Photography & Culture Photographic Flashes: Volume 7—Issue 3 On Imaging Trans November 2014 pp. 253–268 Violence in Heather DOI: 10.2752/175145214X14153800234775 Cassils’ Durational Art Reprints available directly from the publishers Eliza Steinbock Photocopying permitted by licence only © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2014 Abstract This article examines the aesthetic strategy of fash photography to visualize everyday violence against trans people in the visual art of Heather Cassils (2011–14). In addition to PLCusing photographic fashes to blind audiences, these works reference violence on multiple levels: institutional discrimination through the location in an empty archive room, killings through martial arts choreographies, and microaggressions in aesthetics of defacement. However, the rigorous physical training undergone for his body art also suggests a productive mode of violence in that muscles must fail in order to grow. I trace the recurrence of the spasm across these different forms of embodied violence to show its generative as well as destructive property. This body of work opens up questions about the historiography of photography: What is the temporality of photographic violence? How can the body’s resiliency be pictured? Does a E-printtrans body experienced as a punctum indicate queer anxieties? Keywords: transgender, fash photography, temporality, punctum, sensation, Heather Cassils
“I am a visual artist, and my body is my medium,” reads the frst line of the artist statement from Los Angeles-based Heather Cassils (2013: online n.p.).1 Since 2007 Cassils’ major works have involved embarking on a strict training program that takes his physicality and somatic skills to a professional level. For instance, Cassils is a personal trainer, and for Cuts: A BLOOMSBURYTraditional Sculpture (2011) he followed a specially designed diet and bodybuilding regime for twenty-three weeks in order to amass twenty-three pounds of muscle.2 And, for Becoming an © Image (hereafter, BAI 2012—ongoing) he was instructed by a pro-Muay Thai boxer for three weeks before the performance (Cassils is a former semipro boxer). The audience’s experience of BIA was further governed by Cassils’ physical endurance:
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the performed all-out attack lasted until his accompanying historiography, plays a key role body ran out of oxygen, or “gassed out.” in how the works visualize violence’s varying Durational art like Cassils’ practices places durational qualities for the spectator. Cassils’ the component of time and its restriction at recent work opens up a set of questions relevant the core of the work, making the artist’s and/ to the study of gender variant and queer visual or the spectator’s bodily endurance the focus. cultures: Does a trans body experienced as a High culture artists such as John Cage (1912–92) punctum (a detail or intensity of time that pricks and Linda Mary Montano (b. 1942) are often the viewer) indicate queer anxieties? What categorized as creating durational art; their is the temporality of photographic violence? works involve taking eighteen hours to repeat a How can the body’s resiliency be pictured? piano theme 840 times or lasting for one year The article advances by tracking intersecting of being attached to another person with an violences in Cassils’ Cuts and BAI, and then 8-foot rope, respectively.3 The performances of concludes with a consideration of bodybuildingPLC Cassils similarly explore the effects of temporal as a model for understanding the dual nature duration on the human body through set of violence’s generative-destructive powers. regimens, but with a specifc trans* infection.4 The project Cuts supplants the cuts of gender Cuts in Time affrming surgeries with extreme training for a Cuts was the outcome of Cassils becoming “cut” muscularity, including a very low dosage a commissioned artist researcher for Los of steroids (Cassils n.d.).5 Besides the resulting Angeles Goes Live (2010–11). He was asked to embodiment, the project includes documenting contribute to the exhibition called Performance the transformation of his transmasculine body in Southern California 1970–1983 with a new through time-lapse photography and through artwork that spoke to the rich history of the aestheticizing photographs reminiscent of the area’s performance culture. The piece cites fashion world. In contrast BAI has a stripped two main feminist artistic sources from the down design that displaces his body’sE-print visuality. 1970s, both of which incorporate gendered While Cassils pummels a 2,000-pound clay performance with photographic display. The title plinth in a blacked-out room, a photography of Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture (2011) explicitly camera randomly fashes, striking the audience’s recalls Eleanor Antin’s titling of the performance eyes to represent “all the senseless invisible Carving: A Traditional Sculpture (1972). violence we tolerate” that is directed at trans Antin’s version is a time-lapse photographic people (personal communication 2013). documentation of a thirty-day crash diet. Each This article examines how differing durations day she posed nude in front of a white door become juxtaposed in Cassils’ mixed media work to be photographed from four different angles as destructive and generative forms of violence. (front, back, both sides) to record in 148 I focus primarily on 1) the discrete duration of images the “carving” away, through starving no the performance training, 2) the long duration less, of 9 pounds from her physical body. By of suffering endured by BLOOMSBURYtrans people, and 3) analogy to the feminine tradition of dieting to the indeterminate durée of fash photography reach the ideal aesthetic form of thinness, the and its afterimage. Notwithstanding the strong work parodies the Greek sculptural technique performance qualities© and athleticism noted of removal in layers (Johnson 2006: 315). by scholarly reviews of Cassils (Doyle 2013; The violent tone of “carving” that Cassils Jankovic 2013; Jovanovich 2013), I argue that borrows in Cuts carries a transgender resonance. the medium of photography, along with its Contemporary “transitioned” embodiment is still
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largely defned through surgical incisions following lapse documentary photographs taken in hormonal therapy (Spade 2003). Whereas the front of a white backdrop to record his nude popular notion of trans embodiment involves body from four positions (see Figure 1). crossing from one sex to another accomplished However, these grids of photos show the in the event of a “sex change,” Cassils claims body’s capacity for becoming masculine through to perform trans as “a continual becoming, a the addition of musculature, accentuated process oriented way of being that works in a by the removal of fat, and its redistribution. space of indeterminacy, spasm and slipperiness” In both cases diet and exercise mark out a (Cassils n.d.). Spasm in this defnition can refer temporality that feminist art scholar Clare to a bodybuilder’s strained muscles, as well as Johnson describes as a “future-oriented to unpredictable shifts in gender perception duration” (2006: 315), in which the body shrinks while on hormones. To emphasize a spasmodic, or grows to become gendered ideals. The processual version of trans embodiment, instant temporality of photography seemsPLC to Cassils uses the same technique of daily time- arrest, or fx, the development of becoming
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BLOOMSBURY © Fig 1 Heather Cassils, Day One Day One Hundred and Sixty One, Detail from Time Lapse (Front) 2011 (artwork and photos © Heather Cassils; part of the body of work Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture) (40 × 60 in.).
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feminine/masculine. Nevertheless, the grid-like painted lips. Both photographs are shot straight documentation invites anticipatory looking on, in a medium close-up framing of the fgure for the narrative of progress. The potential in a turned pose, and use hard studio lighting to teleological trajectory of gender as development accentuate the surface of the body. The stylization is undercut by the fnitude of the projects. Each suggests appearances are (just about) everything. project creates short-term, unsustainable living Whereas Benglis targeted the “male ethos” sculptures to amplify the general condition of the minimalist movement by running the ad in of perpetual, open-ended body sculpting. the art establishment magazine Artforum (Taylor Challenging ideal regimes of gender 2005: 29–30), Cassils challenges homoerotic presentation is also at the heart of the second aesthetics by circulating the image to gay feminist performance from which the Cuts fashion and art publications. The collaborating project explicitly draws inspiration. For this photographer Robin Black, who is often mistaken part of the project Cassils’ titling Advertisement: for a gay man for her sexualized nudes PLCof men, Homage to Benglis (2011) references Lynda used her connections to leak the image, along Benglis’ scandalous Artforum magazine with a link to the blog and zine LADY FACE// intervention Advertisement (1974) as a dialogue MAN BODY (Cassils 2011: online n.p.). Much like partner to discuss issues of eroticism and self- the intense reaction from feminists that Benglis commodifcation. For this paid centerfold ad received for daring to embody a self-determined for her upcoming show, the left side is pure artist identity (Chave 2005: 390), the Cassils– black, and on the right, Benglis appears nude in Black collaboration incited a backlash from gay an eroticized pose reminiscent of 1970s porn. audiences for presenting a self-determined trans Unlike Antin’s straight documentary poses that identity wrought through bodybuilding science. divest personality and turn her into an object to The presentation of trans-muscularity, or be shaped, Benglis appeals to the viewer with a man body on a lady face, evokes Robert shocking self-display (see Buszek 2006). The ad Mapplethorpe’s prolifc collaboration between promotes her new show by showingE-print her wearing 1980 and 1982 with Lisa Lyon, a white female only refective white sunglasses, short hair slicked bodybuilder and champion weight lifter (see back, exposing a glistening tan and slender body, Patton 2001). Similar to Black’s series with one hand on her hip, the other holding tight to Cassils, Mapplethorpe often stylized Lyon to a realistic double-headed dildo inserted into suggest iconic gay physical culture, or “beefcake” her vagina. In sum, she strikes an aggressive poses like the strongman to accentuate her “cheesecake” or girly pin-up pose. Cassils borrows “musculinity” (Tasker 1993: 3).6 By eroticizing directly from Benglis’ photograph by combining Lyon’s muscularity and strength, while also often a cocky pose with overtly mixed gender signals. stressing her considerable breasts, Mapplethorpe’s The result in the Cuts project is a reworking of images become indeterminately geared to a masculinity, but one that cannot be detached heterosexual or homosexual gaze. Pioneering like a silicon cock. Cassils stands tall, arms slightly female bodybuilders like Lyon or Bev Francis bent at attention, gazing BLOOMSBURYslightly off-camera (see battled against “heteroanxious” bodybuilding Figure 2). Yes, he wears a bulging white jock strap, judges who favored athletic straight femininity, however, it is the display of a ripped body that punishing too muscular (read masculine) women, is the focal point© of phallic masculinity. Mixed such as documented in the flm Pumping Iron gender attribution might derive from the longish II: The Women (1985) (Patton 2001: 119). As hair swept to the right closely framing a chiseled a queer bodybuilder Cassils combats not face whitened with cake make-up and bright red only heteroanxiety. In becoming increasingly
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BLOOMSBURY © Fig 2 Heather Cassils, Advertisement: Homage to Benglis. 2011 (artwork © Heather Cassils; photograph by the artist and Robin Black) (30 × 40 in.).
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transmasculine he also received what I’d identify Damaged but refusing to disappear, the as “homoanxious” responses. Cassils reports that image becomes an interface for multiple gay men at the gym would check out his pecs durations of violence and recovery from it. The and become hostile when they realized they bullying attacks made possible by instant online were breasts; further, he received an onslaught of commentary reverberate with a long history of confused commentary about the trans-positive social stigma faced by transgender people. The photographs leaked online that some perceived title names these as the resilient 20 percent, as “freak androgyny” (2011, 2013: online n.p.). referencing the fact that worldwide transgender The use of online media to circulate the murders increased by 20 percent in 2012.7 In images meant that an encounter with them was this sense, Cassils is far from alone in searching not limited to artistic contexts in which gender for resilience strategies to help communities confusion might be (politely) celebrated, but and individuals recover from transphobic opened up the project to transphobic vitriol attacks. Counseling and trauma scholarshipPLC at large. In wanting “to achieve a confusing concerning trans people have shown that in body that ruptured expectations,” Cuts was addition to institutional discrimination, trans extremely successful (Cassils 2013: online n.p.). individuals experience an outsized measure of But particularly when Cassils published on the gender biased microaggressions and traumatic US edition of the Huffngton Post a chronicle life events such as rape or domestic violence of his experiences during the twenty-three (Singh and McKleroy 2010; Nadal, Skolnik, and weeks of Cuts, along with images and video, Wong 2012). The pervasiveness of transphobic the hateful reactions skyrocketed. In response, discrimination has prompted out transgender Cassils created three collages titled Disfgured woman of color actress Laverne Cox to suggest Image: The Resilient 20 Percent (2013) to transfer that “our entire society is experiencing a collective the hate speech from the threatened camps to gender anxiety,” which acts out the fear of an the pin-up images that sparked the rage. No upset gender binary order through violence longer an impermeable, durable digitalE-print image, against trans people, particularly those of color the fragility of the printed photograph on paper (2011: online n.p.). Trans lives become marked allows Cassils to express with his own hand by trauma, and anticipation of the threat of the experience of permanent damage. The violence. Such taxing experiences are akin to defacement depicts the violent dismemberment what Lauren Berlant qualifes as a slow death, of his trans body (see Figure 3): eyes scratched “a physical wearing out of a population” in out, throat slit open, lips sown shut, burned which mental and physical suffering seeps into areas threaten the body, and, lastly, bloody the everyday environment rather than being slashes marked across the gender incongruent confned only to sporadic events (2007: 754). breasts. Using marker, gold paint, gouache, and I propose that Disfgured Image: The Resilient razor etching, the image becomes symbolically 20 Percent visualizes for the (transphobic) viewer perforated by the “litany of hatred” (Cassils the closeness of the photographic image to the 2013: online n.p.). The HomageBLOOMSBURY photograph material reality of the social world. The slashes now appears to reference the height of trans- and burns into these images show the points muscularity, but also anticipates the defacement wherein the viewers had a gender anxiety of a trans identity© in Dis fgured Image. The brutal awoken. In this sense, the second set of pin-ups representation of a chest surgery that de-breasts retrace the various elements that might indicate the fgure underscores the way that a trans body a threatening gender binary disorder. Roland is expected to conform to gender norms, or else. Barthes famously used the term punctum to
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Fig 3 Heather Cassils, Disfgured Image: The Resilient 20% 2013 Collage: photo paper, marker, gold paint, gouache, razor© etching (artworks © Heather Cassils; part of the body of work Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture) (11 × 17 in.).
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describe the affective experience of a photograph which Cassils describes as a way of being trans, in which one feels an unexpected, unsolicited are of course products of the nervous system, as emotional onslaught from a particular detail it becomes overloaded. I want to call for inserting (1980: 25–30). Later, he names a second type of an affective, punctum-ridden space for critique punctum, “a sudden fash,” that is equally relevant within queer photography studies in order to to Disfgured Image; rather than a stigmatum of inspect the close to home, or spasms close to form, it comes from the lacerating intensity of the bone. Giving critical attention to the defacing time, or temporalities meeting (1980: 95–6). pricks, to the violences visible and invisible that The “that-has-been,” or a pure representation appear in fashes, and to slow and pre-mature of the past impinges with a deathliness onto death would approximate the kind of “queer the deteriorating present. The detail is equally commentary” that Lauren Berlant and Michael described in violent language as an arrow that Warner advocated for when queer theory pierces, or a shard that probes a wound. In was frst emerging, before retroviral cocktailsPLC both cases, Barthes emphasizes the punctum (1995: 343). If queer commentary, and aesthetic breaking into the masterful observational mode genres that spawn discussion of violence, death, of looking. This general enjoyment comes with and neglect, are to be celebrated for anything, gazing at culturally recognizable contents, what he they argue it is for holding an abstract space calls the photographic studium. Shawn Michelle that brings a culture into being (1995: 346). Smith’s reconsideration of these two structuring Though the culture to be lived in, remembered, elements in Camera Lucida challenges Barthes’ and hoped for they refer to was framed by claim to reading off the photograph the culturally the aftermath of the AIDS crisis, today’s queer already known, and the personally unknown and trans cultures are emerging with resilient (2009). Assessing his examples for the punctum courage in the face of a pervasive gendercide in racially and sexually problematic photographs, overshadowed by moneyed campaigns for gay she notes the subtle culturally laid patterns marriage. Sharon Sliwinski’s study on photographic that bring a charge and activity to a E-printphoto that violence argues that, “the [defaced] photograph Barthes claims as his own sensitive wound offers an uncomfortable proximity, a kind of (2009: 244–55). In short, a punctum is telling; it is suture between the social and psychical realms” affective knowledge, but by no means unavailable (2009: 312). Cassils’ photographic practice of to analysis of the cultural schema that animates it. pricking and defacing might be considered a Following Smith, I suggest that the manifestation of today’s specifcally trans suture. achievement of Cuts is how these circulated Precariously the images stitch together realms works engender a punctum effect not only on of discomfort in order to create a greater public individual subjectivities, but also on the body culture for gender nonconforming bodies. politic—registering pricks on what I propose to call the social nervous system. Michael Becoming a Spasm Taussig’s cultural history of the nervous system In thinking of the photographic image as an characterizes its connectivityBLOOMSBURY as “illusions of affective bond or suture between the artist and order congealed by fear” in relation to the the audience, the social and psychical realms, then emerging model of the modern state (1992: 2). Cassils’ next durational art project works even His understanding© of a system held together by more closely with the audience’s nervous system nervous fear helps explain how the mythological to elicit spasms. Becoming an Image (BAI) was order of the gender binary is held together by commissioned by ONE National Gay and Lesbian the pervasive cultural fear of trans bodies. Spasms, Archives of Los Angeles in conjunction with the
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exhibition Cruising the Archive. The invitation was Cassils casts to be a large man, performs as for a site-specifc performance under the auspices the photographer.8 As he moves around in the of the one-day event “Transactiviation: Revealing space with a hand-held fash camera, the fash Queer Histories in the Archive,” which sought intermittently goes off and enables the audience to discuss “the ‘Ts’ and ‘Qs’ often missing from to see Cassils suspended in action. The sudden historical records” (ONE 2012). Thematically BAI brightness sears the image of the “fght” into is about survivors and loss in archives as well as the retina, literally creating a live image in each in the wider trans* community. Cassils explains person present. A temporary photograph, lasting that the performance was “to draw attention to momentarily as an afterimage, becomes the the fact that many of our genderqueer and trans only way the live performance is visualized. Even brothers and sisters are 28-percent more likely more than Cuts, which also uses harsh lighting to experience physical violence” (2013: n.p.). In its and fash photography, BAI foregrounds the set-up, the presence of Cassils wearing bandages instrumentalization of photography withinPLC the across his chest (taping down breasts) suggests durational performance. In BAI the completely a fgural representation of transmasculinity, restricted vision for all persons within a light- and the staging of a boxing match in an empty, free environment means that the photographic blacked-out archival room clearly narrates trans fash in the audience’s eyes summons a epistemic, psychic, and physical violence. However, nonrepresentational image of violence.9 it is through Cassils’ use of the photographic How can an image, photographic no less, be fash that he is able to signify transphobic nonrepresentational? Gilles Deleuze qualifes the violence. Cassils uses a temporally focused, very special violence of Francis Bacon paintings nonrepresentational technology to engage the as not simply depicting the violence of sensation; audience in the experience of becoming trans rather, he paints “to make the spasm visible,” in through experiencing the violence of spasms. which materials and forces can become visible The audience receives the following in their effects on the fesh (2005: xii). Cassils’ instructions before entering the darkenedE-print room: durational performances seem to isolate a similar effect on the fesh, but one which he claims Don’t enter if you are prone to epilepsy as specifcally trans. Returning to his defnition, or claustrophobia; Absolutely no cameras, performing trans means “a continual becoming, phones, or anything else that emits light; a process-oriented way of being that works in a stand against the wall and do not step space of indeterminacy, spasm and slipperiness” forward or you risk getting punched; THIS (2013: n.p.). It is instructive that for Cassils a PERFORMANCE CONTAINS VIOLENCE. trans space of spasmodic process refects in his (Bishop-Stall and Bussey 2013: online n.p.) artistic choice of fash photography. The spasm is Taking place in conditions reminiscent of a a physical registration of sensation experienced photography darkroom, BAI is designed for the as involuntary. Similar to the punctum then, a camera, specifcally the act of being caught by spasm signals an outside force passing through the the photography camera.BLOOMSBURY The audience forms fesh. Spasms, to borrow Brian Massumi’s terms, a ring around Cassils, whose performance of mark out the “timespace of indeterminancy” hits and kicks sculpts the 2,000-pound clay form with resistances, resulting in differentials felt into an enduring© monument to the violence by the subject in the “something-doing” of an suffered disproportionately by queer and trans event (2011: 3–11). Pulses of sensation might communities, particularly of color. During his be unappearing, but they are registered as really all-out attack a professional photographer, whom felt. “Semblance” is the term Massumi uses for
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this process of a lived expression: “a concept hits the body, utilizing the sudden unexpected for the effective reality of what doesn’t appear” quality of a photographic image in the making. (2011: 24). Semblances register felt time and For the audience the performance is failed pass on potential, therein lies the politicality of spectacle: they cannot see, at least not with process. The question becomes in what way observational mastery. The performance creates arts are activist, and orient the passing on of a nervous system around the moment of potential so that another novel occurrence composition. The audience is subject to fying might take place. Similarly to the occurrences sweat and debris from the clay, the panting within durational art, one can ask about the sounds of the fghter, his shuffing movement, and ways in which the indeterminacy of trans orients the shock of the light fashing. As Cassils beats differential becoming toward novel occurrences. the clay, the audience is on edge, waiting for the BAI expresses a trans spasm, or a “something- next series of blows delivered with photographic doing,” by utilizing the force of a fash of the fashes to the eye. As Bojana Jankovic recountsPLC in camera. As Kate Flint points out, for those subject her review, “everyone’s bodies refexively twitch to the camera’s fash, a sudden overbright glare, it in unison” (2013: n.p.). Violence condenses into does not illuminate the world, “rather, it dazzles, a burning fash, shocking the audience individually, bleaches the world, temporarily blinds, causes but passing through them collectively. More distorting after-images for both photographed so than the form that Cassils sculpts with deft and photographer” (2013: 379). Interestingly, blows, the fashes become the vessel for the Massumi helps explain a nonrepresentational image. The violence of the performance lodges spasm by using an example of a lightning fash. under the skin of each audience member and He writes that of course lightning is actually passes through the group, becoming a prickling seen sensorially, in that the dynamic form—the afterimage. The photographs that result, and I fash—is accompanied by an impingement of light have included here (see Figures 4, 5, and 6), are rays upon the retina (2011: 23). Yet, semblance a poor documentary form not because they lack accompanies every sensorial experience:E-print “a more indexical power, but because they only served expansive event that never shows in its entirety” in the performance to disfgure the audience. (2011: 24). Much like the process of gender BAI’s particular use of photography transitioning, lightning’s occurrence cannot fully in performance calls into question how appear in the visual feld. This complex event photographic documentation cannot be trusted of the lightning’s registration is multisensorial, as evidentiary of experience. Photography as a but also ungraspable as a whole. A fash then representational art is placed under great duress. effectively registers as a limited sense of vision and Foremost, Cassils hires BAI’s photographer to a felt sense of spasm. Hence, Cassils’ dramatized be a performer as much as blind documenter, use of fash photography forces upon a body an forcing him to work in the dark. This condition unelicited, violent sensation of becoming an image. means he cannot frame Cassils, or the action, A fash aesthetically registers as dazzlingly felt: a as in typical documentary photography. This sensation image of trans.BLOOMSBURY The fash and punctum genre considers the photograph as a document are both visual as well as affective; however, the of public history, and engine to change it. Jay punctum uses a visual object that is still visible to Prosser offers that a “testimonial photograph” enlarge the visual© feld whereas the fash in this creates crossings of the private with the public, case uses light itself to blind vision so that the so that the viewer becomes an involved witness spectator can see something beyond visuality. In (testis) (2008: 341–2). The testimonial dimension both cases the spasmodic sensation of the fash of BAI means becoming involved physically in
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E-print Fig 4 Heather Cassils, Before, 2,000-pound clay bash, 40.75 × 36 × 36 in. Starting sculpture from the performance Becoming an Image, Buddies in Bad Times, Toronto, 2014 (artwork © Heather Cassils; photograph by the artist and Alejandro Santiago).
the making of the image: not only were you It invites comparison between social and aesthetic there, the event is seared indeterminately on forms of slow death, taking aim at the archive’s and in your body. Jankovic experienced that role in the damaging lack of representation. images “briefy fash in full colour, only to be If not documentary, then perhaps Walter replaced by their grayscale refections” (2013: Benjamin’s imagistic understanding of history n.p.), haunting in their degradationBLOOMSBURY from color to more closely resembles the sensation archive grays. The artifcial fash of light illuminates the generated by BAI’s attempt at “turning snapshots living, who return deadened in the afterimages. into history,” to use reviewer Jankovic’s Through making© explicit the power structuring assessment of the performance (2013: n.p.). the various roles of the witness, the aggressor, Benjamin favorably compares history to and the documenter, BAI stresses the debilitating photography: the past is captured on a light- ongoingness of structural inequality and suffering. sensitive plate. “Only the future has developers
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Fig 5 Heather Cassils, Becoming an Image Performance Still No. 1, Edgy Woman Festival, Montreal 2013 (artwork © Heather Cassils; photographE-print by the artist and Alejandro Santiago) (24 × 36 in.).
at its disposal which are strong enough to allow the “suchness” of the past now dead moment the image to come to light in all its details,” and nests the future within it (2006: 276–7). Benjamin muses, fguring the future reader/ Barthes’ temporal punctum also adds that the viewer in the role of true historian (quoted in nested future is always one of death, a pricking Hauptman 1998: 134). BAI’s audience, populated sensation that the subject is already dead, or, by testimonial witnesses, might be understood as worse, that his or her death will imminently occur the “developers” of trans history-in-the-making, (1980: 96). The image epistemologies of Benjamin including the experience of violences, but also and Barthes, derived from fash photography a horizon of potential. “ABLOOMSBURY geyser of new image- technology, can be expanded to the scene of worlds hisses up at points in our existence where every photograph: “[k]nowledge comes only in we would least have thought them possible,” he fashes” (quoted in Hauptman 1998: 134). Perhaps writes in “News© about Flowers” (Benjamin 2006: the political productivity of fash photography 263). In every photograph Benjamin sees the is in its capacity to open portals to new image- potential for an image-world to emerge. This worlds, to expand the image archive however means that a photograph for Benjamin encodes fragmentarily and however indebted to death.
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BLOOMSBURY © Fig 6 Heather Cassils, Becoming an Image Performance Still No.2, National Theater Studio, SPILL Festival, London, 2013 (artwork © Heather Cassils; photograph by the artist and Manuel Vason) (22 × 30 in.).
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Calculating Failure, a Conclusion Notes To conclude, I would like to consider briefy 1 Images courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. how violence might be conceptualized in My heartfelt appreciation goes to Heather the gym, where most of Cassils’ durational Cassils for generously sharing your images art practice actually takes place. In the essay for an earlier keynote version, and for the “Against Ordinary Language: The Language insightful dialogue on trans art-politics. Thank of the Body,” queer writer and bodybuilding you to Tobaron Waxman for introducing me enthusiast Kathy Acker investigates what the to his work at the Ronald Feldman Gallery. process of weightlifting might tell us about Regarding gender attribution, Cassils has made public in a recent interview with the Guardian violence in art. The general law behind that pronouns he/his should be used: “In terms bodybuilding is that when muscle is broken of pronouns I prefer he but I’m okay with she. down in a controlled fashion and repaired I prefer to be called Cassils but don’t mindPLC with rest and nutrients it will grow back larger if people call me Heather. I state it because than before. Acker muses “Is the equation I know it is not obvious” (Frizzell 2013). between destruction and growth also a 2 The training regime was designed by two formula for art?” (1993: 22). She affrms failure professionals: master bodybuilding coach Charles as a body’s limit; likewise artistic destruction, Glass and sports competition nutritionist David controlled and precisely driven toward Kalik, who created a diet for a 190-pound male failure, may give way to fourishing. “I want athlete’s caloric intake. Cassils relates that he began to shock my body [art] into growth,” she training to fnd his own version of wellness after a serious illness, in which his entire body became asserts, “I do not want to hurt it” (1993: 23). septic because of undiagnosed gall bladder disease, I see that at the core of Cassils’ durational requiring a full blood transplant (Frizzell 2013: n.p.). performances is this principle of calculated risk in the face of the material’s capacity, and, 3 See Amelia Jones and Tracey Warr’s The Artist’s Body (2012) for further discussion. as Acker says, of the ultimate material, “of the body’s inexorable movement towardsE-print 4 I use trans* with the asterisk to indicate the its fnal failure, toward death” (1993: 23). broadest, most inclusive understanding of gender If one takes very seriously Cassils’ statement, variance. Trans activists borrow this sign from computer language in which the asterisk will “I am a visual artist, and my body is my search for any term with this prefx. Hereafter medium,” then the insertion of his body into I use trans for smoother writing and reading. photographic images is not unlike working a muscle until it fails in order to encourage 5 Cassils does not critique the personal decision of any trans person to undergo gender affrming growth of the visual world. It requires surgeries, but takes aim at the cultural and scientifc multiple durations of violence becoming dominance of categorizing trans people as limited differential—inverting from destructive to to those who desire surgeries. He states that, generative, and generative to destructive. The As an artist and as a personal trainer, I have been durational art practice re-processes, literally interested in exploring the body as material “working” on and through,BLOOMSBURY the historiographical conditions for self-expression. As a trans bulk of scientifc, documentary, and pin-up person who does not yet want to have surgery photography. Through collaborations with or take full-on hormones, I was interested in highly specifc types© of photographers Cassils’ what I could do via my diet and exercise to go visually available body seizes the tired image through a gender transformation. (2011: online) of queer and trans bodies, pushes it to its limit, For Cuts, he did go “to the extreme” and in order to burst through to a novel version. take half of the lowest recommended dosage
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of steroids (androgens) in order to engage Barthes, Roland. 1980. Camera Lucida. London: Vintage a society obsessed with extremes. Books.
6 On the pin-up, see Richard Dyer’s Benjamin, Walter. 2006. The Work of Art in the Age of Its “Don’t Look Now” (1982). Technological Reproducibility And Other Writings on Media. Eds Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y 7 The Transgender Murder Monitoring project reports Levin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. that in 2012 alone there was a 20 percent increase in the reported (not the total by far) murders of Berlant, Lauren. 2007. “Slow Death (Sovereignty, Obesity, trans* people, a total of 265; a disproportionate Lateral Agency).” Critical Inquiry 33(4): 754–80. number of victims were transwomen, of color, Berlant, Lauren and Warner, Michael. 1995. “What Does and sex workers (Balzer and Hutta et al. 2012). Queer Theory Teach Us about X?” PMLA 110: 343–9. 8 Thus far the photographers have included Eric Bishop-Stall ,Reilley, and Natalie Zayne Bussey. 2013. Charles, Manuel Vason, and Alejandro Santiago. “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Becoming anPLC Image.” 9 BAI was performed four times in 2012–13, at ONE Blogpost on Passenger Art. Posted March 20, 2013. in Los Angeles, Spill Festival in London, and Fierce Available online: http://passengerart.com/2013/03/20/ Festival in Birmingham, and at the Ronald Feldman the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-of-becoming-and-image/ Gallery in New York City. Each iteration has different (accessed September 16, 2014). photographer, different location with histories they Buszek, Maria Elena. 2006. Pin Up Grrls: Feminism, embody, and a slightly different soundscore and Sexuality, Popular Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University costume. I follow Cassils’ description of the frst Press. iteration most closely, and rely on reviewers and exit interviews for the others. I have not personally Cassils, Heather. n.d. www.heathercassils.com. Personal been able to attend a performance thus far. website (accessed September 16, 2014).
Cassils, Heather. 2011. “A Traditional Sculpture.” The Dr. Eliza Steinbock (Film and Literary Blog and Gay Voices of Huffngton Post US Edition. Studies Department, Leiden University) Posted October 4, 2011. Available online: http:// writes on visual culture and transfeministE-print www.huffngtonpost.com/heather/a-traditional- issues. Recent publications include essays sculpture_b_983384.html (accessed September 16, in the Journal of Homosexuality and 2014). TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Cassils, Heather. 2013. “Bashing Binaries—Along with 2,000 Pounds of Clay.” The Blog and Gay Voices of Huffngton Post US Edition. Posted September 7, 2013. References Available online: http://www.huffngtonpost.com/ heather/bashing-binaries-along-with-2000-pounds-of- Acker, Kathy. 1993. “Against Ordinary Language: The clay_b_3861322.html (accessed September 16, 2014). Language of the Body.” In Arthur and Marilouise Kroker (eds), The Last Sex: Feminism and Outlaw Bodies. New Chave, Anna C. 2005. “Minimalism and Biography.” In York: Macmillan. Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard (eds), Reclaiming Female Agency: Feminist Art History after Postmodernism. Balzer, Carsten, and Jan Simon Hutta (with Tamara Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 385– Adrián, Peter Hyndal, andBLOOMSBURY Susan Stryker). 2012. 408. Volume 6: TRANSRESPECT VERSUS TRANSPHOBIA WORLDWIDE—A Comparative Review of the Human- Cox, Laverne. 2011. “Gender Anti-Anxiety Medication.” rights Situation of Gender-variant/Trans People, TGEU, The Blog and Gay Voices of Huffngton Post US edition. published online© November 2012 (English version). Posted October 21, 2011. Available online: http://www. Available online: http://www.transrespect-transphobia. huffngtonpost.com/laverne-cox/gender-anti-anxiety- org/uploads/downloads/Publications/TvT_research- medication_b_1009424.html (accessed September 16, report.pdf (accessed September 11, 2014). 2014).
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Deleuze, Gilles. 2005 [1981]. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Massumi, Brian. 2011. Semblance and Event: Activist Sensation. Trans. Daniel W. Smith. London: Continuum. Philosophy and the Occurant Arts. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Doyle, Jennifer. 2013. “Becoming an Image: In the Ring with Heather Cassils.” The Sport Spectacle. Personal ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives 2012. University Blog. Posted October 6, 2013. Available online: http:// of Southern California Libraries. http://www.onearchives. thesportspectacle.com/2013/10/06/becoming-an-image- org and http://cruisingthearchive.org (accessed in-the-ring-with-cassils/ (accessed September 16, 2014). September 16, 2014). Nadal, Kevin L., Avy Skolnik, and Yinglee Wong. 2012. Dyer, Richard. 1982. “Don’t Look Now: The Instabilities “Interpersonal and Systemic Microaggressions Towards of the Male Pin-Up.” Screen 23(3–4): 61–73. Transgender People: Implications for Counseling.” Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling 6(1): 55–82. Flint, Kate. 2013. “‘More Rapid Than the Lightning’s Flash’: Photography, Suddenness, and the Afterlife of Romantic Patton, Cindy. 2001. “‘Rock Hard’: Judging the Female Illumination.” European Romantic Review 24(3): 369–83. Physique.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25(2):PLC 118–40. Frizzell, Nell. 2013. “Heather Cassils: The Transgender Bodybuilder Who Attacks Heaps of Clay.” theguardian. Prosser, Jay. 2008. “Testimonies in Light: Nan Goldin: com. Posted October 3, 2013. Available online: http:// Devil’s Playground.” Women: A Cultural Review 13(3): www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/03/ 33–55. heather-cassils-transgender-bodybuilder-artist (accessed Singh, Anneliese A., and Vel S. McKleroy. 2010. “‘Just September 16, 2014). Getting out of Bed is a Revolutionary Act’: The Resilience of Transgender People of Color Who Have Hauptman, Jodi. 1998. “FLASH! The Speed Graphic Survived Traumatic Life Events.” Traumatology 17(34): Camera.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 11(1): 129–37. 34–44. Jankovic, Bojana. 2013. “Becoming an Image at National Sliwinski, Sharon. 2009. “On Photographic Violence.” Theatre Studio: Review.” Exeunt Magazine Online. Posted Photography & Culture 2(3): 303–16. April 13, 2013. Available online: http://exeuntmagazine. Smith, Shawn Michelle. 2009. “Race and Reproduction in com/reviews/becoming-an-image/ (accessed September Camera Lucida.” In Geoffrey Batchen (ed.), Photography 16, 2014). E-print Degree Zero: Refections on Roland Barthes Camera Johnson, Clare. 2006. “Traces of Feminist Art: Temporal Lucida. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Complexity in the Work of Eleanor Antin, Vanessa Spade, Dean. 2003. “Resisting Medicine, Re/modeling Beecroft and Elizabeth Manchester.” Feminist Theory 7(3): Gender” 18 Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 15(30): 15-37 309–31. Tasker, Yvonne. 1993. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre Jones, Amelia, and Tracey Warr. 2012. The Artist’s Body. and Action Cinema. London: Routledge. London: Phaidon. Taussig, Michael. 1992. The Nervous System. New York: Routledge. Jovanovich, Alex. 2013. “Heather Cassils. Ronald Feldman Fine Arts: Review.” Artforum Magazine “Best of Taylor, Brandon. 2005. Contemporary Art: Art Since 1970. 2013” 52(4) December: 264–5.BLOOMSBURYLondon: Prentice-Hall. ©
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