people “it’s not a choice,” but I can embrace these limitations, and attempt Say goodbye to all of your friends and explain this observation with an endless to reinscribe them with Pride™-ful networks. litany of completely social reasons. In notions of self-fulfillment, it is undeniable terms of social organizing, if it is the social that on the culturally macro level these practices of bias we wish to change in limitations are continuing a long tradition order to reduce violence, doesn’t it make of dominant culture medically debilitating sense to focus first and foremost on the - not manifesting - our sexualities. social reasons?

11 12 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE Recognising and engaging with the I suspect the majority of my “fans” This is my attempt to direct people complex mesh of social reasons around also see things as you have described towards an extraction of value from the development of opportunities for them. But within those fans, I also know memories and perceptions that rest in choice and the possibility for varying there is that queer factor of a subset of something other than the instantaneous degrees of agency is something I can’t people who recognize the hypocrisy and gratification of liberal celebrations. agree with more strongly. antagonism behind the presentation of Something other than the communal TT Yeah, sorry, all of this pissing on my works within art, music, academic and bond of having shared a great show with your parade is not to disavow the kinds other “creative” contexts. People who other audience members, all leaving with of experiences you’ve had with my recognize that what they have seen or the same glow. work or any other work. It is simply to heard is already incredibly compromised, As a nihilist, I am more interested in the say, on a subconscious level you seem edited, and - despite the never ending always undermined values derived from to be associating the potential for your text in many of my videos - more about ruins. There is no phoenix rising from exposure to those experiences with what remains unspoken. And in that act the ashes. Only ashes. But it is precisely a society’s potential for openness or of recognition, any use value extracted because, as a producer, I have so little tolerance. I am positing the opposite, is not a gift of liberal art culture. I would control over audience perceptions that those experiences you recognize argue any real value emerges despite - due to both cultural and subjective or cherish as vital are not inherently liberal art culture. Not in a heroic way, but dynamics - that I spend the most time birthed by liberal conditions. They are in an unavoidably limited, anti-populist strategizing how my work may “fail” in not inherently birthed by the gracious and culturally minor way. the three economies from which I derive generosity of sponsors who make a This means starting with the premise my income as a freelancer: music, art gallery exhibition possible, or whatever that my work will fail in conventional and academia. They each have their own art world bullshit. terms. Fail to entertain. Fail to be concepts of failure, and for economic Anyone who works in these industries pleasurable. Fail to be popular. My task reasons I have to bridge them all. knows those larger conditions that is to work with how it fails, and try and frame our productions are most often keep people thinking about it despite censoring, restrictive, disingenuous, and not particularly liking or enjoying it. That crassly rooted in speculative investing. becomes the opening into a different So I’m asking you to set all that optimism kind of cultural use value. The idea of aside, if you can, and then see if you can producing work that requires a time of perceive those cherished experiences as “lingering” in the audiences’ minds is part something rooted in cultural discordance, of my strategy. For example, I do not want rather than as cultural gifts? I mean, people to leave my performances feeling culturally it is so difficult to clearly place refreshed or like they were just at a great that value you extracted in relation music concert. I want them to feel out of to something other than having been sorts, unhappy, disappointed - in a way exposed to some great moment of that is not maliciously traumatic, but like “openness” and “different ideas” brought you said, lingers awkwardly in the mind for to us by art world sponsors. a few days.

13 14 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE The idea of this work being offered I’m not pointing it out to criticize or say TT Minor positions are not about I am interested in divestments of as culturally minor has been part of you’ve got it wrong, but simply to identify “greater” anything. I do not see it as power, not power-sharing. And that your methodology I imagine from the - clarify and share a perception - of some liberating, or something to be celebrated. means being cautious about “celebrating” outset. I can’t help but feel that even fundamental differences in approach and It is about existing power relationships the extremely limited mobilities found minor gestures and offerings that linger, language that I think we have to address if that restrict and limit, and while being within culturally minor practices. as we are discussing, do accumulate a we wish to talk about the culturally minor conscious of that and strategizing Otherwise, it almost immediately certain weight or presence beyond their with meanings we can share. Because through minor positions might involve becomes a celebratory politic of moment of utterance. In saying that, I am those words you are using are really cultural and social mobilities that are identities, and that twists into essentialist curious to understand how it is you hope pointing to something other than minor. different from the culturally major, that defences of the minor, naturalizing the work exists going forward. I’m often Something growth-based. Which, of awareness alone does not alter or invert cultural differences as biological struck by revisiting a piece like “Silent course, echoes business-positive rhetoric the relations of mainstream domination. differences of character, declarations of Passibility (Ride To The Countryside),” we are drowned in day and night. It’s very It simply allows one to engage that Pride™, reaching for the brass ring instead which I increasingly find interesting as it hard to step away from it, isn’t it? oppression with more precision and of dismantling systems of oppression, etc. documents a very specific set of histories It really takes conscious effort and awareness. It’s a fucking endless looping trap. and a particular time period - of your life self-correcting. And doing that involves The liberal art tendency is to The culturally minor and major are and also of that community and place - public displays of confusion, shame, romanticize the minor, start espousing entwined through injustice, and that but the narrative that sits behind its title embarrassment - a lot of stuff one might Pride™, and plotting populist distribution must be taken into consideration at all and around those people continues to also associate with “the closet.” You see models aimed at changing hearts and times. Especially when we hear and see expand and make new connections within how tactics of the closet can still have minds in the mainstream. In other words, the signs of a culturally minor condition contemporary settings. some use value for us, culturally? Sorry plotting how to make the minor major. It is mimicking the signs of the mainstream. Do you feel working from a minor to get derailed, but the construction and a notion of power-sharing with dominant This can’t be avoided, but it can be position allows a greater flexibility for how structure of questions in interviews is culture, which in my experience always perceived, and serve as a red flag that work and perhaps even ideologies can usually the most interesting bit for me as leads to co-option by the mainstream and keeps one suspect of the forms of permeate and hold currency, or perhaps the person asked to answer them. a re-inscription of the very dominations cooperation they are engaged in, and the even create currency, or moreover a people seek to transform. possibly damaging consequences. Like, LE I know we’ve spoken about this at current, in time? In answering this can you Deleuze and Guattari had their whole length before, but I think my use of these also talk about the experiences that are theory about “becoming minor” as a key words fall more into my sense of, dare at the root of “Silent Passability (Ride To to “becoming revolution.” I don’t buy it. I say it, radical optimism and a hope to The Countryside)”? recontextualise or perhaps even gently I work through culturally minor TT Well, I don’t mean to come across emancipate these words that I agree are means of production and distribution as if I’m knit-picking or playing word utterly tainted by capitalist desires and because they present a material level games with you, but “accumulate,” dialogues. I like to think of these words as of non-cooperation with populist- “weight,” “continues to expand,” more communal in some sense, weight obsessed creative industries - be they “currency,” “going forward”... do you see and accumulation of community and “independent”, corporate or institutional. an ideological thread emerging which value of social engagement. Likely a futile And that forces critical engagements subliminally frames your approach to pursuit, but so much of what I do might between myself and my employers. my works in ways that make it difficult to seem futile and I’ve somehow drawn great discuss notions of strategic smallness, drive from that tension. failure and nihilism?

15 16 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT You asked how I hope the works Terre wishes to keep ‘queer’ audio and media functioning exist in the future. I think at one point queerly, contextually, and with smallness. Populist I answered that question in some social media engines that blast media ‘globally’ to as interview by saying it would be nice if many people as possible may be appropriate for corporate all that remained were the texts and pop music, but they function contrary to everything Terre critical analyses, with none of the audio believes about cultivating and protecting the hyper- or visuals, so they became like dead specificities of ‘underground’ and minor situations. Indiscriminate file sharing, YouTube and SoundCloud grant languages. That’s still my attitude. too much exposure with too little precision. I wish things could remain offline at Clearly, many of you disagree. least, and exchanged or shared through However, please be sensitive to the fact that uploads personal interactions between people into YouTube and SoundCloud enact an explicitly anti- with a bit of trust and understanding social situation that prohibits open communication about how to protect culturally minor between you and non-registered users such as Terre - the works. But I realize that is hard for many very people you are likely trying to ‘support’ through to grasp. I have to waste more and more your uploads! Such uploads display no specific concept of time keeping my work offline. Maybe audience, and take no responsibility for who has access you’ve seen that pop-up message on to the content. It is no different than dumping a box my website asking people not to upload of 100,000 CD-R copies of your favourite track at the largest shopping mall in town, and just walking away. my projects (which, yes, I realize many people miss because they have pop-ups You are placing (at times rather delicate) materials disabled, but there are also limits to how into the hands of homophobes, transphobes, religious zealots, anti-pacifists, anti-Marxists, anti-feminists, much effort I want to put into force- corporate anti-sampling lawyers and their legions of loading myself upon others). It says: content scanning spider-bots. The latter is also a major reason people should never list audio sample sources in website comment fields, or websites/apps like Discogs, WhoSampled, etc. Remember, many countries do not have the legal category of “fair use.” This includes Japan - where Terre lives. While the average end-user who lists things on such sites is preoccupied with a false sense of freedom of expression rooted in fun, it is on the production level that one is always aware of the risks and liabilities of cultural content development - particularly with collage-based media. As a result, Terre considers indiscriminate uploads and file sharing to be a risk to her cultural praxis on multiple levels. Although his views on uploading may be contrary to everything you have been taught to believe, please understand, in some instances NOT UPLOADING shows greater cultural support and understanding than uploading.

17 18 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT I guess this discussion of how death!” That simultaneity and hypocrisy must be more felt than interrogated, the majority of people feel alienated or certain levels of visibility or audibility or frames my understanding of queerness, more respected as preconditions than excluded by some moment or passage vocality can lead to unwanted risks ties not as something to be resolved, but as a analyzed as social constructions. I do that is directed at the queer ratio. In into the story behind “Silent Passability condition of perpetual contradiction and often incorporate multiple types of other words, I try to invert the traditional (Ride to the Countryside),” in a very literal simultaneity. language in a single piece. For example, queer encoding of content so that it way. The title refers to the fact that back LE This seems like a good place for Canto I of Soulnessless, “Rosary Novena is recognizable to those “in the know” in my twenties, with a bit of effort, I used me to ask the idea of voice in your work. for Gender Transitioning,” begins with a but not to straight folk - like lyrics in an to be able to pass as female in the streets Voice, both your own and those of others, “cold” analytical voice, then moves into Elton John or George Michael song. of New York - so long as I remained silent, has always held a primary role in your a kind of seductive personal narrative I am interested in the majority of an since my voice was a giveaway. This sound works. I suppose Midtown 120 voice, followed by a “TMI” kind of hyper audience sharing in a sense of having was back in the early nineties. At that Blues is the clearest musical example personal internal monologue about been excluded, at the precise moment time, there were also a lot of problems of this. In that recording, I almost hear gender transitioning that is emotionally those “in the know” feel spoken to. Not in with anti-trans discrimination from taxi your voice as speaking a kind of ballad, at the opposite end of the spectrum a bullshit Pride™-ful attempt to reverse drivers, who would sometimes drive something that exists as reflexive and from the initial “cold” analytical voice, privilege, but in commiseration around trans-folk deep into the outer buroughs distinctly provocative. In the other pieces yet just as alienating. I also layer archival closets and what we allow ourselves of New York, and dump us in remote too say, some of the pieces on Soil for information with oral tradition, analysis to publicly and privately acknowledge locations with no way to get back home. example, introduced voices and scripts with subjective recollection, dominant comprehending. Because in an audience We all knew to avoid riding in taxis alone are present like subliminal threads, often histories with minor and alternative you never know who is fucking whom whenever possible. Meanwhile, public counterpointing the textural qualities of histories, etc. or doing what where - it doesn’t matter transportation options were also totally the music. Compared to conventional poetry, I if they look like a super-hetero family unsafe. man, house wife, drag queen, or picture In Soulnessless’ Canto I and IV, I think these are more deliberate ways of perfect lesbian mom couple. Pretty much So the heavily filtered voice in “Silent perceive the use of voice existing both allowing for the emergence of manifold everyone is doing shit nobody else knows Passability” was me talking about a time as concrête material and simultaneously texts, which are further layered with about, and via those experiences anyone when I was taking a cab alone from my holding a critical semantic function. I images and sounds, recorded voices, can fall into that queer ratio. But it takes apartment in Spanish Harlem down to was interested to understand how you etc. And I want deliberateness in my time for an audience in a public setting to a club in Midtown. I was pretty dressed consider voice, in the broadest possible work because, as we know, the audience understand that I am publicly speaking up, and the cab driver kept eyeing me in reading, functioning within the work? will filter things into completely other the rear view mirror, saying he thought I meanings anyway. It is about limiting of that unspeakable part of our social TT When it comes to language, first was the most beautiful woman he’d ever variables for how things can go wrong, behaviors, and it’s “safe” for them to allow and foremost, I am not interested in seen. I was terrified to say anything, for in a sense - but not limiting quantity or themselves to think about such things in poetic vagary. That is not to say I am fear of being outed and taken on a ride depth of content. As I said earlier, I am not that audience setting. about strict clarity and singular meanings, to the countryside. You know, the more interested in simplification, or dumbing but I am specifically disinterested in compliments this guy gave me, the more down specifically queer subject matter poetics that prioritize affect in such retribution I feared when he found out for easy absorption by predominantly a way that they invoke universalisms. I had a dick between my legs. So these straight audiences, or dumbing down For example, themes that rely on a moments where my silence was a form specifically anti-essentialist queer presumed shared human condition, of self-defence existed at the same time subject matter for easy absorption by “love” as universal, and other liberal that, on another day, I might be shouting predominantly heteronormative LGBT humanist propaganda that deceives us the ACT-UP slogan “Silence equals audiences, etc. I prefer that at some point into thinking diversity and difference

19 20 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT Meanwhile, I can only get away TT For me, DJ-ing is simply a job. I do That didn’t usually go over very well. with making projects that are not meant it out of economic necessity because I But that kind of inverted economics has to “please” people in a conventional can’t live off of record sales or other types also always been part of this ongoing art-entertainment sense because I get of independent income. I show up, do experiment to see if it is even possible most of my money as flat fees from the my work as freelance staff at a club, and to live off this kind of work. [Laughs] So, people who book my events - not from leave. I understand that there is almost yeah, despite all the underground vibes, ticket sales or that kind of monetarily never going to be any similarity between for most people in this world we are the quantifiable audience satisfaction. They the contexts in which I DJ today, and the fucking poster children for capitalism, are small, one-off financial agreements queer/trans venues where I used to work where personal desire and financial that do not rely upon events “going in New York thirty years ago. independence merges – “lucky people well.” I may not get invited back by the For me, house was over by 1992, doing what we love”. Fuck that. Seriously. same organizer or venue, but that is also so in terms of nostalgia it’s like going When I produce dance music in the anticipated in my financial planning that to a rock’n’roll oldies show. Despite studio, I do try to incorporate themes as is more focussed on maintaining minor the presence of young people, and a in my electroacoustic work, either in the stability than growth-based “success.” marketplace selling music labelled “deep form of samples with particular meanings I understand it could all be over at any house” as fresh, this is not fresh in any to a queer crowd, or spoken word time. way. At this point, after doing the same samples, etc. But I know those messages LE Whilst the works in this exhibition thing for decades, on a technical level I become difficult to hear when played in sit outside of the environment of where a think I can do my job well. But it’s a job, a club - both because of technical issues DJ Sprinkles set is situated, I still feel as and we all hate our jobs. As I’ve written with crappy sound systems that push too though there are a lot of shared concerns and talked about elsewhere, one of the much bass and treble, and because most and explorations happening with your biggest taboos of creative industries is of the audience has their comprehension musical works and the audio visual pieces hating your job. The minute any of us skills hampered by drugs and alcohol. presented in Reframed Positions. How complain in the least, we are immediately So I don’t expect messages to really do you approach creating music for confronted with, “Well, at least you’re get across clearly on a dance floor. But environments like a club or a festival? doing what you love.” It really shuts down it’s there for the home listeners, usually Obviously opportunities for discourse any critical discussions about poor along with texts and images. I know a few exist, but within that type of performance labor conditions, which are particularly of them bring their experiences with that space I imagine there’s a friction at times abundant in art and music industries that content as background into the clubs around how to correlate these agendas. rely enormously upon volunteerism and with them. But again, I produce from a Do you have an interest in them being underpaid labor. realistically grounded perspective that aligned in any way? Or they are more in This is also why I always refuse to do anticipates failure. some type of loose orbit? I imagine the anything for free, and for the first few Compromise is always the starting economic implications of presentation of decades of my career spent my days point for anything. Not compromise in the work in these spaces can be differently explaining to organizers and labels why friendly sense of meeting others half- fraught to those direct exchanges you they had to pay me more money precisely way. I mean starting from a state of being talk about for the audio-visual pieces. because I was an unknown with fewer compromised. Starting from a state of First DJ Sprinkles flyer (1990) work opportunities, so the fees had to failure, and success is not an option. be higher to survive with so little work.

21 22 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE Coming back around to the Then I started DJ-ing at a few benefits, So I actually started producing music A cultural site where the century-old earliest stages of your work, it wasn’t and then a few gigs at the clubs that as a kind of totally private hobby. I had no critiques of authenticity had yet to really long after this thread of works during had hosted the benefits. Finally, I got plans for being a musician. If I was critical begin. In the US they had briefly bubbled the Cooper Union times were created a residency at Sally’s II, which was a of the arts, I was even more critical of into public consciousness during the late that you started to become more active primarily Latina and African American how notions of authenticity and artistry ‘80s lawsuits against sample usage in hip- with sound. How did you come to find transsexual sex worker club. It was there functioned in relation to music. Like, in hop, but only to quickly have the courts yourself in this space? And during that that I got my “underground grammy” for the arts most people were aware of the reaffirm that sampling and all replicated earlier period exploring sound were you best DJ of 1991, and then a month later critiques against authenticity - Warhol tape media also qualify as creations primarily DJ-ing? Or also starting to was fired for refusing to play a Gloria made sure of that - yet it was business as subject to the rules of authorship, blah, explore ambient sound? Estefan record for a wealthy john. usual. So much so that you can get sued blah, blah. And that has completely TT Okay, so while I was busy losing So it was all shitty and crass, and I had by the Warhol Foundation for replicating framed the evolution of electronic my faith in art (yay!), and being involved lost my interest in the art bullshit that one of his prints without permission, yet audio production since then until now. in activist work, I was also collecting originally drew me to New York, and the his entire career was built on sampling That includes far more emphasis on records. I had grown up listening to activist groups I had been involved with newspaper photos, corporate logos, etc., the development of software and other electronic music - disco, new wave and were dissolving as a result of direct action without permission, right? It’s nonsense. technologies aimed at the “electronic techno-pop (which was not the same as groups increasingly transforming into Meanwhile, those same people who audio producer as conventional live techno music) - primarily as a reaction CBO’s (Community Based Organizations) know all those critiques of authenticity performance-based musician” - Abelton against the rock’n’roll and country music that were city funded, etc. Attempts to are still more than likely to turn around Live, Max MSP and other things that that formed the soundtrack for those who find a “community” all failed. Personal and buy into the authenticity of are more about improvisation and fagbashed me on a daily basis. Electronic relationships were also falling apart. After musicians. And this also relates to class performance than replication and music was extremely difficult to find in graduating college I was unemployed for issues, with music being much more plasticity. So it’s all shit. Art is shit. Music Springfield, Missouri. So when I moved almost a year, until I began working full- linked to pop- and low-culture that is is shit. I am simply re-performing the to New York, I suddenly had access to time as a secretary at a medical college. often in defiance of haughty high art failure of those critiques of authenticity all kinds of records I had never known After four years of art school, it was my culture (only to then be appropriated in the arts within the field of music. Not before. By chance, I lived near Dance high school typing class that gave me a by it, of course). So when I put out my with any hope of making them work this Tracks Records, which was one of the means of employment. first record as a lark, my turning to audio time, but with the full knowledge that it most important stores for Loisaida and I was really miserable. production was not about finding a format is a futile gesture. I am performing their New Jersey deep house, and I started that was better than the fine arts, but in a failure. getting things from there, too. Around way finding a cultural site that was in even Again, there is nothing populist or idyllic 1988 or ‘89 some friends asked me to mix more dire conditions. about it. It’s not about solutions. It’s about a tape for them to use in their contingent solidarity with a culturally minor queer of the Gay Pride™ Parade, and that was ratio, and the hopelessness of recognizing my DJ public debut of sorts. oneself in that ratio. I’m totally nihilistic in that sense.

23 24 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE This period was a massive scaring people into avoiding the need for transitional time, I guess like every few social services, rather than constructing years, in New York. But specifically the services that actually attempt to care social and cultural landscape was in a and rebuild lives. HIV was also still a really significant shift following that late fearful plague, and housing services 80s economic bubble. This was a period for homeless people living with HIV where the New York that had birthed and were even more atrocious than normal. supported so much possibility, made Meanwhile, investment companies were So that was the cultural climate. And this possible by the wholesale failure of the buying up large areas of real estate. wave of gentrification also was at the same City Council to leverage the capacity This included Disney’s buyout of Times time that many people involved in direct of the city’s real estate and the like, was Square, which had been a sex district and action groups were taking jobs in city or starting to be flipped, especially after the was also the location of Sally’s II and other federally funded CBO’s, which also came with arrival of Rudy Giliani in 1994. I wondered venues that served as bases for many a lot of self-censorship and concessions to if you could speak more to how this transgendered and queer folk. mainstream policies and politics simply to preserve funding, etc. impacted on the way the communities Of course, Disney always enacts a you had become attached to since cultural cleansing in everything it does, It was all indicative of what was to come, arriving functioned, and also how that and the city was more than happy and how we would arrive at the kinds of deeply then impacted your approaches to the to have the sex district purged. As a compromised cultural situations we have now work took shape in those years? When result, the Midtown trans scene was even though, like we talked about earlier, many I go back to listen to the Raw Through A totally dislocated and scattered to would define today as more “open.” When I have Straw 12”, I can already hear so much of other boroughs, other cities, some went gone to New York in recent years, I have heard the sensibilities of the work that would upstate, others were homeless by the so many people - liberal citizens, musicians come in the decade, and longer, that piers, others simply disappeared never and artists - say about the violence of that era, followed. to be seen again. By the way, to give “Well, look how much better the city is now... I TT Giuliani advanced gentrification an example of how democracy favors guess it was worth it.” Fuck you. Seriously. Fuck policies initiated by Mayor Ed Koch, and capital, while activists from ACT UP you with your blinders on, “the end justifies the they were ruthless when it came to the were facing “weapons charges” for using means,” comfort driven bullshit. bussing of homeless people out of the cardboard tubes to hold up placards, In this age of speculative real estate city. I was living just around the corner Disney was able to convince the New gentrification, we have all been ideologically from Thompkins Square Park when the York fire marshal to allow them to turn relocated as well. infamous police riot happened, and saw off all city lights on Times Square so they first hand the beatings they inflicted on could do one of their electric parades in the homeless as well as the public. It pitch darkness. (To explain for the young was horrifying. Homeless shelters were people, this is why in most countries you notoriously violent, and particularly no longer see placards attached to sticks dangerous for women, young men, and at demonstrations, because authorities queers. Rape was a common thing. This is would claim the sticks were “weapons” all typical of US social services and prison in order to shut down protests for public culture, where the emphasis is placed on safety.)

25 26 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE It begs the question what better lived life. [Laughs] Could you expand on people to survive as disowned? We are As a DJ in trans clubs who was used to actually means? You can’t help but how that operates in your works. Most doubly disowned, by both our families having to play shitty show tunes and pop wonder, what are the qualifiers or criteria recently I have felt that acutely whilst and the “democratic” social services diva tracks for show queens to lip sync to, upon which better is recognised? viewing Deproduction, the juxtaposition which prioritize families above all else. I was also interested in conceptualizing a TT Sadly, for most people, it is of the incessant bird call/field recording But yes, what we used to call back in more critical model of the transgendered about self-serving comfort with a willing against the other sound materials and the old days “contemporary ambient” was stage. One that was not rooted in over- blindness to the suffering of those whose that heavy repeating string section is about a decentralization of traditional the-top spectacle, but in anti-spectacle labor creates the basis for that comfort. equal parts beautiful and relentlessly musicology’s emphasis on melody to that paralleled the kinds of silence, It’s fucking heartless consumerism, singular all at once. the exclusion of disharmony and noise. invisibility and closets required to survive with the qualifiers being determined by TT Well let’s be sure to say it, in It was also a critique of conventional outside of the “safe spaces” of our clubs. capitalist profits - profits that, ironically, Deproduction, those other sound performance, including the pop stage, Well, to be honest, I didn’t want anything go to an extremely small percentage of materials are the sounds of domestic where audiences faced front and center to do with performance at all - and I still people, and is actually distinct from the arguments and domestic violence. to watch a staged spectacle. In terms don’t. But it is an economic necessity, since most of us in this business cannot mechanisms of comfort for the rest of us. LE I had assumed that was the case, of social outlook, it was running with survive off of record sales. We survive I think the only reason notions of comfort I knew they were sounds of abuse, but Jacques Attali’s thesis in Noise that if off of performance fees, which is ironic appeal to so many people is that the didn’t want to presume the exact sources. music and melody expressed a society’s and disappointing when producing overwhelming majority of us are horribly Thanks for the clarification. dominant power structures, noise and uncomfortable! ambiance can be metaphors for cultural what I personally consider to be “non- TT Well, I’d be distressed if you dissonances. performative” works. LE In conjunction with this question actually heard the entire piece and still So I had to come up with strategies about the impacts of the changing weren’t sure what was happening. It just for performing the non-performative, circumstances in New York, I’m interested proves that one can never be too heavy and at first my solution was simply to sit to pick up on some of the writing you did handed with content. Like, I can feel like on stage, in drag, with a DAT player, and around the idea of Ambient. Specifically, I’m beating people over the head with play the audio almost like a conventional your interest at that time, and probably some sample that seems way too direct electroacoustic tape concert one would still today, in decentralisation. I’d like for my ears, and yet 75% of an audience encounter in traditional academic circles. to know what your interests were in will still never realize or be able to discuss This was around 1995-2000. exploring this concept via ambient what they heard. That is so frustrating. music through that period of the mid But yes, there is a looping to the piece 90s into the early 2000s. I note, and that, on the surface, appears stagnant, frankly couldn’t concur more strongly yet if you sit through the piece there is with Ultra Red’s rejection of the spiritual definitely a structural arch of tensions, or the mystic qualities attached to but ultimately anti-climactic because Ambient music, which you reference. it simply goes on, and on, and on... like Their proposal of ‘finding pleasure in actual family violence, generation after the mundane (soundscape)’ very much generation, century after century, with no seems to resonate strongly within your end in sight. The question then becomes, work to this day. I know we’ve spoken if we recognize that inescapable cycle, about the role of tedium, boredom and, what does it mean for “democracy” and dare I say it, relishing the drudgery of the global failure to cultivate means for

27 28 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT At that time, many of the bigger a person schooled in Marxist-fueled TT I ’ve never had the financial luxury LE I realise in this conversation we’ve named producers - overwhelmingly Constructivism, I also fucking hated of moving away from stage performance. tended to focus on the audio-visual straight guys - were also playing from Futurism for its links to fascism, as well I mean, even when I am simply sitting still works predominately. Today though, DAT, but they were doing all the macho as the liberal mindset which is always so in front of an audience, to the side of a I had an experience that sparked me gestures of knob twiddling on unused forgiving of that link and willing to dismiss screen while a video plays for an hour, to think about some other aspects of channels of the mixers, and basically it as simply “poetic.” No, Futurism was that is a “performance” - often times a your work. I was struck by how much faking a live show for the audiences. rooted in real militaristic fascism. Stop drag show - even if it deliberately fails to house music was used in shops, cafes My show was just kind of more brutally protecting your cultural and financial fulfil the audience expectations around and other public, communal spaces. I honest and stagnant, in contrast to their investments, and deal with it. “performance.” And sometimes the started to think about how far this music staged gesticulations. LE Was it with the introduction of organizer’s expectations, too. [Laughs] had been removed from its birth place, Then with the advent of Max MSP, the the visuals that you moved away from The use of video is simply the most how, to use a visiocentric term, invisible “laptop orchestra” trend hit. Over night, the ‘stage’ altogether? Did the visual practical means for getting thematic it has become even though it is more almost all of those guys were suddenly materials offer some kind of possibility content in front of audiences who are visible. It feels like some kind of inverse sitting still behind the glow of their for liberation from even that tenuous not only unaccustomed to “listening cultural colonialism. I wondered about laptops. Basically, those bitches stole my occupation of that space during for content,” but actually culturally your feelings on this and how it can be act. [Laughs] And I was also increasingly performance? In terms of the visual conditioned not to expect any content that the criticality of the music and it’s frustrated with the lack of thematic approaches, what I find interesting is that, beyond affect. So, it is a very practical meaningful evolution can be maintained information audiences were getting out of given the technological shifts that have engagement with the limitations of a and continuously vitalised? Perhaps also my little anti-performances because, as I occurred that allow for fairly significant stage - particularly a music stage - and if that should be the case at all? said, it is difficult to hear and understand leverage of production values/techniques not a move away. I suppose you could link TT Oh, yeah, house music is literally the processed voices or other sonic clues via software, you’ve somehow maintained that kind of pragmatic and materialist fucking elevator and shopping mall music. to the thematic content of the albums. the structural aspects of these audio approach to things as informed by It’s totally co-opted. As I said before, for So I started doing 35mm slide shows, visual pieces across the arc of the works Constructivism, with its emphasis on me house music ended in 1992 (when and then text heavy videos, as means of to date; there is a strong sense of linage demystification. I say “house” I am more specifically increasing content delivery. between them, structurally as well as in referring to classic Deep House as it I was also very deliberately keeping relation to the content. emerged from New York and New Jersey my production values in range of my Is this a reflection of your interests in the late ‘80s.) I’ve talked about it many economic reality. This was a deliberate in Constructivism, the works are a times, but basically that was the year rejection of Futurist aesthetics found manifestation of how the application when “house” became genrefied in the in a lot of other videos used during of this ideology take place? In some music marketplace - an identifiable electroacoustic performances, which respects, I think this idea reflects how I category for music distributors. As a were like high-tech screen savers. think about you and your relation to the result, the previously foggy differences I fucking hated that shit, and felt it work, that it is constant but never solid, between house and techno became more was deceptive as a means of visual it is always becoming and through that rigidly defined - including along race representation within a field of audio process allows multiple entry ways to and gender lines, since house was more production that was so financially the ideas and enquires. An interested the sound to queer spaces for people of limited and often done using cracked someone can commence a navigation of color, and techno became more rigidly software, old junker laptops, and the your work from so many entry points. aligned with hetero white-boy stuff. opposite of high-tech. Of course, as

29 30 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT It’s important to remember that It’s interesting to note, however, that Everything gets turned on its head with Queer.... Tranny.... Fierce.... Ova.... “house music” did not originally refer the codification of these dance genres time, right? Classic Marxist ideological Ovaplayed...? Quickly subjected to to a particular genre, but rather to the occurred at the precise time identity inversion. Fucking always on cue. cultural decontextualization and overall vibe of the record collections politics were crystalizing in US politics Of course, all of this co-opting was commercialization.... A decade passes.... housed in certain clubs. We’re talking - late ‘80s and early ‘90s. This is not the theme to my album as DJ Sprinkles, Now this.... Possibly an attempt to back in the days before DJ’s brought their a coincidence. As the sexualities that Midtown 120 Blues. Most people took de-commodify a musical era.... own records to clubs. It used to be that found expression in underground clubs it as my critique on newer producers Probably yet another form of when you were hired as a DJ, you played found visibility and became increasingly and scenes, but it was more about self- communal exploitation.” And so forth. the club’s records. Those collections of regimented and commodifiable, so critique while making a house album in Re-appropriation has clearly always dance music - ranging from disco to soul did the sounds of those spaces take 2008, as well as a critique of the label been a recurrent theme in my house to hip hop to Chicago Trax to whatever on more regimented categorization Mule Musiq that was releasing the album productions, because they were all else - were literally the “house music”, the and marketability. The restricting of - which I considered part of that larger produced after 1992, so I was always music owned by the house, or venue. So “house music” from a venue’s multi- problem of the house revival. The album producing from this notion that it was Garage House is the vibe of the sound of generational selection of music to a was really about the pointlessness of already over. I was collecting records and the Paradise Garage, Loft House is the singular contemporary sound paralleled making house music in 2008. But I think DJ-ing before then, but the productions sound of the Loft, and so on. There were the emergence of identifiable tropes most people don’t get that layer of meta- all came later. no stylistically consistent “house albums” in queer and trans identities within critique, because standard humanist as we think of them today. mainstream markets. Very visually methods of argumentation tend to invoke It’s like the old Donna Summer record stylized and immediately identifiable things like “singular truths of experience,” with “I Feel Love.” Have you ever heard tropes - most notably the “white clone” and “respecting narratives. ” So I think that album? It’s not an entire album of look - which were a rejection of the closet, a lot of people take it as a testimonial, arpeggiated synth music. It’s a typical a means of immediate identification, despite the fact that I am absolutely soul/R&B/disco album with only a single with an emphasis on outing. So the not about singularity nor interested in synth track tacked on to the end. That emergence of house music as a genre is respect. absolutely, historically interwoven with was how we used to consume music, And by extension, as you anticipated, the emergence of the Pink Economy and by digging for nuggets that stood out I am also not interested in continuous queer marketability. And of course, the because they were not typical, even for vitality. In the case of house music, it Pink Economy is interwoven with the all- the producers who made them. Queer is already over. In the liner notes to the absorbing liberal humanist marketplace, ratio. Another classic example would house album preceding Midtown 120 where context and specificity are be “White Horse” by Laid Back. What a Blues, K-S.H.E’s Routes not Roots, I ultimately replaced by mass market shit band, but what an amazing track. So referred to house dancefloors as “wakes appeals to a universal human condition. things were not as rigidly codified. in remembrance of a mythological Perhaps the pinnacle of that was “Queer era of openness that never was.” Eye for the Straight Guy,” where the And before that, the cover to DJ tropes of queer sensibility were no longer Sprinkles’ Bassline.89 read, “These are for the self-empowering identification reconstructed memories of the sounds of queers, but became a sixth sense embraced by late ‘80s underground possessed by queers that had use value House culture.... Particularly among to a heteronormative, straight lifestyle. Latinos and African Americans....

31 32 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE I wanted to examine more about how those terms are misleading, one more aspect of “the universal.” intentions. This is a constant struggle. I specifically about some of the pieces so that we can more consciously catch Meanwhile, there are countless cultures am also struggling every day with this shit, presented in Reframed Positions, I ourselves wanting to espouse them, and where these particular values around love too. wanted to touch on Lovebomb, as the be more conscious of whether or not we are not a part of daily life, and do not fully Next, let’s talk about that term themes you addressed there maintains want them to come out of our mouths resonate with local cultures, despite the “timeless” (you tried a pun on both a universal and timenessless (see if they are in fact guaranteed to lead us concepts of Western humanist nuclear- “Soulnessless,” but even with that logic what I did there) presence. This was the away from the actual topics at issue. I family identity-driven love being visible in “timenessless” would imply an absence first work of yours that I experienced realize that sounds awful, almost like movies, TV and other media. of belief in the functions of time, which is in a performative setting, with the censorship. I don’t mean like censoring So, if Lovebomb has the multi-cultural another way of saying “outside of time” or conversation following the work. To this oneself. To the contrary, I mean that using breadth you imply, I would locate it “timeless”). day, I maintain a strong connection to words like “universal” and “timeless” are as emerging from these processes of LE Not exactly the read I had in mind that piece. It was indeed a gateway for in fact already censoring our abilities to globalization. You can say it is, ultimately, there, but certainly one I can concede. me and I can still appreciate the lateral analyze and express our experiences a colonial breadth. This is a radically [Laughs] How would you frame it up? threads you weave together to attempt with the culturally minor. So I am actually different analysis than a claim to universal to comprehend the complexity that is speaking about the dilemma of how appeal. And it is actually an analysis that loaded into such an overworked word as to deprogram that internalized self- is rendered inconceivable if one goes ‘love.’ censorship which alienates us from our with saying Lovebomb is tapped into TT Well, I know that you know the material conditions. the universal. The “universal” becomes major theme of the work is that love is Regarding “universality,” this is really an ideological device that, culturally not universal or timeless, but actually the about acknowledging the capacity for speaking, tends to eradicate our capacity way we conceptualize and express love is a work to broach multiple contexts for conceiving of the culturally specific. related to cultural and historical contexts, or cultures. Of course, as a result of So I know it would be polite of me to just moralities, taboos, etc. And also that globalization, most cultures have been roll with your word choices, but I think love is not a “cure” to hate, but actually inundated with Western - and particularly it’s necessary to unpack this stuff for the a mechanism through which much American Hollywood - media explaining readers. And maybe for you, too. [Laughs] violence is justified and enacted, ranging what forms love assumes in late-phase This is not about me being a PC word from domestic violence on the micro (or capitalism. Families are nuclear, not nazi. Fuck censorship. Fuck PC word “private”) level to religious terrorism on extended. Love is a personal choice, nazis. There are no magic words that the macro (or “public”) level. Remember and the free selection of a mate is will suddenly bring about world piece or the line about “a love song’s persuasive a right. At the core of love is sexual global consciousness. I am not talking image of universality is its greatest act expression. Therefore, love is at the core about that bullshit. I am a tranny faggot of mentally invasive violence?” So I don’t of sexual identity, and self-expression. talking about the struggle to become know why you would choose to conjure We can trace these particular views to conscious of how the language of clichés of the “universal” or “timeless,” the cultural emergence of the petite mainstream culture keeps us analytically instead of simply saying that you feel bourgeoise, and they are deeply rooted numb. And it really is a struggle, like the piece continues to have cultural in humanist ideology. Of course, at the deprogramming from a cult. We are relevance after the passage of 17 years core of humanism is the notion of a talking that level of difficulty when it (which, actually, is not long at all). shared, or “universal” human experience, comes to recognizing and rewiring our But let’s think this through. Let’s think so a humanist notion of love becomes brains around language that betrays our

33 34 REFRAMED POSITIONS

TT The lurking theme would be Next is re-appropriation, when Last, and absolutely least likely, is thematic longevity, right? I would say someone takes something from another the work having longevity because the there are typically three ways that context and uses it in their own context cultural contexts which contributed to a work culturally lingers... no, four: in an unconsidered or unplanned way. its meaning at the time of production misinterpretation, re-appropriation, The most obvious example of this would have not really changed, or perhaps even discovery, and - lastly and least likely - in be “African Art” in museums. But on the escalated in ways that exacerbate the relation to producers intentions within culturally minor level, this can also be dynamics of those contexts. I could see their time and place of production. The about sampling, culture-jamming, flipping how this also might apply to Lovebomb. first three also tend to rely on a belief power relations in mainstream media, etc. First of all, not that much time has in universality, to some degree at least. Think early Warhol, printing news paper passed. Second, globalization is marching Misinterpretation is when a critical work photos and corporate logos. But then on unfettered. And third, along with that, is presented as being ideologically in think about the Warhol Foundation suing liberal humanist models of Pride™ based alignment with those presenting it (such you for reproducing one of his works. sexual identities are also increasingly as a museum, gallery space or music Again, we are quickly back to the trap of familiar. festival). For example, the hypocrisy “critique affirming its object.” So the problems that are discussed in behind “political art” or projects that Discovery is when people come the work have not at all disappeared from revolve around institutional critiques, across something that was unknown in the Western cultural mainstream - also yet are funded through the institutions their community, and then they build including for an Australian audience. they critique. a narrative of timelessness around it. But again, this articulation of something This is a common and unavoidable Think Van Gogh or the countless other contextually or historically specific is hypocrisy in my own work, for sure, and people whose works were posthumously immediately rendered unthinkable if I always attempt to address it openly as hyped into goldmines. It’s sad that a lot we allow ourselves to use terms like an unavoidability of the marketplace. And of die-hard artists work this into their “timeless.” Like, I would suggest to people, addressing it does not mean I excuse it or formulation of self-worth. For example, even if they have to think of it as a game, explain it away. It means we are producing think about how Nick Drake romanticized just try to avoid those words and see what works in a state of compromise, to a this process in his song “Lemon Tree,” other words come out in their place. The degree that renders most of what we do only to commit suicide a few years same goes for “love.” It will get your mind pointless for my own interests. That trap later, and then have his music explode working in new ways. of “critique affirming its object” thing I was decades later thanks to a Volkswagen TV talking about earlier. All of our critiquing commercial. This is also unappealing ultimately does more to hype the to me. benevolence and cultural openness of the rich assholes behind the institutions we critique. It’s not even a zero-sum game. They win. Terre Thaemlitz, photo by Iara Lee (1997)

35 36 REFRAMED POSITIONS

LE For me, this is one of the most Meanwhile, as the number of survivors despite the fact that tactics of silence I don’t value life-arching stories. I revealing and personal works you have still alive today is dwindling towards and secrecy are also how sexual and value histories and connections, but completed. Partly I guess because you zero due to old age, our contemporary gender deviants have socially survived not teleological arches. I don’t have any appear ‘within’ the work in a very direct collective (false-)memory of love and for millennia? Why do people who come memories that can comfort me as being way, which is in some respects the first concern stretching backwards through out have to disavow their lives up to a constant and reliable whole. And I don’t time this occurs one of these works. time becomes increasingly uncontested, that point - such as having been hetero- need them. I prefer allowing memories The “AIDS Bucket” sequence still until eventually all we are left with is a married with kids - as having been to be all over the place, contradicting haunts me, as I recognised a version cruelly distorted fantasy of how we wish nothing but years of self-betrayal? It is a each other, disserving any singular model of you there in the piece that is yet to to remember our relationship to them, complete erasure of non-binary sexual of self, and refuting any ability to claim be realised as the you who created the as opposed to a materially grounded complexity. You know, the cliché of a man consistency of ethics or outlook. I’d piece. It got me to thinking about how record of the endless social abuses leaving his wife and kids to come out in rather have such desires for continuity it is memory functions in your work. they suffered. More often than not, his 40’s, being left with no cultural tools dismantled by my own memories. I choose Lovebomb because of this this is how I see memory functioning. for recollecting or reconciling his sense Memory is not to be trusted. It is one of sequence of you and also the section Violently. Particularly on the level of mass of Gay sexuality other than to mentally the most easily manipulated and self- of cut up materials from interviews of communications, which always prioritize leap backwards into tales of his sense of serving aspects of human thought. The Hibakusha survivors of the atomic bombs propaganda about our collective liberal his “true gay nature” at the age of four or distortions of memory are how we arrive in Nagasaki and Hiroshima set against humanist greatness. whatever? at “truths,” be they personal or public the repeated, stuttering birth of Astroboy. The AIDS Bucket stuff is actually the That’s the joke behind the talk show truths. And truths are very different These past/future, lived/imagined English title track, “Lovebomb,” and yes, segment of Interstices, where it said: from facts. Facts are much, much more juxtapositions trigger strong memory it includes some embarrassing photos “coming up... People who still contend difficult to culturally preserve or carry scapes for me. How is it you perceive of me as a teen. That occurs in other one’s ‘true nature’ emerges naturally over forward, because the interpretation of memory operating in the work? projects as well, like the clip of me next time, mysteriously evolving backward facts constantly changes with time and TT You’re talking about the album’s to my grandma in “Rosary Novena for until they have the age and wisdom to context. Truths are the falsehoods that Japanese title track, “Ai No Bakudan,” Gender Transitioning” from Soulnessless. see the core of the essence from whence, emerge out of our inability to hold onto which is precisely about functions I think incorporating the awkward and they came.” You know, that confusing way facts. of memory. In particular, how our embarrassing is one way of making my in which the life-changing act of coming LE So true… contemporary collective memory of thematically heavy projects a touch less out is ultimately always turned into a TT What a rant. Well, that should nuclear holocaust survivors is one of didactic. Like, showing that I’m not a tale of having always been “this way.” No give a bit of context for pretty much loving sympathy - basically to the point know-it-all, and just another idiot on this room for complexity. Again, there is this everything in this exhibition. [Laughs] of wondering how we could think of them shit planet. [Laughs] It’s also about the way that memory reaches backwards in any other terms, right? But in fact, the shame and awkwardness of being queer. to sweep over material conditions and survivors were forced to live through My aversion to Pride™ and constant validate our singular humanist identities decades of medical neglect, social invocation of closets is also about the through affect. Reality is not singular. I ostracism, difficulty finding housing or problems of memory. think we are all schizophrenic on some jobs, being feared as contaminants, etc. Like, what does it mean for us culturally level. when our current collective memory of closets insists they are only sites of shame and trauma, and must be abandoned for total visibility at all times,

37 38