1 PHASMAHAMMER Justin Shoulder, Master of Fine Arts Research Paper

PHASMAHAMMER

Justin Shoulder, Master of Fine Arts Research Paper, 2015.

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This Research was made possible by the support of an Australian Postgraduate Award. Together with the facilities of UNSWAD, I was able to go much deeper into the fantastic creature psyche, birthing a complex family of unruly beasts.

I’d like to thank and acknowledge the Australia Council Theatre Board for supporting the first development and presentations of theatre work The River Eats. Also critical to this work was the support of Next Wave Festival, Performance Space, Critical Path and Fraser Studios. Thanks to the hilarious dramaturgy of clown Jeff Stein and my collaborators composer Nick Wales, lighting designer Toby Knyvett and VFX editor Rebecca Stegh.

I would like to thank Gary Carsley for supervising my practice. His broad knowledge and sharp wit has made the journey engaging, challenging and humorous. To balance academia with living wicked camp has been divine darl.

Thanks to my lover and creative counterpart Matt Stegh for your haute couture knowledge, feedback, understanding of my practice and unconditional love.

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 2

Introduction 4

Chapter 1: Pinky/OO 9

1.1: Pinky 11

1.2 :OO 23

Chapter 2: The Sissies 31

2.1: Sissy-Cyclo 33

Conclusion 45

Bibliography 47

List of Images 50

3 INTRODUCTION

Legendary figures gather descendant from Chaos. With gnashing teeth: metal on metal. With coats divine: iridescent hair sprouting, aposematic plates amplify with patterns of multiple mind’s eyes. Tongues, antennae, proboscis and other sense organs extend reading stimuli for signs of threat. Animated by that deep rumbling river that courses beneath the surface, they are thirsty.

Mothers Earth, Eros and the Night birth libidinous Oceanic faggot-sissy-witches. Elsewhere specular figures shatter the hyper real screen emerging from that prison of liquid crystal…

Phasmahammer is a research project that contextualizes the queer community in which I live and work as an ecosystem or queer ecology. Traditionally an ecosystem consists of a biological community (plants, animals and microbes) and the abiotic factors on which they rely (sunlight, air, water and mineral soil) interacting as a system. They are defined by the network of interactions between these organisms and their environment and usually encompass specific clearly defined spaces, like a desert or reef.

I reimagine the eco-system to frame the queer community of Sydney. This queer ecosystem contains organisms real and imagined, together with their non-living components: art, politics, house music and haute couture. Performance, spectacle, mythology and grease paint are other essential non-living components of this queer ecosystem.

FIG 01. Documentation of Sydney’s queer ecosystem and some of its Fantastic Creatures.

The title Phasmahammer combines the Ancient Greek φάσµα phasma, meaning an apparition or phantom with the noun hammer, to hit with force. Thus, this ecosystem describes SPECTERSMASHERS, GHOSTEXPLODERS and VISIONWRECKERS - a body of imaginary creatures with intention to counter white, male patriarchal authority raining on their parade.

Phasmahammer like the Wunderkammer is also a cabinet of curiosities, an encyclopedic collection of objects and beings from (un)natural history, geology, ethnography and archaeology. Phasmahammer heralds the return of the Wunderkammer as “microcosm or

1 theatre of the world, and memory theatre”

1 F Fiorani, reviewing Bredecamp 1995 in Renaissance Quarterly 51.1 (Spring 1998:268-270) p 268.

5 Phasmahammer focuses on a family of mythical creatures I have imagined so named The Fantastic Creatures. There is a broad cultural and historical base spanning millennia: from composite fabulae exemplified by the sphinx, to the preternatural vampire vividly alive in contemporary pop culture. Drawing from this investigation I have created my own Fantastic Creatures. These beings conflate human, animal and fantasy forms to establish links between nature, culture and spirit. I communicate these stories through a body-based practice. I modify my body through prosthesis: masks and full-body costumes in a process of craft narrative where plastic and foam become corporeal matter. I propagate my mythopoeia through live performance and video based expression.

FIG 02. Some of the Fantastic Creatures family. Top Left to Bottom Right: V, Gala & Hypnos, Hubub and Caenus Cerabrallus.

6 I schematize these Fantastic Creatures in this Phasmahammer based on an individualized understanding of the graphic and narrative potential of the bestiary. Medieval bestiaries developed from classical sources were illustrated collections of ordinary, hybrid and mythological creatures featuring allegorical commentary on the moral significance of each figure. Phasmahammer intertwines fact and fable, the familiar and the fantastical. Where once this process addressed explicitly Christian morals, I refocus this historical approach to project a queered ideology resistive of patriarchal monotheisms, capitalism, hetero- normativity, colonial authority and binary thinking.

This bestiary examines two figures from this queer ecosystem. In Chapter 1 we examine The Fantastic Creature Pinky/OO. This composite creature locates itself contextually within the work The River Eats, a full-length solo theatre piece devised and performed by Justin Shoulder with collaborators2. Chapter 2 examines a family of creatures called The Sissies. We focus on one of them: Sissy-Cyclo, a creature that locates itself contextually within Day For Night, a durational queer performance exhibition at Performance Space.

This bestiary traces the branches of each of these figure’s evolutionary trees, connecting them to queer ancestors and delineating blood, clan and family lines. It looks at the thresholds where these figures exist – their sites of ritual, points of dissemination and modes of storytelling. It also studies their behavior, physiology and threats to survival.

2 The River Eats Credits 2014: Devised, Performed, Costume & Set Design: Justin Shoulder, Video and Lighting Design: Toby Knyvett, Video and SFX: Rebecca Stegh, Composer and Sound Design: Nick Wales, Creative Producer and Dramaturg: Jeff Stein, Stage Manager: Clytie Smith, Costume Design Collaborator & Poster Illustration: Matthew Stegh, Set Construction: Dillon MacEwan, Postcard Design: Joel De Sa, Mythic Glamour Mask Collaborator: Nikki Majajas, Costume Construction Assistance: Marty Jay, Ami Shoulder, Anthony Aitch, Alistair Watts, Vincent Valentine, Phoebe Hyles, Yasmina Black, Nina Buchanon, Dan Bell, Jackson Stacy, Samara Shehata, Video Hypnosis Credits: Editing, VFX and Co-Director: Rebecca Stegh, Co- director: Amy Gebhardt, Cinematography: Bonnie Elliot.

The River Eats has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the City of Melbourne through Arts House, Next Wave Festival, and Performance Space.

7 This work positions queer as a conscious political and creative identity contingent on frameworks of resistance and co-option that sustain contra-normative narratives, disruptive to the white patriarchal authority of capitalist systems as exemplified by the contrast between Monsta Gras3 and Mardi Gras. Thus, the bestiary is a queering of these terms, reimagining nuclear kinship systems and biological processes like reproduction. Creatures propagate through parthenogenesis and form sissy-hood families. The intent of the bestiary is to reposition the centralization of the human figure and to place it as just one among many beings in an ecology, which reimagines and contests established taxonomic hierarchies.

From here Phasmahammer proceeds to speak consistently in the logic of fantasy giving life to the Fantastic Creatures.

3 Monsta Gras is an annual costume ball & party focused on performance, art, activism and play. It is held on the same night as Mardi Gras as an alternative event. The event has been run by the The Glitter Militia a collective Shoulder is a part of, since 2010 at The Red Rattler Sydney, a queer owned and run venue. The event decenters the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney as the hub of queer activism and focuses on the Inner West of Sydney where much of the queer community now live. There is a focus on programming and organizing with queer artists of colour, sex workers, the trans community and a more intersectional and politicized view of community.

8 PINKY-OO

FIG 03. The River Eats, Illustrated by Matthew Stegh & Justin Shoulder 2014, Offset Lithographic Print 50x70cm.

'Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there's nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.' – Ovid

9 There is a creature called Pinky-OO, which often surprises us with its magical ability to shape shift. On first glance though definitely diabolical it appears almost human in form and manner. However, with prolonged attentive observation one may behold beneath it’s diffused flesh, black and white patterning vibrating with mysterious potential.

FIG 04. Pinky/OO, in The River Eats. Video still from trailer.

This figure appears to fuse two distinct forms: Pinky and OO each with their own explicit physiology, behavior, native environment and ancestry. Although so varied are their natures, the two aspects of this beast are completely dependent on one another. Generally speaking they are exemplars of eastern ontological dualistic thought and specifically the conception of yin and yang. This Chinese symbol of the dual distribution of forces with its light half representing the Yang force and the dark half denoting Yin demonstrates dual forces of male and female, light and dark, active and passive, motion and stillness. What is important to note is that each half includes an arc cut out of the middle of the opposing half to symbolize that every mode must contain within it the germ of its antithesis4. These two beings do not compete, but rather collaborate in a symbiotic relationship.

4 Cirlot, J.W, A Dictionary of Symbols, 2nd Edn, Rouledge London, 1971, p.380.

10 In Taoism, the complimentary dualistic concept represents reciprocal interaction throughout nature where opposing forces do not exchange oppositionally but instead reciprocally to ensure mutual stability, much alike homeostasis. An underlying principle within Taoism states that within every independent entity resides a part of its opposite: within sickness lies health for example and within Pinky dwells OO and vice versa. For Pinky and OO, complimentary forces include: the synthetic and organic, life and death, human and animal, temporal and eternal.

The metamorphic transformation of Pinky into OO can be linked to a lineage of shape- shifting creatures. In many cases imposed forms are punitive in nature. The nature of the punishment is often informed by the crime for which it is the penalty. For Lydian maiden Arachne who challenged Minerva to a trial of skill in weaving, her punishment was to be transformed into a spider5. Actaeon after having seen Artemis bathing was changed into a

6 stag, later devoured by his own hunting dogs.

Perhaps the metamorphosis of Pinky into OO is a viral response, like some of the most familiar shape-shifters the ever-popular vampire or werewolf. Bites or scratches from these creatures infect the cells of mortals quickly mutating them into fellow beasts. Or hereditary like the Filipino Aswang, a Vampire Witch whose nature is passed on for seven generations.7 What we do know about each figure and the stages of transformation will be elucidated below.

5 C. T. Lewis & C. S. Oxford, A Latin Dictionary, Clarendon Press, 1879. 6 Ibid. 7 M. Ramos, 1971, Creatures of Lower Philippine Mythology, University of the Philippines Press, p.134.

10 PINKY

FIG 05. Pinky, Photographed by Jordan Graham 2014

11 DESCRIPTION

Pinky is the nymph state of the composite creature Pinky-OO. So named for the pigment of its flesh (wolfe brother cosmetics Pink 032) this pink saturates every unit of its body- hardware. A cross-section cadaver would reveal that Pinky’s control unit and storage organs are completely saturated with this violently camp hue.

Alike the Dionysiac Satyr “with movements of ceaseless pantomime” 8 ruled by perpetual hunger for techno-stimulation and quick entertainment, Pinky is a pleasure loving hybrid creature in human form, who gorges on streams of data: images, memes, chatter and spam in effervescent flow. Corporations clouding his innate wisdom have colonized his senses. Stillness and focus give way to hysteria and delirium. Apathetic and self-absorbed he is lost in this bit-cloud of electric arousal. Thankfully underneath all this nihilism and spiritual- emptiness, there is a humming energy of unrealized potentiality.

FIG 06. Pinky in The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

8 T.H. White, The Book of Beasts: A Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century, Jonathon Square London Press, 1954, p.36.

12 Pinky is best understood as a 21st Century descendant of the Fauna of Mirrors, a family of specular creatures imprisoned behind barriers of glass and metal during the reign of the Yellow Emperor.9 Amongst other members of Pinky’s lineage is the shimmering outline of character Divine (from Lindsay Kemp’s Flowers) who passes on camp cursive gestures of pantomime.

ENVIRONMENT

Pinky is like those of The Wretched of the Screen10. Within this environment there is no stable space for social life or philosophical aspiration. Technologies of surveillance, tracking and targeting replace linear cartographies with satellite aerial views, multiple perspectives and divergent vanishing points. In the past Pinky’s traditional sense of orientation was based on the stable horizon line and fixed concepts of time and space. Now with an absence of linear perspective and no stable horizon for Pinky to lock on to, he is in a perpetual state of free fall.

Within this techno-system Pinky is a bottom-feeding prawn, eating the excess leftovers, spam-bot feces and digital detritus. Although disoriented, a sub-conscious commandment calls with grounding guidance. Its voice is OO, a brimming undercurrent formed as an oppositional tension to this environment.

9 Native to the mythologies of Canton during the legendary times of the Yellow Emperor, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. These Kingdoms: specular and human lived harmoniously and you could come and go through the mirrors with ease. One evening the fauna of the mirrors invaded earth. A bloody battle ensued between these powerful warring bodies. The magic arts of the Yellow Emperor overcame this force imprisoning the Fauna in their mirrors where they are entranced in an action of repeating every action of humans in a state of slavish reflection. J. L. Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings, Vintage Books London, 1967, p.67. 10 H. Steyerl, The Wretched of the Screen, Sternberg Press, 2012.

13 PHYSIOLOGY

On first glance Pinky appears like a flushed-human who has been forever tickled shocking pink. Powder-pink hair floats around his head like feathery electrocuted filaments; a central straight fringe cut just above the eye holds it in place. Iridescent Bitcoin11 glitra line his eyes in outlines shaped like the markings of a Pierrot panda. His clown interFACEtm is carved with an extended smile, USB teeth erupting from quivering lips. These teeth offer netwerking potential, enabling him to connect to peripheral Pinkies. As he begins to speak one encounters the horror of his-story. His brain and soul have been colonised by a capitalist virus. Corporations sponsor his sense organs.

Pinky’s gaze has been manipulated by Tumblr and Pinterest. His eyes compelled to scan and devour vast torrents of images, categorizing them into aesthetic mood-boreds based on emotions like “middle-class domestic bliss state” and “aspirational vogue object”. He gathers indiscriminately without knowledge of an image’s history or context, reblogging them in a bid for viral ascendance. He sees the Internet as nothing but a resource fit to be exploited in the interest of, “maximum yield at minimum expense”12 as Heidegger so directly puts it in The Question Concerning Technology.

Employing impression management (the selective disclosure of personal details designed to present an idealized self13), Pinky curates his exhibit of affective artifacts however his aura is absent. With a desire to stress individual personality his collection of images grows exponentially, feeding from a steady drip of cultural runoff.

His countenance has been possessed by Deep-Face. This facial recognition software detects àà aligns àà represents àà and then classifies photographic images of his face, storing this information so that he may be identified in all digital permutations in which he might appear. Affectiva: emotion measurement technology controls Pinky’s emotions. Webcams track Pinky’s smirks, smiles, frowns and furrows measuring his levels of surprise, amusement or confusion. This profitable data is then distributed to brands to improve their advertising and marketing messages.

11 Bitcoin is an online payment system using peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks. 12 M. Heidegger, The question concerning technology, and other essays, Garland Publishing New York, 1997, p.7. 13 B. Hogan, The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, SAGE Publications, 2010, p. 376- 384. 14

FIG 07. Illustration of Deep-Face image verification process, identifying facial features of Sylvester Stallone for Facebook data collection.

Pinky’s cognitive behavior has been manipulated by social-media communications. His Prefrontal cortex (the cerebral cortex which covers the front part of the frontal lobe of his brain) is implicated in personality expression, decision-making, planning complex cognitive behavior and moderating social behavior.14 This part of his brain has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new. The ceaseless current of emails, sms, updates and notifications requiring intermittent attention tweak this reward- seeking center of Pinky’s brain, causing a burst of endogenous opioids. Oxygenated glucose is burned up; exhausting the same fuel he would otherwise need to stay focused. Pinky’s sponsorship by technology creates a mind-fog that clouds deeper, more thoughtful responses.

14Y. Yang & A. Raine, Prefrontal Structural and Functional Brain Imaging findings in Antisocial, Violent, and Psychopathic Individuals: A Meta-Analysis, Psychiatry Res, 2009, p. 81-88 15 STAGES OF METAMORPHOSIS

Entombed in his co-polymer-sarcophagus, a pupa of flesh-eating yoga mats: Pinky is held. This pupa’s form is alike a Rococo urn – cursive 3D forms extend with commas and exclamation points in porous pastel pink. Through arterial networks course poppy tears and codeine in a womb of calm anesthesia. Pupation may last decades, Pinky lying dormant until the appropriate season for the adolescent creature is sensed. He emerges, fully formed from the pupae, by sundering the pupal envelope. The whole process of pupation is controlled by the creature’s sound receptors that read vibrations generated by applause. Once the applause reaches stadium level 9 the exoskeleton will be shed. Sometimes a claque- app15 is needed to rouse Pinky from his inebriated quietude.

FIG 08. Pinky in his pupal case. The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

15 claque (French for "clapping") was an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses who were paid by the performer(s) to create the illusion of an increased level of approval by the audience. In Pinky’s world this is a recording prompted by an iPhone application.

16 Awake, his day is not regulated by the grounding cycles of the sun and moon that for many fauna and flora biologically regulate alternating periods of activity, leisure and rest. In his liminal techno-space there is no day or night, just an enduring blue light illuminating the open sourced landscape. This blue light in the 464-nanometer range disrupts his circadian rhythms through its effect on melatonin production16. Delaying the production of melatonin causes him insomnia17.

FIG 09. Pinky gets a Skype call from Pinky, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

His ravenous receptors reading light, heat and other external stimuli search for nouveau novelties. Fingers trace non-linear topographies swiping and tapping in a dance of algo- rhythms. They rush to click each blipping sound alert, gripped with anticipation of the next. He performs this dance ad infinitum.

16 M. Bues, A. Pross, O. Stefani, S. Frey, D. Anders, J. Späti, A. Wirz-Justice, R. Mager and C. Cajochen, LED-backlit computer screens influence our biological clock and keep us more awake. Journal of the Society for Information Display Volume 20, 2012, 266 – 268. 17 In animals, melatonin controls the daily night-day cycle, thereby allowing the entrainment of the circadian rhythms of several biological functions. This neurohormone is secreted by the pineal gland in all mammals, with secretion increased in darkness and decreased in light. 17 A distinct vibration stirs and builds in Pinky’s cells. Membranes shudder and their content biomolecules tremble. Like the rotation of the earth, it is at first imperceptible, quiet yet constant. Viral OO patterns puncture cellular tissues and begin to reproduce. Strange is the madness of Pinky whom OO infuses. His body is no longer just his own but shared metamorphically.

LARVAL PHASE I: MYTHIC GLAMOUR

FIG 10. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase I: Mythic Glamour, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

To protect his evolving body Pinky orders from cocoon.com a face sheath spun from Swarovski crystals. This sparkling face casing defends against DeepFace surveillance. Fractured by the brilliant composition of silica, alkali, lime and 32% lead18, the distance between his nose, mouth and eyes can no longer be accurately measured. Affectiva tracking systems scan the techno-topia but are unable to read his emotions. In this effective darkness, he begins to perform an autoerotic dance seducing yet evading the corporate gaze. Becoming an haute bird he simulates laconic fashion editorial gestures. Intuitively scratching through organic matter, a rite of separation begins. Graduating techno-thuds rise, sonically dictating the transformation into OO is now in motion.

18 http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4899350_how-swarovski-crystal-made.html

18 LARVAL PHASE II: KELLY

FIG 11. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase II: Kelly, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

He enwraps himself in a silk coating of woven selfie-faces. Grinning maniacally this vampiric chorus sings pop Top 40 through 320kpbs digitized streams. So called the Larval: Kelly stage for the sonic call of American singer and songwriter Kelly Rowland who is particularly aurally appealing to Pinky-OO. OO’s replicating cellular patterns flood into this stream distorting the Diva-data downloads, incurring loss. A rupture and Pinky’s synapses begin to reroute one by one from their digital dependence. As OO begins to decolonize or liberate the body from his techno-trappings, Pinky grasps at spam poetics attempting to make sense of his changing world. Exposing the sponsorship of speech he harvests robot.txt from botnets, phishes through unsolicited bulk emails for

19 pharmaceuticals, replicas, enhancers, degrees, casinos and weight loss verse. Emboldened by his coat of self-idolatry he delivers his sermon:

these lanterns of today

my computer illuminates new archetypes of desire Do u want to grow another 9inches taller Strangling cords of pornography 99 comments ~ notes on disaster I’ve lost my friends That midnight blue radiance looking at the screen I see my horizon my pathway and destiny The computer tells me what to do

My mother tells me I’m turning into a computer Caches of explicit serial numbers Images of Pinky Photoshopping healing brushes There are no moles Just glowing pink flesh

20 LARVAL PHASE III: MY VOICE

FIG 12. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase III: My Voice, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

21 Self-replicating through Pinky’s body, OO’s patterns begin to surface on his skin. This virulent patternation is an opportunistic infection, taking hold as vulnerable openings increasingly occur. The silk sheath is discarded, revealing the full glory of OO’s patterning, now covering the entire body. Topographic lines cross outlines of eyes in a mapping system of river networks and anatomical energy channels. The pink form is now dissected, dissolved in a tributary of intermingling black and white lines. Two extra heads split from his primary head budding in memetic mutation. Pinky’s voice struggles for authority over OO “My voice is higher than your voice”. Two virtual voices converse with each other in a frenzied feedback loop: Pinky is tortured, like the Greek nymph Echo who could no longer use her voice except in foolish repetition of another’s shout19. With each proclamation of authority this voice degenerates into a discrete signal of random, serially uncorrelated variables with zero mean and finite variance: aka the siren of white noise. In metamorphic flow OO’s cells additively extend beyond Pinky’s molted form, creating composite features - multiple heads unraveling. Flesh swelling, plates and wings surge out from this body in divine essential flux. A composite figure emerges magnitudinously: OO has arrived.

19 R. Graves. The Greek Myths I, Penguin Books London, 1955, p.287. 22 OO

FIG 13. OO, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

Similarly, to the terminal stage of metamorphosis for the Lepidoptera, the final metamorphic form of Pinky into OO is truly magnificent. The name OO pronounced “oh- oh” is a formalist expression emphasizing sight by the resemblance of the double Os to a pair of eyes wide open. The two O’s allegorise the opening of oculi to see and the enabling of awareness of one’s place within a greater ecology. This sense of perception evokes the state of sensual awareness that makes an individual comprehend their interconnectedness to the cosmos.

OO’s distinct patterning reveals its biologic story. The patterned ‘eyes’ derive from the markings of the Diaethria Anna butterfly native to the wet tropical forests of Central and South America. Legend has it if you visit the Iguacu waterfalls and offer your open spirit to the majestic flow, the appearance of these delicate butterflies offers the safe ferrying of your soul across the river of the afterlife20.

20 In 2010 Shoulder made a Pilgrimage to the Iguacu Falls. In remembrance of his recently departed friend Boomi and paternal grandmother Phyllis Ethel Shoulder, he made an offering of confetti to the falls. As this

FIG 14. OO’s biological pattern sources. Top left to bottom right: The Iguacu Falls Brazil, The Diaethria Anna Butterfly, Memorial drawing for Boomi & Phyllis, Phyllis Ethel Shoulder circa 1930.

tribute was swallowed by the thundering waters and purifying mist, a kaleidoscope of butterflies emerged from the falls their proboscis licking Shoulder’s tears. From this lived experience the motif of OO’s patterns was seeded. 24 ENVIRONMENT

The River of the Underworld meanders beneath the clouds of capitalist distraction, digging below architecture, excavating soil, travelling down roots, through rabbit warrens, slabs of fossil and mineral, penetrating the crust and mantle, magma and ancient primordial machinations. This tributary flows in multiple planes, connecting physical and metaphysical worlds. It is a channel of spirits linked to the great land rivers of the world: Amazon, Mekong, Nile, Euphrates and Congo. Decaying carcasses become the boats for those recently passed as these rivers permeate the terrestrial plane ferrying the spirits to OO’s native river.

The sacred River Styx of Greek mythology links to this river running through the underworld in a parallel course. According to legend alike the role of OO the boatman Charon ferries the spirits of the dead across the Styx from Earth to the Land of the Dead21. The Vaitarna River as mentioned in the Garuda Purana lies between the earth and the infernal Naraka, realm of Yama, Hindu god of death. Sinful souls are supposed to cross this river after death. The righteous sees this river as full of nectar, while the sinful observe that it flows with blood22. In the river beneath time runs its own course, still yet dynamic. Gliding over the river, OO affects the black, white and pink waters causing them to ripple in macrocosmic mandalas.

21 "Styx." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2015 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Styx.html 22 S. Ambadas, Encyclopedia of Puranic Beliefs and Practices (Volume 4). Navrang. 1989, p. 1210.

FIG 15. OO in The River of the Underworld, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

PHYSIOLOGY

Its weight heaves like the oxen and rhino, marks imprinting as it traverses terrain. It is difficult to classify this creature as terrestrial, aquatic or aerial for it exists on multiple plains. Oscillating between quadrupedal and bipedal ambulation OO strides, glides and swims through its environment.

It is a mnemonic beast, in that traces of the memory of landform, flora and fauna are aggregated into its many distinctive features. Great fins extend out from its legs, and arms. These vanes operate simultaneously as wings, floatation devices and signaling plates. Well known for its ability to transform into 101 shapes OO folds and twists these plates into a succession of arrangements becoming concurrently crustacean, fungus, mountain and manta ray.

FIG 16. Animals that employ Aposematism (Top left to bottom right) Octopus Macropus, Diaethria Anna Butterfly, Poison Arrow Frog, OO.

The coloration of OO is a form of Aposematism. Bold patterns and lurid colors are usually a warning sign for toxic organisms, however some nontoxic organisms also mimic this appearance thus also avoiding being eaten. The conspicuous bands or stripes on the back and sides of venomous snakes (e.g. coral snakes) and the contrasting markings of the wings of unpleasant tasting monarch butterflies are examples of Aposematism23. OO’s patterns genealogically inherited from the Diaethria Anna Butterfly multiply in diverse manifestations suggesting mouths, eyes and the deltas of river systems. This patterning layered with OO’s ability to shape shift into multitudinous forms communicates a collective ecologic aura. In this evocation it sings the spirit of these creatures. Like the shape-shifting face of the natural world, a multiplicity of meaning is the only way to approach a reading of this figure. Narrative prose, like 3-point perspective cannot describe this world. Poetic metaphor is its only logic.

23 J. Jeschke, C. Laforsch and R Tollrian, Animal Prey Defenses, Encyclopedia of Ecology Vol. 1, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008. P.189-194. 27 BEHAVIOUR

OO greets newly arrived spirits to The River of the Underworld. Open it listens to their legend. Stories layer in its psyche, its body becoming a vessel of collective knowledge. Loaded with this the beast transmits cosmic wisdom to those who are evolved enough to listen. Humans can ask questions of those who have passed and receive spirited response. Intelligence is shared through gestural display. Like the striking dance of the bird of paradise OO angles and turns its wings to create a succession of exaggerated silhouettes: Butterfly, mantis, flower, bipedal and quadrupedal, rock, tree, aquatic and avian OO’s gestural dance incant the anima of diverse beings.

After an extended duration of kinesthetic cycling OO may initiate its most amplified of gestures the OO: Mouth. This configuration is a perforation of the planes fleetingly linking The River of the Underworld with The Land of the Living.

FIG 17. OO: Mouth Gesture, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

28 ANCESTORY

OO’s matrilineal line stems from the kaleidoscopic, darkly humorous, celebratory and political work of artist, designer and political activist David McDiarmid. His work at “the intersection between folk, art, women’s art (needlepoint, patchwork quilts) and contemporary materials”24 passes on to OO a relationship to accessible craft narratives with its textile skin of garbage bags, hot glue, paint and PE foam.

FIG 18. David McDiarmid and the HIV Living Group, Day of the dead skeleton for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1992.

24 David McDiarmid quoted in The Australian Experience: Elements of Change, Crafts Council of Australia, Sydney, 1982.

29 McDiarmid’s art similarly became an interface to celebrate and remember those who had passed. As artistic director of Mardi Gras parade and parties between 1988 and 1990 McDiarmid was able to creatively communicate on the stage of the street the queer communities’ defiant protest. His ‘HIV Living’ float for the 1992 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras featured an enormous Day of the Dead inspired papier-mache sculpted skeletal puppet painted in bands of technicolor. In opposition to the often covert displays of mourning in the West this enormous creature walking the streets of Sydney gave the public no choice but to visually engage with the horror of the AIDS crisis. Creating a dialogue around AIDS and the life of its sufferers, his works transgressed the familiar comforts of memorialization honoring those already dead while fiercely embracing his own impending death. The performance of political activism through forms of embodied visuality is one of David’s abiding legacies.

30 THE SISSIES

FIG 19. Sissy Satellite, still from De Anima collaboration with Brook Andrew, video installation 2014

The Sissies (sometimes called Sistas or Ates25) are an order of post-human being whose members are variously known as Sissy-Cyclo and Sissy-Satellite. For the purpose of this bestiary we are focusing on the apex form of this species, Sissy-Cyclo. The ordinal name is derived from the term sissy, historically implying a lack of testosterone, libido, strength and courage26. Originally a pejorative term to torment effeminate men, Sissy is used here as a term of resistance. These are fierce-femme-boy creatures whose bodies and behavior have evolved to slay. The Sissies share Greek mythic figure Narcissus’ stubborn pride in beauty and outwardly celebrate reflections of self. The etymology of the term sissy in a queer ecosystem stems from Narcissus which gave us cissy which subsequently evolved into Sissy.

These creatures have been observed throughout Oceania and parts of the South-East Asian diaspora. They exist physically in the landscape and as specters in archives and human

25 Elder sister, older female relative or peer in Tagalog 26 B Holcomb, The Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007, p.446-448. 31 made machines: among which are numbered jeepneys, computers and cellular- technologies.

Of similar proportion and height to humans they have comparably sized heads, torsos, arms and legs. However what differentiates them from the less evolved human species are their striking adaptive fins extending from the head, upper and lower-arms and upper and lower legs. Like the plumage of a bird of paradise, these fins are fancy. The shapes and patterning of these vanes mimic the native environments of each sissy and exist in innumerable individual permutations – no Sissy is exactly alike.

Responding to desirable or threatening stimulus the Sissies employ very specific behavior: alternating between overt gestural displays and stealth camouflage. Sometimes when threatened these creatures interlink their limbs connecting to each other to form larger structures imitating the defensive strategies of larger beasts.

Their voices are shrill and polyphonic. Sibilant to the degree they resemble the notes of flutes. It has been said that their squeal can be heard across the Coral Sea especially when Sissies are in states of aesthetic erotic elation. Polyphonic and polyamorous the Sissies maintain an ethical and responsible promiscuity.

While many other Sissy species exist, we choose to elaborate here on the one where sustained observations have been recorded.

32 SISSY CYCLO

FIG 20. Sissy-Cyclo, Performance Space 2014. Performance photograph: Lucy Parakhina

Of all the creatures described in this bestiary, the body of information on the Sissy-Cyclo is the least profuse. Knowledge of this figure is collated from brief documentation and verbal evidence.

The name Cyclo derives from cyclone, perhaps because these figures may be animated by the violent spiraling of winds. Sissy-Cyclos are the offspring of the Greek God Typhon and Filipino Merfolk the Sirena27. Dangerous storms blowing from the pit of Tartarus carry the seeds of Daddy Typhon28 depositing them in the Philippine Sea. A combination of sufficiently warm sea surface temperatures, atmospheric instability, high humidity in the

27 “The Sirena is a creature having a body covered with fish scales from the waist down. With half of the body designated to a fish and the other half the body of a woman. The Sirena’s home is the sea floor” M Ramos, Creatures of Lower Phillippine Mythology, University of the Philippines Press, 1971, p.90-91. 28 Typhon was the deadliest monster within Greek mythology. The last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, he was known as the "Father of All Monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters." R. Graves, The Greek Myths I, Penguin Books London, 1955, p.133-134. 33 lower to middle levels of the troposphere, enough coriolis force to develop a low pressure center, a pre-existing low level focus or disturbance and low vertical wind shear29 bind sperm to Sirena’s coral polyps activating Sissy Cyclogenesis.

Reproduction can occur with or without Typhon’s seed with polyps reproducing asexually by simply budding. This form of procreation is like the Partridge, which so it is said when tormented by strong desire, falls pregnant if a wind blows towards them carrying the male’s scent30. The children thus born continue only to the age of 19 where they remain in a juvenile state for 70-80 years.

ENVIRONMENT

Microscopic juvenile Sissy-Cyclos carried by strong winds from the sea to terrestrial Philippine environments are attracted to the sight of bright colours. The lurid Technicolor typography and sprayed gradients of the Filipino commercial passenger vehicle Jeepneys31 guide these juveniles to metal landing platforms on their surface much alike the Iris flower whose yellow and purple markings advertise to bees its receptive landing petals. The scent of diesel odor is pleasing to Sissy-Cyclos. Like barnacles these creatures cluster, attaching themselves semi permanently to the hard substrate of Jeepney bonnets. It is said that litters of these creatures come in threes facilitating forces of creation, maintenance and eco- accessorisation32.

29 The environmental forces required to create a Typhoon. World of Earth Science. 2003. Retrieved February 16, 2015 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3437800621.html 30 T.H. White, The Book of Beasts: A translation from a Latin bestiary of the twelfth century, Jonathon Square London Press, 1954, p.137. 31 Shoulder’s Filipino Lolo (Grandfather) Pedro Talplacido was a Jeepney driver in the Manila, Philippines during the 1960s – 70s up till his death. Due to major storms and their resultant floods all photographic documentation of Pedro was destroyed. Sissy-Cyclo’s biological inheritance of the visual language of the Jeepney is an ancestral evocation his memory. 32 The adaptational process of creating aesthetic accouterments out of transformed trash.

FIG 21. Sissy-Cyclo, Performance Space. Performance photograph by Lucy Parakhina 2014

FIG 22. Jeepney in Manila, Philippines

35 PHYSIOLOGY

Curved wing-like armatures grow forth from Sissy-Cyclo’s limbs that evolved with dual functionality: to signal and to surf currents of energy. These armatures are modified to camouflage with the bold arcs and sweeping curves of Jeepney typography. They sissify patriarchal religious phrases e.g. “In God we trust” into “In Goddess we trust”. They are interested in reimagining patriarchal monotheisms into matriarchal pantheistic spirit ecologies. In a form of cleaning symbiosis like cleaner shrimps eating parasites off a moray eel these creatures consume oil slick residue and collected plastic tissues off Jeepneys.

Sissy-Cyclos have evolved with an adaptive capacity to climate change. Like fins, these armatures also function as foils producing lift and thrust with the ability to steer and stabilize motion travelling through air and water. Sissy-Cyclos are ready to ride these dynamic and unstable currents. These creatures have been observed in-group formations with fins interlocked creating flam-buoyant flotillas. Piled on top of one another these figures cruise the North-Pacific visiting relatives at the Great Pacific garbage patch to graze on pelagic plastic and quaff chemical sludge.

FIG 23. Sissy-Cyclo, Performance Space. Performance photograph by Lucy Parakhina 2014.

36 BEHAVIOUR

Sissy-Cyclos have a refined language of display termed Sinikuan 3000. Marked by a curious instinct - to eco-accessorize, these figures transform trash into fine aesthetic accouterments. They werk, scavenging tourist’s cameras, leaves, plastic wrap, dead macaques and wings of heron weaving them into fascinators, masks and chokers. Thongs, surfboards and Styrofoam once gnawed on become elaborate cavity patterned body décor. Built for display in the arena of the promenade the sissies must sissy dat walk33

FIG 24. Sissy-Cyclo accouterment detail, Performance Space. Performance photograph: Lucy Parakhina

33 “And if I fly, or if I fall. Least I can say I gave it all… uh, oh now sissy dat walk” A command by artist Ru Paul in her song Sissy dat walk to walk with a strong feminine gait.

FIG 25. Sissy-Cyclo 2014, Performance Space. Performance photographs: Lucy Parakhina

Sinikuan the Tagalog term for unconquerable is well suited to the bold gladiatorial silhouettes of this body language that amplifies this creature’s form. This aposematic language and brightly coloured gradient bodies warns potential predators that their flesh is unpalatable, toxic, queer and definitely not an edible beige wafer34.

34 Beige as a colour representing patriarchal, white and colonial dominant narratives. 38

FIG 26. Sissy-Cyclo holding bagyo-stirrer device, Performance Space. Performance photograph by Lucy Parakhina 2014.

Some sissies carry with them a bagyo-stirrer35 device. This aural interface combines the base of an extendable camera monopod with a jeepney speaker boom box and channels the

36 voices of ancestral winds which whisper “Auring, Bising, Crising, Dante, Emong…” Sissy-Cyclo twirls this object around its body, extending the monopod frame to allow larger cyclic aural arcs. Each name stirred by swinging gestures, sonically travels around the body. The performance activation of this sound object becomes a meditation on these destructive forces.

35 Bagyo is Tagalog for storm. 36 These names are from an alphabetical table for naming typhoons within the Philippine area of responsibility and are sourced from PAGASA, The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration: http://pagasa.dost.gov.ph/learning-tools/philippine-tropical-cylcone-names, [accessed: 10 February 2014]

FIG 27. Sissy-Cyclo bagyo-stirrer dance 2014, Performance Space. Stills from documentation of performance by Dara Gill

40 ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS

Studies suggest the greatest threat to the vast majority of creatures: humans and animals in the Philippines are anthropogenic emissions of green house gases which are contributing to a greater number and magnitude of storms, floods and heat waves in the Sissy’s coastal environment. Being an archipelagic nation, the Philippines is susceptible and therefore vulnerable to the ill-effects of weather-related hazards. Extreme weather events, including typhoons, monsoon rains and dry spells have triggered hazards (such as floods and landslides) that have turned into disasters37.

Climate change’s impacts are dynamic and non-linear. Coastal zones and flood prone areas along riverbanks and lakeshores will get hit. Less vulnerable areas and sectors are also affected as the impacts of an extreme weather event spill over into transportation, power, infrastructure, telecommunications, health, food security and water – all leading to internal displacement and marginalization of countless humans, flora and fauna38.

Where for much fauna real or imagined climate change signifies the collapse or degradation of their eco-systems, for Sissy-Cyclos however these conditions are favorable. Increasing cyclonic conditions according to some experts actually increase the probability of sissy- spawn birth sieges.

37Changes in the frequency, duration and intensity of tropical cyclones, rises in precipitation brought about by the warming of the seas, the melting of the polar ice caps and increases in sea levels (adversely affecting coastal communities), and the emergence and re-emergence of tropical diseases are some of the reported and projected consequences of climate change. G. P. Yumul Jr., N. Cruz, N.Servando and C. Dimalanta,, Extreme weather events and related disasters in the Philippines, 2004–08, W. Blackwell Oxford, Vol. 35 Issue 2 Apr 2011, p. 362-382 38 PAGASA, The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration:, http://pagasa.dost.gov.ph/index.php/climate-agromet/climate-change-in-the-philippines/116-climate- change-in-the-philippines [accessed: 10 February 2014]

41 ANCESTORS & RELATIONS

The projection of a fabulous self through the mode of queer spectacle is a biological adaptation that many Sissies employ. The communal space of the nightclub is often the chosen environment for this enactment. It is a place where diverse stories can be performed through self-fashioning and celebrated for the richness of their diversity and the power of their commonalities. These environments are fabulous themselves and simultaneously through participation enable their denizens to be similarly fabulous39. The environment produces them and they produce their environment. Many Sissies are wordless, cut off in many instances from their birth family, religion and other institutions that bind communities together. Responding to this they fashion their worlds from their own bodies the way a silk worm fashions its cocoon.

From fellow Sissy, Australian jeweler, artist and artistic director Peter Tully, Sissy-Cyclos inherit a queer-bowerbird tradition of transforming trash into affective adornment. Tully’s bricolage of found and self-made objects using plastics, feathers, jewelry, fun-fur and found objects was highly influenced by non-Western aesthetics, his travels through India, New Guinea, Africa, and Indonesia engendering a passion for pre-modern body adornment. His experience on the dance floor of the New York underground, Black and Hispanic dance club Paradise Garage suggested to him the concept of a ‘tribe’ that exceeded the limits of race, ethnicity, sexuality and class: a post-colonial utopia40. Born from this was his own ‘Urban Tribalwear’: performative costumes and body adornments. Drawn to materials that sparkled under club lighting, Tully made outfits for himself and other dancers. His Ceremonial Coat for the Grand Diva of the Paradise Garage (1980) was a vibrant wearable object. Made of Day-Glo plastics, fur, vinyl and kitchen utensils it evoked the queer mythology of the Diva. In wearing this ceremonial costume Tully became this fantasy Diva, a celebration of her aura refracting through a pastiche pillar of plastics.

39F. Buckland, Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-Making, Wesleyan University Press Connecticut, 2002, p.36-40 40 S. Gray, Queering Sydney: The ‘Art and Fashion Queens, Art Monthly Australia Issue 242, August 2011 Sydney.

FIG 28. Peter Tully, Ceremonial coat for the Grand Diva of Paradise Garage 1980. Costumes, ceremonial objects, coats, plastic, vinyl.

The lexical captain Rammellzee and his work The Letter Racers forms part of Sissy-Cyclo’s patrilineal line. Rammellzee’s elaborate deconstructionist-type dual philosophy called Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism imagined a world where Roman letters would arm and liberate themselves, at his command, from the power structures of European language. His role was as a lexical commander whose literacy in a mostly illiterate world demonstrated the extraordinary power of words to shape reality41. An artist, sculptor, hip-hop original, and

41 R. Kennedy, Art Excavated from Battle Station Earth, New York Times, 26 Feb 2012 43 graffiti philosopher, Rammellzee had his own legion of figures he could employ to animate his philosophies. Elaborate full-body costumes, militaristic plastic sculptures and cosmic paintings were created in The Battle Station, his TriBeCa loft in New York. Each costume was tailored to one of the 22 cosmic creatures he imagined and inhabited daily in his performance of self. The “letter racers" were the alphabet manifest as a platoon of 26 toy like vehicles built from found garbage from the streets of New York. "In Ramm's view, graffiti artists were waging a war in the subway trains," Geiss says42. And their enemy was, as the artist's widow, Carmela Zagari Rammellzee, puts it, the written word's "history of oppression."43 Sissy-Cyclos inherit this combative mode of expressing personal philosophy through embodied sculpture and performance.

FIG 29. Rammellzee 1990. Photographed by Per Zennström

42 Quote from New York Art Gallery owner Suzanne Geiss. F. Zhong, 2012, Alternate Universe, W, Issue 3 Vol 41, Conde Nast Publications New York, p. 188 43 Ibid. 44 CONCLUSION

Phasmahammer is literally a beast of a research project. It breathes, it is hungry and it reproduces in profusion. It builds on a focused practice I have been working on for the past nine years creating modern mythopoesis, a body of fictional mythologies. As central figures of these myths, The Fantastic Creatures have traversed real and imaginary worlds: nightclubs, theatres, sky-worlds, digital spaces and human psyches. They have met with children, adults, humans and non-humans in life and in fantasy.

From this I conceived the research of Phasmahammer as a way to examine and elaborate on this rich ecosystem within which I work and play. Where traditionally an ecosystem consists of a biological community (plants, animals and microbes) and the abiotic factors on which they rely (sunlight, air, water and mineral soil) interacting as a system I was interested in reframing this to describe my queered ecosystem: including the organisms real and imagined together with their non-living components art, politics, performance, house music and haute couture.

Considering the etymology of the term Phasmahammer combining the Ancient Greek φάσµα phasma, meaning an apparition or phantom with the noun hammer, to hit with force – two new SPECTERSMASHERS and their extended ecologies were born. Each of these embodied in their distinct way, queer actions of resistance against normative narratives of white capitalist patriarchal systems of authority. Bodies, kinship systems, and biological processes were reimagined privileging matriarchal, animist and polytheistic arrangements. Family trees were restructured drawing links to animals, queer performance avatars and ancestral artists. We welcome a fertile new sissy-hood of beings.

To support the creative logic of these figures, this research paper schematized them within my individualized understanding of the graphic and narrative potential of the bestiary. This form provided the necessary structure and context to examine in more detail the logic of each of these Fantastic Creatures. The bestiary as an ancient form from the mythic canon was supportive as a guide. It allowed a freedom to wander between the diverse references and histories of each figure in a lucid yet critical trajectory. I was able to draw links between science, biology, art theory, queer artistic lineages, mythological histories and the composition of Swarovski Crystals in narrative accord. 45

It was necessary and invaluable to imagine these Fantastic Creatures outside of their institutional frameworks and platforms. Examining their lived environments, threats, physiology, behaviours and allegory with conviction brought a new sense of authenticity to these myths. Like the suspension of disbelief a fairytale offers a child, Phasmahammer has given new logic to Pinky/OO and Sissy Cyclo. .

An invaluable mythological cartography now guides my future practice. I am now invested in the form of the bestiary to examine each new addition to the Fantastic Creature herd. From here I am interested in researching mythologies of the Filipino Diaspora tracing my matrilineal line in the Philippines. It will be exciting to see how queer and Filipino ancestral creatures can meet and propagate.

46 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Graves, R., The Greek Myths I, Penguin Books London, 1955

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47 Hogan, B. “The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online,” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, SAGE Publications, 2010, p. 376- 384.

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49 LIST OF IMAGES

FIG 01. Documentation of Sydney’s queer ecosystem and some of its Fantastic Creatures.

FIG 02. Some of The Fantastic Creatures family. Top Left to Bottom Right: V, Gala & Hypnos, Hubub and Caenus Cerabrallus.

FIG 03. The River Eats, Illustrated by Matthew Stegh & Justin Shoulder 2014, Offset Lithographic Print 50x70cm.

FIG 04. Pinky/OO, in The River Eats. Video still from trailer.

FIG 05. Pinky, Photographed by Jordan Graham 2014

FIG 06. Pinky in The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

FIG 07. Illustration of Deep-Face image verification process, identifying facial features of Sylvester Stallone for Facebook data collection.

FIG 08. Pinky in his pupal case. The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

FIG 09. Pinky gets a Skype call from Pinky, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

FIG 10. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase I: Mythic Glamour, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

FIG 11. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase II: Kelly, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.

50 FIG 12. Pinky undergoing Larval Phase III: My Voice, The River Eats. Performance photograph by Heidrun Lohr 2013.