Gender drift: Testo Junkie, queer performativity and molecular becoming

Greer, S. (2018) Gender drift: Testo Junkie, queer performativity and molecular becoming. Performance Research, 23(7), pp. 63-71. (doi: 10.1080/13528165.2018.1557450)

Abstract

Staged as a drift between and beyond the terms of normative gender, Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie (2013) suggests a reconceptualization of the Situationist dérive as a practice of molecular becoming. In this essay, I offer Preciado's work as a way of understanding how queer dramaturgies may involve something other than a stable, coherent subject and instead figure what Rosi Braidotti has theorised as a non-unitary or nomadic mode of subjectivity. At the same time, Preciado's emphasis on the spatial, cultural and ‘pharmaco-pornographic’ conditions which materialise the contemporary subject may usefully resist renditions of the queer or trans subject as endlessly or effortlessly fluid. In exploring these ideas, I consider two performances – Rosana Cade's Walking: Holding (2011) and Nando Messias’ The Sissy's Progress ­­(2014) – as articulating the necessity for queer, trans and gender non-conforming people to appear in public spaces while simultaneously foregrounding the literal, material conditions -- and risks -- attached to gender that drifts from its most normative instance. These works invite us to rethink the potential of queer spatiality in terms of contact, exposure and situated embodiment.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Greer, Dr Stephen
• Authors: Greer, S.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > Theatre Film and TV Studies
• Journal Name: Performance Research
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 1352-8165
• ISSN (Online): 1469-9990
• Published Online: 31 January 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor and Francis Group
• First Published: First published in Performance Research 23(7): 63-71
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy