[-empyre-] _I Am Transreal_ : [part 1] [_Augmentology.com_]

[dj lotu5]

Saul Ostrow wrote:
> might it not be the inverse - that the myths and master narratives that inform our multiple
> simultaneous realities order our experiences

I am not claiming the inverse, but the transverse, that myths and master
narratives do shape our perceptions, but that perhaps we can escape
those myths and master narratives by using systems such as virtual
worlds to construct new realities, and that in the space between the
two, in the swapping, becoming and traveling, perhaps something new can
emerge.

Lacan's claim that the real is inaccessible because our very perceptions
are shaped at the lowest levels by our linguistic constructs is
problematic to me. I think that there are still moments of real
experience, pain in particular comes to mind, and that if there were no
spaces, however small, outside of linguistic constraints then language
wouldn't be able to evolve. I think of a class I had with Barbara
Hammer, and how she said that she didn't know the word lesbian until she
was 30 and then she learned it and thought "oh, that's me!" I had a
similar experience a few years ago, when I had a friend explain their
notions of gender, genderqueer and transgender to me. These constructs
are evolving and becoming. There was no notion of genderqueer a century
ago.

If there is a claim in this essay it is that i feel that i have
significant parts of my identity/self/? in multiple realities, and I'm
thinking here of virtual worlds like SL and WoW, but botgirl questi is
fond of talking about how avatars are just like pen names and masquerades.

Still, my aim in the piece is to evoke a resonance of my personal
experience and try to enact a kind of shifting narrator and location
more than to make any specific claim...



> and therefore our notion of our relationship to others are not in actuality transformed 
> beyond our expectation that they should be -  and as such your article merely reflects
> your expectations and that if it did not you wouldn't have most likely written it in
> that few of us are actually open to undermining our own positions

> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of dj lotu5 [lotu5 at resist.ca]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 6:54 PM
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: [-empyre-] _I Am Transreal_ : [part 1] [_Augmentology.com_]
> 
> Hi all, I also wanted to share this new article I wrote which was just
> published on Augmentology.com, as I think its very related to the
> question of Queer Relational, and how we are transformed by our
> relationships both with others but also how those relationships and our
> notions of the subject are transformed by our experiences of 
> 
> 
> _I am Transreal_: A Reflection On/Of Becoming Dragon [Part 1]
> 
> [complete version with video and links here:]
> http://arsvirtuafoundation.org/research/2009/07/29/_i-am-transreal_-a-reflection-onof-becoming-dragon-part-1/
> 
> I am transreal. Look at me. When you do, a million iridescent scales
> across my dragon hide flick, move and align to create a multiplicity of
> perceptions, transversal illusions and realities cutting through each
> other, intersecting, dancing. Look at me. You see a shimmering of my
> fantasies and yours, a convergence of your minute sensory events, your
> imaginary constructs and my desires. Look at me. The mythopoetic
> elements of your reality and mine come into contact, unwind and become a
> recombinant event of male and female and something else, something more,
> for just an instant. Perhaps after that initial instant, one of your
> myths takes over your perception and you decide that you understand, but
> before that, I instill confusion and doubt. I can see it on your face.
> 
> I am becoming mythopoetic, a shapeshifting creature of legend, a dragon.
> Standing here, on the border, the sunlight through the clouds defeating
> the fence, I am transreal, between realities, moving through layers of
> the symbolic, the imaginary and the real, simultaneously quivering,
> swapping out and swapping back in, too fast to find the border between
> them. I am existing between my fantasies and desires, which are driving
> the changing form of my body, and the moment of perception in which you
> see me and call me maam, sir, dude, miss, or avoid choosing a category.
> Speaking, being with different people throughout the day, my body and
> name changes, my realness or unrealness oscillates. You see me standing
> here, but really, you see my avatar, my body, which is under
> construction. We bring our illusions together. You see soft skin. I see
> the pills and the bloody razor that made it soft, making me feel
> happier, more feminine. You see scales, I see textured prims and their
> glow values.
> 
> A dark moment in the street at night, your illusions of masculinity
> swirl up against the confusion I install in you, and you attack. My
> reality becomes a blur, a flurry of motion, and a sharp chemical
> emotional reaction, as I strike back with pressurized chemical weapons.
> Yet even in that moment, I am transreal, between my reality and yours,
> only finding a hard fissure between the two.
> 
> In bed with my lover, we are transreal, deep in our illusions of each
> other, feeling our very real emotions for each other, between bodies,
> looking into her eyes, slipping out of myself and my concerns and out
> into the bright nebula of pleasure.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> blog: http://transreal.org
> 
> gpg key: 1024D/7E8B7A2B
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> 


-- 
blog: http://transreal.org

gpg key: 1024D/7E8B7A2B