The amazing folks over at Neighborhood Public Radio have invited us to do 4 radio shows as part of the American Life series. They’ll be broadcast from their website, http://neighborhoodpublicradio.org , on 103.9 FM and at the Whitney Biennial in New York City, so check us out in one of those places!

For our 4 shows, we’ll be talking about the various parts of our project: queer, open source, porn, collective. Last week we talked about the question of queer and what queer means to us and how we can think of a queer politics.

Listen to the first show here, with music by J Bird, Nicky Click and Jenna Riot:

http://conceptualart.dreamhosters.com/npr/archives/229

Cream is at 4496 Park Blvd, (between Meade Ave & Mission Ave), San Diego, CA 92116

Reposted from rhizome.org:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 21, 2008

JUDGE DISMISSES MAIL FRAUD CASE AGAINST BIO-ARTIST KURTZ

Buffalo, NY–A process that has taken nearly four years may be coming to an end. On Monday, April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara ruled to dismiss the indictment against University at Buffalo Professor of Visual Studies Dr. Steven Kurtz.

In June 2004, Professor Kurtz was charged with two counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud stemming from an exchange of $256 worth of harmless bacteria with Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

Dr. Kurtz planned to use the bacteria in an educational art exhibit about biotechnology with his award-winning art and theater collective, Critical Art Ensemble.

Professor Kurtz’ lawyer, Paul Cambria, said that his client was “pleased and relieved that this ordeal may be coming to an end.”

The prosecution has the right to appeal this dismissal. How the prosecution will proceed is unknown at this time. If an appeal were undertaken the case would move to the New York Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City.

Upcoming planning meetings: Sunday, April 27th, 3:00pm, Sat May 3rd , 3pm @ City Heights Free Skool

[download pdf here]

The Future of Food
@ The City Heights
Free Skool, 7:30pm, Tues, April 22nd, 4246 Wightman St, on the corner of Van Dyke and Wightman in City Heights
There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America — a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat. THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade. From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology.

Strange Culture
@ Groundwork Books
0323 UCSD New Student Center, 7:30pm, Tues, April 29th
The conflict between policies that support national security and those that protect civil liberties are embodied in the bizarre, terrifying story of Steve Kurtz, an artist, activist and State University of New York at Buffalo professor for whom a personal tragedy led to a Kafkaesque nightmare courtesy of the War on Terror.

Learn more about BIO at http://biodev.org
Check for updates at
http://cityheightsfreeskool.org
and http://bang.calit2.net

Right now, I prefer she and her, when people are speaking about me. I’ve been trying to get my friends to learn to use Ze and Zer, but I feel like it is hard for them to use when speaking to other people who use he and him, and who might not know what ze and zer mean. I also feel that by using ze and zer, I’m still ultimately gendered as male by people who don’t critically examine gender. So right now, I feel like she and her is the best pronoun for me, because I think its the most functional in terms of disrupting people’s tendency to gender me male, even when I’m decked out in make up, a skirt tights and boots. I also find it to be the most comfortable, because I feel like people have been trying to force me to be a man my entire life, and I’m done with that. Hearing people refer to me as she reminds me that people support me in my transition and that some people recognize the philosophical and ontological stance I’m taking of rejecting the categories of male and female and not reducing me to my present biology. I identify as transgender, as crossing gender boundaries, and as genderqueer, as not fitting into categories of male and female.

When people refer to me with male pronouns, it basically makes me feel invisiblized, disregarded and misunderstood. It makes me think that people think I’m “just a cross-dresser” and it disregards the fact that I am struggling everyday to deconstruct and challenge the gender that has been assigned to me, but to which I’ve never quite fit, even as a child. I consider myself to have a genderqueer body. From before I even knew the term, people have accused me of running, sitting, throwing, walking “like a girl”, and girlfriends have always told me that they were attracted to my “androgyny”. Basically, when someone refers to me as he, I feel like they’re joining that chorus of people saying “be a man!” Still, I realize that a lot of people knew me as a male person before, and I find it hard to bring up this issue, as I don’t want to be the center of attention.

Last night I had a long conversation with a close friend of mine, in bed, about pronouns. They feel that by using “he” to refer to me, they’re making a Foucaultian move in not reproducing the discourse of power, in relation to gender, by avoiding the conversation where they have to explain their sexuality to people. I understand their position, but I feel a little differently. I think that if I’m being referred to as he, then the discourse and its power is very concretely being manifested.

Judith Butler ties one of the most fundamental mechanisms of sexual control, in psychoanalysis, to pronouns, saying “the paternally enforced prohibition against union with the mother is coextensive with language itself, and makes itself understood in the elementary structures of reference and differentiation, particularly in the structures of pronomial reference,” which reinforce our roles and their limits everyday over and over [1]. Leslie Feinberg says “I don’t have a personal stake in whether the tans liberation movement results in a new third pronoun, or gender-neural pronouns, like the ones, such as ze (she/he) and hir (her/his)… It is not the words in and of themselves that are important to me - it’s our lives. The struggle of trans people over the centuries is not his-story or her-story. It is our-story.” [2] I totally agree. I’m not so concerned with these words, so much as their affect and operation in my life and the communities I inhabit.

As I said to my friend last night, on one level, my gender expression is definitely me doing what I want. At the same time, on another level, its a daily act of resistance to the codes and laws of sex and gender that are so ingrained to society that most people probably don’t even realize they’re saying “sir” or “hombre” or “man”. And its hard. And sometimes I wonder how people have the strength to keep it up, in the face of the constant stress and threat of violence. Which is part of why I’ve been thinking about transitioning more, along with the sheer desire I have to explore my body and its possibilities more. Which is also part of why I’m moing to a much more queer positive and less conservative city, probably Montreal. I was there for a week last month and three people asked me what my preferred pronoun is.

So, if you’re talking about me, do me a favor and use she and her, or if you find that so difficult, just use my name or they and their. And if you’re friends with another trans person who’s in transition, check in with them about how they feel about their pronouns. Its an ongoing source of stress and joy for some of us, and they might be really happy that you asked.

I’ve been reading Donna Haraway’s new book “When Species Meet”, which is a beautiful and compelling bringing together of queer theory and ideas of alter-globalization or autre-mondialisation, with the aim of rethinking post-humanism around an idea of companion species which can inform how we communicate with and treat each other. Its really amazing, but in the context of world building, the difficulty to get people to use the right pronoun or find a bathroom I feel safe in on a day to day basis is still humbling and grounding. Deleuze and Guattari exclaim “the schizoanalytic slogan of the desiring-revolution will be first of all: to each its own sexes” [3]. I want a world and a community where we can have fluid genders and sexes and sexualities. Where we don’t have to worry about what label, lesbian, gay, transgender, we fit into, and I’m willing to struggle for that world, every minute of every day, with my whole body.

1. Subjects of Desire, p. 201

2. Transgender Warriors, p. x

3. Anti-Oedipus, p. 325

My show, radio Antifascista is here:

http://radio.indymedia.org/en/search/node/lotu5

and “resistance, remixed” is here:

http://radio.indymedia.org/en/search/node/resistance%20remixed

Lets have a big “FUCK YEAH” for autonomous infrastructure! and a huge thank you to the indymedia techs who did the work to get all that data back online!

Enjoy…

This piece is a project I did for Jordan Crandall’s seminar “Imaging the Self”, in which I had on week to respond to the Lacanian concept of “The Act”. It’s a first attempt at creating bioart. It consists of four genetic samples from myself including blood, saliva and mouth tissue, labeled in a ways which represent parts of myself but which are not accepted medical labels. I say it is a sketch because I only had a few days to develop the piece. I also see this as a creative form of resistance to genetic and biological determinism.

These are all genetic samples of myself, labeled in various ways that are “impossible” in the present medical/scientific environment.

pre-op transexual - would imply someone who is going to get Gender Confirmation Surgery in the future, but it “impossible” in that it may never occur, referring to the inaccessibility and unknowability of the future.

multiple subjects single extraction - refers to the conception of the individual self as multiple, but you would never see this reflected in a medical analysis. “Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd… We are no longer ourselves… We have been aided, inspired, multiplied.” - Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

genderqueer/transgender age: 31 - in contrast to the way that most medical forms only show two options for sex, male or female, and no choices for gender.

blue moogle - this is a kind of avatar in Second Life which I use, so this is a genetic sample from a Second Life avatar.

more images here @ flickr

Friday, April 4, 2008
2:00–8:00 pm
Visual Arts Facility (VAF)
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 9209

Directions to the show:
http://ucsdopenstudios.com/2008/information.php

About the show:

http://ucsdopenstudios.com/2008/ucsdopenstudios_PR.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2007
Contact: Glenna Jennings
626-676-0627
gjennings at ucsd d0t edu

UCSD Visual Arts Department Announces Open Studios
La Jolla, California – The Graduate Visual Arts Department at the
University of California – San Diego invites the Southern California
community to view the work of its current MFA students at Open
Studios on Friday, April 4th from 2-8 pm.

From dirtbike culture, discarded fire alarms and Nanotechnology to
stand up comedy, dream stimulation, and water balloons, the visual
artists of UCSD’s highly noted MFA program employ a wide range of
subject matter in their multi-disciplinary practices. The resulting
works are a rich array of technological investigation, social
speculation, psychic space and real-world intervention.

Many of UCSD’s MFA candidates have worked and exhibited widely
throughout the globe. Within the Southern California art
community, the students have recently collaborated with The
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Fritz Haeg’s Sundown
Salon, LA’s LACE and Sixteen:One galleries and CECUT, Tijuana.

Join us for an afternoon of art, film, performance and music at the
Visual Arts Facility, located off of Gilman Dr. on the UCSD campus.

For directions and more information, please go to:
http://ucsdopenstudios.com

Sharing is Sexy’s statement for the show:

http://ucsdopenstudios.com/2008/artists.php?a=Sharing_is_Sexy

In looking at most mainstream porn, we don’t see ourselves and our friends. In response, we are creating the porn that we want to see. In our project, we are sharing our bodies with you willingly. We’re in control, do not change the channel. Our collective practices consensus. Everyone has an equal voice in what we do and how we do it. We are examining the question of open source porn while respecting the work of sex workers. We’re in this to create change.

In doing so, we have created a collective, Sharing Is Sexy (SiS) and are building a porn-positive and sex-positive community in our home of San Diego, California. Beyond the website, we are also organizing events that advocate sex-positive ideas, having porn watching nights, hosting burlesque shows and making zines. Did we say sharing? Sharing builds community. By fulfilling our own desires and finding those with shared desires, we’ve got each other’s backs, in more ways than one.

SiS is a collaborative open source porn laboratory. We are a group of queer people, transgender people and people with othered bodies coming together to create a site for free porn that is licensed under Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA 3.0). We are creating our own porn using photography, video, writing or any form that suits us. SiS is polyamorous so, we are open to new members and looking to collaborate.

http://sharingissexy.org

I just wanted to say that the porn panel went great! I’m so grateful to Anna Feigenbaum for organizing it, and to Lickety Split and Pornopticon for coming and talking! It looks like some cross collective collaboration is going to be happening and the audience was also very receptive. One woman said to me afterwards that she was so happy to see all the variety of body types in Sharing is Sexy, and that she felt really empowered by our work! YES! I couldn’t have asked for more. The room was packed, with people spilling into the hall. There must’ve been like 40 people there. I showed my stripping video, which will be up on the site soon, and a bunch of photos.

Someone just asked me over coffee “are you a Deleuzian?” and followed up soon after with “Deleuze camp was boring”. But the problem with being Deleuzian is that it leaves out Guattari! He was the militant, Deleuze the thinker. How could I leave him out! Actually, learning french and reading Deleuze and Guattari in their original language is one exciting reason to live here. Aside from Faggity Ass Fridays and Lickety Split, of course.

I’m here to give a talk on Friday that I’m so excited about, but I’ve also been meeting with artists and professors fom Condoria, to see if I want to go there next. I have to admit that this city is very seductive. Its just awesome how much art and how many contemporary art spaces there are here (and great parties and beautiful people). Wow, I sound like I’m moving here, don’t I?

Come see me at this event in Montreal! It should be fun and thought provoking! I’m so excited about meeting the people from Lickety Split and Pornopticon and sharing our experiences. I hope you can join us…

http://technotrannyslut.com/2008/03/14/thinking-smut-a-diy-porn-panel-discussion-screening-session/