Škratova filmska šola vabi na prvo delavnico te vrste v logih Škratove filmske šole, ki združuje film, svinčnike in dobro staro, neskončno prostrano domišljijo.
Filmsko skupinsko pisanje: Preoblečena filmska svetovja
Na delavnici – recept za slednjo smo dobili po prebiranju knjige Svetovi drugih, ki jo je uredila Tea Hvala, obsega pa dvajset zgodb, nastalih na delavnicah skupinskega pisanja feministične in kvirovske znanstvene fantastike, ki jih je prav tako vodila Tea Hvala – bomo za izhodišče vzeli nekaj reprezentativnih filmov, ki se na tak ali drugačen način dotikajo letošnje osrednje teme Škratove filmske šole.
Pred pohajkovanjem po širnih fantazijskih poljanah bomo predebatirali nekaj družno izbranih filmskih tekstov. Pogovorili se bomo o njihovih načinih učinkovanja, tipih sporočil, ki jih proizvajajo, o njihovih temah in motivih. Dolžni ne bomo ostali niti pogovoru o njihovem prečenju gledalca, pa tudi širšega družbenega konteksta, v navezavi na letošnji tematski cikel škratovskega filmskega druženja, ki se smuka okoli razmišljanj o filmu in digitalizaciji.
V nadaljevanju delavnice se bomo odločili za eno od filmskih zgodb in jo po zgledu tehnike skupinskega pisanja, ki so si jo izmislili nadrealisti, na sebi lasten način, v improvizacijski maniri, sestavili povsem na novo. Če nas bo šest, bo iz izbrane filmske zgodbe, ki nam bo služila kot začetno ogrodje, nastalo šest novih fantazijskih svetov, saj bo vsak od nas oblikoval novo zgodbo, a jo po petnajstih minutah predal drugemu, ki bo napisano prebral, nato pa nadaljeval tam, kjer se je zgodba končala. Pisali bomo toliko časa, dokler ne bo prav vsak udeleženec nekaj prispeval k vsaki zgodbi.
Novi filmsko-virtualni svetovi se bodo v nova prostorja in časovja izstrelili kar brez kamer. A le za hipec. Najbolj zagrizeni boste nastale zgodbe lahko posneli tudi z vašimi mobilniki ter jih pretočili na video zbiralnik Odprti video.
Predhodni ogledi filmov niso potrebni. Delavnica je brezplačna, s seboj prinesite le pisalo, za papir poskrbimo mi. Nastale zgodbe bomo objavili v Zborniku Škratove filmske šole 2011!
Preoblečeni filmski svetovi se bodo zgodili 19. avgusta 2011 ob 19.00 na vrtu Škratove čitalnice. V primeru dežja se bomo skrili v bibliobus Škratove čitalnice.
Vljudno vabljeni, da se nam pridružite!
16. avg. 2011
3. avg. 2011
Intervju o zborniku 'Rdečke razsajajo!'
Portal 13. brat je 2. avgusta 2011 objavil intervju z mano o nastajanju zbornika Rdečke razsajajo! in festivalu Rdeče zore. Spraševal je Marko Rusjan, objavljeno v spletni reviji 13. brat na tej povezavi.
Festival ni samo feminističen, temveč tudi kvirovski. »Kvir« je poslovenjena oblika angleškega izraza »queer«. Mogoče bo vprašanje na prvi pogled zvenelo banalno, vendar sem prepričan, da velika večina tega izraza ne pozna. Kako bi najbolj preprosto pojasnila, kaj pomeni »kvir«?
Pred kratkim je izšla knjiga Rdečke razsajajo!, v kateri je urednica Tea Hvala zbrala pogovore z organizatorkami mednarodnega feminističnega in queer festivala Rdeče zore. Dogodek je primerna priložnost, da nam urednica knjige poda kratek vpogled (in njen pogled) v nastanek knjige in sam festival Rdeče zore.
Kako si prišla do ideje za knjigo? Na začetku pišeš, da si opazila, da ste organizatorke nevidne kljub veliki količini dela, ki ga opravite. Gre torej pri tej knjigi tudi za samopotrditev, vsaj delni izstop iz sence? V nadaljevanju sicer zapišeš tudi koncept kontrajavnosti, ki je nekakšna oblika alternativne javnosti. Komu je ta knjiga namenjena?
Intervjuje, zbrane v knjigi, sem opravila med pisanjem magistrske naloge iz študij spolov l. 2009. V nalogi sem Rdeče zore obravnavala kot enega redkih alternativnih javnih prostorov (ali kontrajavnosti) v Ljubljani in Sloveniji, ki k druženju, debatiranju in ustvarjanju vabi vse, predvsem pa ženske in spolne manjšine, ki se zanimajo za feministično in queerovsko politiko.
Za knjižno objavo sem se odločila kasneje – prav zato, da bi bila mnenja intervjuvank dostopna širši javnosti: najprej ljudem, ki tudi sami organizirajo kulturne in politično ozaveščene »naredi sama« dogodke, saj gre za pravi priročnik, zbirko dragocenih nasvetov o tem, kako gojiti in ohraniti egalitarne, nehierarhične odnose v organizacijski ekipi, kako k sodelovanju pritegniti nove sodelavke, kako si zagotoviti denar za delo, če nimaš dostopa do javnih sredstev ipd. Druga ciljna publika so ljudje, ki so vključeni v različne glasbene in aktivistične »scene«, posebej tisti, ki trdijo, da v teh krogih ni seksizma in homofobije. V zborniku bodo našli kar nekaj argumentov, ki trdijo nasprotno: da pri nas obe vrsti diskriminacije prav lepo uspevata, seveda pod krinko domnevne enakopravnosti in politične korektnosti. To še toliko bolj velja za širšo javnost oziroma uradni politični in medijski diskurz, zato je ciljna publika zbornika o Rdečih zorah pravzaprav zelo široka. Nenazadnje pa je knjiga tudi darilo nam samim, organizatorkam festivala. Res je, da potrditev, da je naše delo dobro in politično pomembno, dobimo na vsakem dogodku, ki sproži debato in izostri mnenja vseh udeleženih, vendar se mi zdi pomembno, da smo z zbornikom svojim dosežkom postavile nekakšen simboličen »spomenik«. Saj veš, kako pravijo: če svoje zgodbe ali zgodovine ne napišeš sama, tvegaš, da jo bodo v tvojem imenu zapisali drugi ... na način, ki ti ne bo všeč.
V zborniku sem uvodoma zapisala, da za organizacijsko delo velja – podobno kot za gospodinjsko delo in intelektualno poustvarjanje (prevajanje, uredniško delo itd.), da je najbolje opravljeno, če ga nihče ne opazi. Ta paradoks je neizbežen. Izstop iz »sence«, ki jo omenjaš v vprašanju, pa ima več opraviti s prizadevanjem Rdečih zor, da bi feminizem v Sloveniji ponovno postal legitimen političen diskurz, saj je po osamosvojitvi iz več razlogov izgubil bitko z naraščajočim populizmom. Ta nagovarja etnonacionalistična, konservativna in katoliška čustva, s tem pa tudi homofobne in seksistične, celo mizogine strahove. Kot so poudarile intervjuvanke: v takšnih razmerah je že to, da se lezbijke in geji, ki običajno zahajajo samo v Monokel in Tiffany, med festivalom tudi v drugih klubih na Metelkovi počutijo domače in varno, velik dosežek!
Dvanajst let je dolga doba za vsakoletno delovanje festivala Rdeče zore. V tem času se tudi generacije menjajo. Kako se je festival soočil s tem problemom? Ali se morebitni umik določenih akterjev nadomešča z novimi silami? V kolikšni meri je to uspešno in kako se menjava generacij pozna pri vsebini festivala, pri samih prioritetah? Verjetno je s tem povezana tudi sprememba naziva iz ženskega v feministični in queerovski festival.
Res je, ekipa se je v preteklih dvanajstih letih stalno spreminjala, obenem pa je vedno obstajalo tudi jedro; organizatorke, ki so, preden so zapustile ekipo, poskrbele za to, da so svoje znanje prenesle na nove sodelavke. To spretnost sta izmojstrili edini ustanoviteljici festivala, ki še vedno sodelujeta pri organizaciji, Nataša Serec in Jadranka Ljubičič. Tudi sama sem se učila od njiju, zdaj pa se postopoma umikam iz festivalske ekipe. Pač, dejstvo je, da je prostovoljno delo v družbenem vzdušju, v katerem je izraz »feministka« zmerljivka, zelo utrujajoče, sploh če k temu prišteješ še študijske, delovne, družinske in druge angažmaje organizatork in organizatorjev.
Nove sodelavke smo vabile osebno in z javnimi razpisi. Številne so po eno- ali dvoletnem spoznavanju festivala in opravljanju manj zahtevnih del, prevzele večjo odgovornost, kar pomeni, da so posamezne zadolžitve, ki že tako ali tako nikoli niso bile povsem ločene, vsa leta krožile. Mislim, da je prav to, da so se nove sodelavke čutile dovolj vključene in upoštevane, da so ostale in prevzele zahtevnejša dela, naš največji uspeh. Ker program vsako leto izbira nekoliko drugačna ekipa, se ta seveda spreminja, to pa pomeni, da ne more postati dolgočasen ali dogmatičen. Naloga izkušenejših in teoretsko bolje podkovanih sodelavk je v tem smislu predvsem oporna. Postavljamo neprijetna pragmatična vprašanja, recimo kaj ima to ali ono prijavljeno umetniško delo opraviti s feministično politiko; ali imamo na razpolago sredstva in čas, da določen dogodek izpeljemo; kako naj predavanje o seksualnem delu in trgovini z belim blagom vključimo v program, ki na drugi strani vključuje tudi projekcijo neodvisnih queerovskih porno filmov, ne da bi obiskovalke in obiskovalci dobili vtis, da zagovarjamo kakršnokoli obliko seksualnega izkoriščanja ipd.
Sprememba imena je sledila postopnemu spreminjanju programa, ta pa je sledil našemu spoznavanju zgodovine feminističnih bojev in aktualne lokalne problematike, pa tudi želji po vključevanju neheteronomativnih gledišč v festivalske vsebine. Sprememba je bila nujna, vendar se oznaki »ženski festival« nismo odrekle zato, ker bi menile, da je kolektivni subjekt žensk nepotreben ali politično neučinkovit. Nasprotno, pomemben bo, vse dokler bodo zakoni, ekonomija in morala imeli korist od dvojnih meril, ki veljajo za ženske in moške; pomemben bo, vse dokler si bodo institucije domišljale, da lahko ženskam predpisujejo, kaj in kako naj ravnajo s svojim telesom, s svojim življenjem. Težava, ki smo jo imele z oznako »ženski festival«, je bila, da izraz pristajala na določen esencializem, na biološki spol kot merilo za to, ali bomo nekoga povabile na festival ali ne. Poleg tega pa je bila ta oznaka preveč prijazna! Kot je v zborniku povedala umetnica in teoretičarka Slađana Mitrović: feminizem kot družbeno stigmatizirana politika, estetika in gibanje ima močno identifikacijsko vlogo, kar pomeni, da bodo na festival prišli samo ljudje, ki se ne bojijo zaznamovanosti, izgube družbenega ugleda in (predvsem verbalnega) nasilja, ki lahko sledijo, ko te okolica označi za feministko ali feminista. Tudi izraz »queer« v našem nazivu igra provokativno vlogo: kot relativno nov koncept vzbuja radovednost, ki jo izkoriščamo v izobraževalne namene.
Pri odprtosti festivala se pojavi dvojno nerazumevanje. Večina ne razume, zakaj so lahko določeni dogodki namenjeni samo ženskam, medtem ko ženske radikalke oz. aktivistke ne razumejo, zakaj so dogodki odprti za vse? Kako obravnavati po eni strani potrebo po varnem okolju, v katerem se lahko radikalne vsebine neovirano razvijajo, in po drugi strani potrebo, da se vsebine odpre za vse, tudi za tiste, ki jih ne poznajo, nimajo takšne zavesti, ali pa so tako ali drugače žrtve patriarhalne vzgoje?
Tudi o tem pišem v uvodu v Rdečke razsajajo!, kjer citiram marksistično politologinjo in filozofinjo Nancy Fraser, ki pravi, da manjšinske javnosti morajo negovati svoj prostor in obenem segati navzven, sicer sploh niso javne. To pomeni, da nobena, še tako specifična javnost, že po definiciji ne more biti zaprta vase, ali, kot pri nas še vedno radi očitajo predvsem feminističnim in lezbičnim skupinam, »separatistična«. Seveda pa jo, če ne razsaja dovolj glasno, večinska javnost z lahkoto prezre. In če razsaja preveč naglas? Potem jo osami – ali pa ji končno prisluhne. O tem, kaj od povedanega drži za Rdeče zore, pa bodo seveda morali soditi drugi …
V Sloveniji je »ženskih radikalk«, ki bi zagovarjale potrebo po javnih prostorih, namenjenih zgolj ženskam, žal zelo malo – za razliko od razvitejših in bolj raznolikih feminističnih in LGBT gibanj na Zahodu, kjer ženske niso (tako kot v bivši Jugoslaviji) poslušale nakladanj o tem, kako da bo »žensko vprašanje« rešeno vred z delavskim. Namenoma pravim žal, ker se zavedam, kako provokativna je tema »ženskega separatizma«, ki ga vedno znova očitajo tudi festivalu Rdeče zore, čeprav smo v dvanajstih letih delovanja organizirale največ pet, šest dogodkov, ki so bili namenjeni samo ženskam in trans ženskam. Šlo je za delavnice o tem, kako popraviti avto, kolo, računalnik, torej za veščine, ki tradicionalno spadajo v domeno moških. Iz izkušenj vemo, da se ženske, ki se želijo naučiti tehničnih popravil, v prisotnosti moških bojijo postavljati tako imenovana neumna vprašanja. Zanimivo je, da je na avtomehanično delavnico kljub temu, da je v vabilu jasno pisalo, da je samo za ženske, prišlo tudi nekaj fantov, ki so se tako kot punce želeli izogniti posmehu tehnično spretnejših »pravih moških«. Seveda jih nismo zavrnile. Moške smo zavrnile ob drugih priložnostih, recimo na eni od računalniških delavnic, kjer smo upoštevale željo voditeljice delavnice.
Sicer pa na očitke o izključevanju moških vedno odgovorim pragmatično: vse dokler bodo žensko-identificirane osebe čutile potrebo po »lastnih sobah«, po ustvarjanju varnih prostorov, kjer ne bodo izpostavljene spolnemu nadlegovanju, posmehu in drugim oblikam seksizma, imajo (oziroma imamo) vso pravico, da si ta prostor vzamejo. Kdor je izključen iz takšnih prostorov, nima izbire: to odločitev mora spoštovati. To velja tudi za redke moške, ki se pri nas istovetijo s feminizmom in so oboroženi s sto tehtnimi argumenti proti separatizmu. Njihove argumente poznam, z mnogimi se celo strinjam, a še vedno mislim, da določene vsebine in situacije zahtevajo izključno žensko, včasih pa izključno lezbično prisotnost. Ob tem naj dodam, da smo Rdeče zore vedno vztrajale, da je festival odprt za vse, čeprav smo zato na zaključnih zabavah tvegale in nekajkrat dejansko izgubile tisto sproščenost, ki sicer zaznamuje festivalska druženja. Ker pa najglasnejši seksisti, mizogini in homofobi nimajo navade obiskovati feminističnih ali queerovskih delavnic, pogovorov in predavanj, smo na izobraževalnih dogodkih srečevale predvsem ljudi, ki so festivalsko izkušnjo obogatili.
Ne glede na zunanjo podobo festivala, ki jo javnost pozna po dogodkih, organizatorkam notranjo moč daje predvsem samovzgoja, učenje prek organizacije in sodelovanja. Kaj je tebi prinesel festival, recimo temu s stališča osebne rasti? Kako se soočaš s problemom, ki nas mnoge prej ali slej doleti, da rezultati tvojega dela in truda v širši javnosti niso vidni?
Če začnem pri koncu: v določenem trenutku, ko sem bila precej utrujena od organizacijskega dela, sem se ravno zato, ker sem imela občutek, da so učinki naših prizadevanj komaj vidni, začela spraševati, za koga to pravzaprav počnem. Eden od odgovorov, ki mi je dal uteho, je bil, da zase in za ljudi, ki tako kot jaz v Ljubljani pogrešajo feministične dogodke. Na vprašanje, kaj je festival dal nam, sem s pomočjo soorganizatork in politične teorije skušala odgovoriti tako v svoji magistrski nalogi kot v zborniku. Če povzamem: pogum, iznajdljivost, nove prijatelje, moralno podporo za nadaljnje delo in nekaj poštenih lekcij iz potrpežljivosti, strpnosti do drugačnih mnenj in bolj jasnega izražanja svojih stališč, kar ti pri kolektivnem delu pride zelo prav. Ob tem sem se aktivno vključila v mednarodno mrežo sorodnih iniciativ in spoznala kar nekaj krajev in ljudi, ki jih sicer ne bi bilo na mojem zemljevidu političnih zaveznic in zaveznikov, prijateljic in prijateljev ter seveda ljubimk in ljubimcev.
Kako bi primerjala festival s festivali v tujini, kjer imajo daljšo tradicijo ženskih avtonomnih festov? Katere so njihove prednosti in slabosti, katere pa od Rdečih zor?
Glavna razlika med denimo Ladyfesti, ki potekajo v mestih z daljšo tradicijo in bolj profiliranimi ter bolj množično zastopanimi skupnostmi, in Ljubljano je, da si prvi lahko privoščijo organizacijo zelo specifičnih dogodkov za točno določeno publiko. Še na misel jim ne pride, da bi hlepeli po programu, ki bi zajel vse teme, ki niso vidne v širši javnosti, saj vedo, da je v mestu še veliko drugih skupin, ki se posvečajo posameznim vprašanjem – od aktivističnih do nevladnih in celo vladnih skupin. To je hkrati njihova prednost in slabost; prednost zato, ker se jim ni treba ukvarjati s privabljanjem širše javnosti in oglaševanjem v mainstream medijih, slabost pa zato, ker se zelo hitro zgodi, da skupnosti postanejo zaprte: ne v separatističnem smislu, temveč v smislu pridiganja že prepričanim. Rdeče zore si tega ne moremo in nočemo privoščiti. Kot je v zborniku povedala Anna Ehrlemark: zanimajo nas produktivni konflikti, ti pa so mogoči samo, če na festival pridejo ljudje različnih prepričanj, ki jih druži zelo ohlapen skupni imenovalec: feministična in queerovska politika. Povedano velja predvsem za Zahodno Evropo, medtem ko se v postsocialističnih državah srečujejo s podobnimi težavami kot mi; recimo s tem, da je feminizem prehod iz socializma v »demokracijo« preživel na univerzah, ne pa tudi na ulicah.
Preimenovanje festivala iz ženskega v feministični ima verjetno političen naboj. Feminizem je z vidika širše javnosti veliko radikalnejša pozicija, saj je kljub heterogenosti same misli definiran precej bolje kot je oznaka »ženski«, v katero lahko vključimo vse: od lezbičnih gibanj do aktivov kmečkih žena. Kako uspe festivalu približati feminizem obiskovalcem, ki so ga do tedaj ignorirali ali pa so mu iz takšnih in drugačnih razlogov nasprotovali?
Prav imaš, naziv »feministični in queerovski festival« v slovenski javnosti sam po sebi deluje provokativno. Zato smo spremenile ime! Marsikdo meni, da bi dosegle več ljudi, če bi zagovarjale feministična stališča, ne da bi jih poimenovale s tem zaznamovanim imenom, vendar nas tovrstno taktično sprenevedanje ne zanima. Kot že rečeno, festivalska vrata so odprta za vse, vendar nikogar ne silimo čez prag. Močno dvomim, da ljudje, ki zaradi neznanja ali osebnih strahov menijo, da je feminizem sovražen moškim ali pa da zadeva samo ženske, obiščejo festival. Ker v Sloveniji nimajo veliko priložnosti, da bi uvideli svojo zmoto, si pod besedo »feministka« običajno predstavljajo možato lezbijko, ki prezira moške. No, nekatere lezbijke so res feministke, a vsaka feministka ni lezbijka – in ni vsaka lezbijka možata. Tu so še strejt in gejevski feministi, ob njih pa še veliko drugih ljudi, ki ne ustrezajo nobeni od omenjenih in skrajno omejenih spolnih (moški, ženska) in seksualnih (strejt, homo) kategorij. Tiste, ki se kljub predsodkom odločijo, da bodo festival obiskali, običajno pretrese že to preprosto dejstvo. Drugi šok zanje je, da nastopajoče in festivalska publika niti približno ne ustrezajo predstavam o »zafrustriranih«, »frigidnih«, »grdih« ipd. ženskah, kar je verjetno drugi najpogostejši stereotip o feministkah.
Festival ni samo feminističen, temveč tudi kvirovski. »Kvir« je poslovenjena oblika angleškega izraza »queer«. Mogoče bo vprašanje na prvi pogled zvenelo banalno, vendar sem prepričan, da velika večina tega izraza ne pozna. Kako bi najbolj preprosto pojasnila, kaj pomeni »kvir«?
Vprašanje še zdaleč ni banalno, odgovor pa je temu primerno zapleten. Pomen izraza »kvir« se je v zadnjih dvajsetih letih zelo spreminjal – in še vedno se. V angleško govorečih krajih je bil dolgo v rabi kot žaljivka za geje, ki so bili v odnosu do strejtov (seveda s strejt vidika) označeni za sumljive in nepristne čudake. Sredi osemdesetih si je politično radikalnejši del LGBTI gibanja v ZDA to »čudaštvo« prisvojil kot afirmativen izraz za geje, lezbijke in druge spolne manjšine, ki so nasprotovali asimilacijskim težnjam znotraj LGBTI gibanja. Kviri so bili torej manjšina znotraj manjšine: nekateri zaradi razredne ali etnične pripadnosti, drugi zaradi svojih prepričanj, tretji zaradi svoje spolne prakse, četrti pa zaradi vsega tega in še česa skupaj. Danes se izraz v mnogih zahodnoevropskih državah uporablja apolitično, kot sopomenka za geje in lezbijke, s čimer so se družbene in politične razlike med posamezniki znotraj skupnosti znova izbrisale. V postsocialističnih in homofobnih državah – vključno s Slovenijo – ga predvsem mlajši geji in lezbijke uporabljajo, ker je manj tvegan: ker ga nihče ne razume, je možnost, da boš naletela na sovražen izpad ali celo napad precej manjša, če rečeš, da si kvir, kot pa če poveš, da si lezbijka. Prav zato, ker izraz v tem smislu vodi v »novo staro nevidnost« ali »nazaj v klozet«, kot pravi Nataša Velikonja, ga levičarski del LGBTI skupnosti pri nas absolutno zavrača.
No, Rdeče zore smo se oprle tudi na druge definicije. Prvi bi lahko rekli »negativna«, spada pa v polje identitetne politike: v tem smislu ti kvir nudi možnost, da se opredeliš kot nekaj, kar v slovenskem javnem govoru še ne obstaja. Drugi bi lahko rekli »koalicijska«, saj zagovarja politično (so)delovanje, ki temelji na medsebojni solidarnosti, ne na osebnih interesih kot jih določa posameznikova spolna, razredna, starostna ipd. pripadnost. O tovrstni kvirovski »problemski politiki« je pri nas pisal Roman Kuhar v knjigi Intimno državljanstvo (2010). Pomenski obseg kvirovske politike s tem še ni izčrpan, vendar se vračam k Rdečim zoram, da ne bom predolga: v festivalskem programu smo s tem izrazom doslej označili predvsem dogodke, ki nasprotujejo asimilacijski gejevski in lezbični politiki, in dogodke, ki tematizirajo spolno in seksualno mnogoterost; torej telesa in želje ljudi, za katere v družbi s strogo predpisanim vedénjem in videzom za (nujno ženstvene) ženske in (nujno možate) moške ni prostora.
Kakšno je po tvojem razmerje med feminizmom in kvirovstvom? In kako se to razmerje kaže znotraj Rdečih zor?
To vprašanje je še bolj zapleteno od prejšnjega, zato bi bralke in bralce, ki jih tematika zanima, raje napotila k branju mojega eseja Težave s queerom, ki je izšel v beograjskem zborniku Feminizam: politika jednakosti za sve (2011). V slovenščini je dostopen tudi na spletu. V lažje dostopnem, manj teoretskem jeziku pa o tem razpravljamo tudi v zborniku Rdečke razsajajo!
Našo spletno stran berejo predvsem bralci, ki jih zanima glasba. Katere glasbene ustvarjalce, ki pri svojem delovanju vključujejo tudi kvir in feministične vsebine, bi priporočila?
Glede na to, da 13. brat – mimogrede, vedno me je zanimalo, kje so sestre – pokriva predvsem pank, hardkor in metal, velja začeti s scenami, ki jih verjetno poznajo vsi: riot grrrl, homocore in kasneje queercore. Te scene so bile najbolj živahne na prelomu tisočletja na severozahodu ZDA, o njih pa je za revijo Narobe pisala že Danaja Grešak. Od takrat se je zaradi številnih Ladyfestov in drugih festivalov (npr. londonski Mother) glasba s feminističnim, gejevskim, lezbičnim ali/in queerovskim predznakom razširila tako žanrsko kot geografsko. Danes ima vsako večje evropsko mesto svoj Ladyfest, kjer vedno nastopajo tudi bendi. Nam bližnji festivali potekajo v Zagrebu (Vox Feminae), Sarajevu (PitchWise) in Beogradu (Queer Beograd), pa tudi v Italiji in Avstriji. Na Dunaju je močna predvsem elektronska scena (priporočam ogled strani Female Pressure in Dig Me Out), in kar nekaj glasbenic je že nastopalo v Ljubljani, večinoma na Rdečih zorah in Mestu žensk: Gustav, chra, Cherry Sunkist, Electric Indigo, Chicks on Speed … V Sloveniji sta na tem področju dejavna in zelo dobra Wanda & Nova deViator, pa tudi DJ kolektiv Female's'Cream. Če se vrnemo h kitaram, pa sama od bendov, ki še igrajo, rada poslušam zasedbe Agatha, Motorama, Punčke, Žen, Beyond Pink, Audrey, Wet Dog, Vivian Girls, Trash Kit, Eyes Behind, OOIOO , Afrirampo …
Kako na tvoje odgovore vpliva dejstvo, da ti vprašanja o Rdečih zorah postavlja moški? Bi bilo kaj drugače, če bi ti jih ženska – glede na to, da Rdeče zore organizirate predstavnice biološko definiranega ženskega spola.
Pri odgovarjanju me je resnici na ljubo bolj kot tvoj spol zanimala ciljna publika. Ker sem predpostavljala, da slednja nima veliko stika s feminizmom, sem skušala odgovarjati preprosto in navajati primere, ki bi bili za bolje seznanjeno bralstvo – tako kot določena vprašanja, ki si jih zastavil – odveč.
Za konec še nujen popravek: kolektiv Rdečih zor je bil izključno ženski in pretežno strejt do leta 2008, ko so se mu začeli pridruževati moški, predvsem geji, postopoma pa tudi več lezbijk. To se ni zgodilo samo od sebe, temveč zaradi zavedanja, da bo identitetno bolj raznolika ekipa lahko pripravila boljši program – ne v smislu reprezentativnosti, temveč v smislu bolje argumentiranih odločitev, zakaj smo določene stvari umestili v program, določenih pa ne. Sicer pa bi izraz »predstavnice biološko definiranega ženskega spola« dala v navednice, saj ne pove ničesar o tem, kako se te ženske identificirajo (z možatostjo ali z ženstvenostjo), ničesar o njihovih političnih prepričanjih in ničesar o njihovi spolni usmeritvi. V vseh teh smislih je ekipa Rdečih zor bolj raznolika kot bi se dalo slutiti iz spola posameznih sodelavk in sodelavcev.
Sicer pa bralke in bralce vabim, da se o vsem povedanem prepričajo v živo – na festivalu in drugih dogodkih, ki jih oglašujemo na našem blogu, spletni strani in Fejsbuku. Jeseni v Ljubljani pripravljamo predstavitev knjige Rdečke razsajajo!, delavnico o BDSM spolnih praksah, pa tudi nekaj koncertov in zabav.
7. jul. 2011
Interviews with feminist and LGBT media producers in Slovenia
GrassrootsFeminism is a website dedicated to the contemporary transnational grassroots feminist community. Among other things, it includes interviews with feminist and LGBT radio hosts, zine makers, blog writers, magazine editors etc. In 2010, I interviewed several grassroots media producers in Slovenia, all of which can be acquainted below:
Ida Hiršenfelder, editor of Sektor Ž radio show
Enči Brenči and Tadeja Pirih, co-producers of Lesbian-Feminist University blog
Stanislava Repar, editor of Gender-Apokalipsa review
Roman Kuhar, editor of Narobe magazine
Rosa Reitsamer and Elke Zobl are still conducting two anonymous online surveys; one to find out how and why people consume and/or produce women's/feminist independent media, the other to find out how and why people become involved, participate in and organize Ladyfests. Participation is welcome!
Ida Hiršenfelder, editor of Sektor Ž radio show
Enči Brenči and Tadeja Pirih, co-producers of Lesbian-Feminist University blog
Stanislava Repar, editor of Gender-Apokalipsa review
Roman Kuhar, editor of Narobe magazine
Rosa Reitsamer and Elke Zobl are still conducting two anonymous online surveys; one to find out how and why people consume and/or produce women's/feminist independent media, the other to find out how and why people become involved, participate in and organize Ladyfests. Participation is welcome!
Izšel je zbornik 'Izgubljeno u tranziciji'
V Beogradu je izšel zbornik Izgubljeno u tranziciji: kritička analiza procesa društvene transformacije, v katerem so zbrani eseji z istoimenske poletne šole, ki je julija 2010 potekala v Novem Sadu.
Zbornik je izdala srbska izpostava Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, uredili so ga Ana Veselinović, Petar Atanacković in Željko Klarić, eseje pa so prispevali Milan Rakita, Đorđe Tomić, Šefik Tatlić in Lina Dokuzović, Ivana Marjanović, Goran Musić, Mislav Žitko, Miloš Jadžić, Tanja Vukša, Sunčica Vučaj, Jelena Veljić in Aranđel Bojanović, Dare Pejić, Vladimir Simonović, Boris Stamenić, Milan Radanović, Dušan Maljković, Ana Vilenica in Ivan Zlatić.
V zborniku je objavljen tudi moj esej Kontinuitetne promene feminističke kontrajavnosti u Ljubljani. S feminizmom 'v tranziciji' se ukvarja Tanja Vukša v eseju Kritički feministički pristup pojmu jednakosti, z lezbično sceno v Srbiji pa Sunčica Vučaj (Lezbejska egzistencija - u tranziciji?).
14. jun. 2011
Book about Red Dawns festival just released!
Tea Hvala (ed.): Rdečke razsajajo! Interviews with the organizers of feminist and queer festival Red Dawns (KUD Mreža, 2010)
Slovene / English, soft binding, 104 pages, 32 black/white photos, price: 8,00 € (+ postage)
Cover by Anna Ehrlemark
Red Dawns fest is breaking new ground in Slovenia. And that is really important: that a relatively known festival is opening new themes in the public sphere. Our international collaboration is important for the same reason. You have to bring people from abroad if no one here has thought about a certain issue yet! In addition, the international view brings awareness about the global nature of problems we are dealing with, like the lack of social justice. --Jasmina Jerant
The interviews collected in this book were made in 2009 when International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns celebrated its 10th anniversary. The interviewees discussed Red Dawns' contribution to the visibility of feminist and queer (counter)publics in Ljubljana. Tea Hvala interviewed the following past and present co-organisers of the festival: Anna Ehrlemark, Mirjana Frank, Danaja Grešak, Ana Grobler, Jasmina Jerant, Ana Jereb, Anja Kocman, Jadranka Ljubičič, Urška Merc, Slađana Mitrović, Lidija Radojević, Nataša Serec, Tanja Škander, Suzana Tratnik, Daša Tepina and Vesna Vravnik.
The book is in Slovene, except for the interviews with Anna Ehrlemark and Jasmina Jerant which are in English. Tea Hvala originally made seventeen oral interviews for her MA research in Gender Studies, part of which can be read here (pdf.). In it, she discussed Red Dawns festival as a rare example of a grassroots feminist public in Slovenia. Association KUD Mreža, the co-founder and organiser of the festival decided to publish the interviews in book format primarity because in Slovenia, there are very few works where the specifictiy of (feminist and queer) counterpublic organising would be discussed by the people who make it possible, rather than by academics.
In Ljubljana, the book is available for sale in Azil Bookstore (on Novi trg 2 or at the Museum of Modern Art) and in Modrijanova knjigarna (on Trubarjeva 27). For discount price, visit KUD Mreža's seat on Masarykova 24, ACC Metelkova mesto. For mailorder, please write to rdece.zore@gmail.com.
The book release was made possible with the generous help of many donators as well as public funds, provided by Municipality of Ljubljana and the Slovene Ministry of Education and Sport.
13. jun. 2011
Izšel je zbornik 'Rdečke razsajajo!'
Tea Hvala (ur.): Rdečke razsajajo! Intervjuji z organizatorkami feminističnega in kvirovskega festivala Rdeče zore (KUD Mreža, 2010)
Slovenščina / angleščina, mehka vezava, 104 str., 32 čb fotografij, cena 8,00 €
V zborniku intervjujev, ki so nastali ob deseti obletnici delovanja Rdečih zor, o svojem prispevku k vidnosti feministične in kvirovske javnosti v Sloveniji razpravljajo nekdanje in sedanje (so)organizatorke festivala: Anna Ehrlemark, Mirjana Frank, Danaja Grešak, Ana Grobler, Jasmina Jerant, Ana Jereb, Anja Kocman, Jadranka Ljubičič, Urška Merc, Slađana Mitrović, Lidija Radojević, Nataša Serec, Tanja Škander, Suzana Tratnik, Daša Tepina in Vesna Vravnik.
Ustne intervjuje s sodelavkami festivala je opravila Tea Hvala, ki je v svojem magistrskem delu iz antropologije spolov Rdeče zore obravnavala kot eno redkih neakademskih feminističnih javnosti v Sloveniji, na odločitev za knjižno izdajo intervjujev pa je vplivalo predvsem dejstvo, da je pri nas izšlo zelo malo del, v katerih bi o delovanju manjšinskih javnosti razpravljali ljudje, ki jih ustvarjajo.
Citat iz knjige: "Zdi se mi, da se je z Rdečimi zorami spet začelo govoriti o feminizmu oziroma različnih feminizmih. Tega precej časa sploh ni bilo, še posebej potem, ko je zamrl Ženski center. Da se govori o feminizmu in feminizmih v današnjem času, je zelo pomembno, ker so se feministične iniciative iz osemdesetih razpršile v nevladne organizacije za boj proti nasilju nad ženskami, teoretsko delo, tudi v univerzitetne programe, domače raziskave in še kaj. To stanje in naša preljuba demokratična ureditev pa sta ustvarjala lažni vtis, da feminizma več ne potrebujemo. A ga potrebujemo, četudi morda v nekoliko drugačnih oblikah. Sama sem pogrešala dogajanje, feministične razprave in zbiranje na javnih prostorih." –Suzana Tratnik
Knjiga je naprodaj v Knjigarni Azil (Novi trg 2 in Moderna galerija) in Modrijanovi knjigarni (Trubarjeva 27), s popustom pa na sedežu KUD Mreža (Masarykova 24, AKC Metelkova mesto) v Ljubljani.
Izid knjige so omogočile številne donatorke, Mestna občina Ljubljana - Urad za mladino (Oddelek za predšolsko vzgojo in izobraževanje) in Ministrstvo za šolstvo in šport - Urad za mladino.
2. jun. 2011
Izšel je zbornik 'Feminizam: politika jednakosti za sve'
Iz njunega uvoda: Knjiga Feminizam: politika jednakosti za sve nastala je kao rezultat zajedničkog rada istraživačica, teoretičarki, kulturnih radnica, aktivistkinja, od kojih su neke, silom prilika, postale i organizatorke, fondrejzerke i birokratkinje - ukratko, feministkinja koje su svojim angažiranjem i prisutnošću na različitim mestima i u raznim prilikama, u poslednjih deset godina, pokazale da je teško, ali moguće i nadasve potrebno misliti i živeti feminizam. Danas se feminizmi suočavaju sa ponavljanjem lekcija iz prošlosti, iz kojih pokušavamo da shvatimo i odredimo nove-stare feminističke paradigme: emancipacije, jednakosti i solidarnosti, a sve to u ime nove kolektivnosti.
Radovi u knjizi, kao aktuelna tekstualnost iz koje proizlaze i u koju se pretaču svakodnevne materijalne prakse, bave se upravo ovim feminističkim paradigmama i govore o nužnosti stvaranja novog kolektiva koji angažuje i menja ne samo okoštale akademske, kulturne, političke javne prostore i njihove raspršene identitarno-kompetitivne diskurse već i nas same. Knjiga nas je podstakla da postavimo niz pitanja i potražimo odgovore koji bi omogućili stvaranje zajedničke platforme za rad i njegove učinke u različitim, prepletenim poljima društvene javnosti. (...) Zašto ta kolektivnost mora biti nova i u odnosu na šta je ona emergentna? Zašto govorimo samo o ženskom rodu i svim ‘drugim’ rodovima, koji su društveno konstruisani politikom marginalizacije i isključivanja? Čime i kako se mogu graditi solidarne i zajedničke prakse koje temelje na feminizmu i jednakosti?
16. maj 2011
Pogovor o fanzinih na festivalu Vrnitev 13. brata
Kolektiv 13. brat se je odločil prekiniti desetletno pavzo, ki je nastopila po zadnji številki fanzina 13. brat. V podobi webzina je ponovno oživel v digitalnem svetu. Ob tem novem začetku smo pripravili družabno poljudnoznanstveni dogodek, katerega namen pa je med drugim tudi zbiranje sredstev za delovanje portala 13. brat. Vstopnina bo namreč v celoti namenjena plačilu stroškov izdelave in vzdrževanja webzina.
Pred koncertom bo ob razstavi fanzinov in fotografij koncertnega dogajanja potekal pogovor nekdanjih ter sedanjih zinmejkerjev o vlogi in pomenu alternativnih medijev nekoč, danes in v prihodnosti. V sproščenem pogovoru bodo sodelovali avtorji in avtorice fanzinov Tea Hvala (Pssst …), Dejan Požegar (Jaywalk), Marko Rusjan (13. brat) in Simon Markič (D'Iks). K pogovoru je seveda vabljeno tudi poslušalstvo.
Za koncertni del prireditve bodo poskrbeli prijatelji 13. brata, ki želijo s svojim nastopom podpreti naše delovanje: sedaj že kultna zagrebška zasedba Analena, s svojim emocionalnim posthardkorom. Družbo jim bodo delali lokalni bendi Real Life Version (melodičen hardkor), Iamdisease (sludge metal hardkor), Hellcrawler (death'n'roll), The Hoax Program (roknrol hardkor) in Haron (alter post metal).
Program:
Pred koncertom bo ob razstavi fanzinov in fotografij koncertnega dogajanja potekal pogovor nekdanjih ter sedanjih zinmejkerjev o vlogi in pomenu alternativnih medijev nekoč, danes in v prihodnosti. V sproščenem pogovoru bodo sodelovali avtorji in avtorice fanzinov Tea Hvala (Pssst …), Dejan Požegar (Jaywalk), Marko Rusjan (13. brat) in Simon Markič (D'Iks). K pogovoru je seveda vabljeno tudi poslušalstvo.
Za koncertni del prireditve bodo poskrbeli prijatelji 13. brata, ki želijo s svojim nastopom podpreti naše delovanje: sedaj že kultna zagrebška zasedba Analena, s svojim emocionalnim posthardkorom. Družbo jim bodo delali lokalni bendi Real Life Version (melodičen hardkor), Iamdisease (sludge metal hardkor), Hellcrawler (death'n'roll), The Hoax Program (roknrol hardkor) in Haron (alter post metal).
Program:
20.00: Pogovor o fanzinih, webzinih in ostalih medijskih marginalcih (galerija Tir)
21.00: Koncert (velika dvorana)
01.30: DJ Stardust (mala dvorana)
21.00: Koncert (velika dvorana)
01.30: DJ Stardust (mala dvorana)
Vstopnina: 5 €
Sobota, 28. maj 2011 ob 20.00, Kulturni center Mostovna, Solkan (pri Novi Gorici, Cesta IX. korpusa 99A)
Predavanje in pogovor 'Težave s queerom v Ljubljani'
Grafit na Roški cesti v Ljubljani (foto: Enči Brenči)
»Ne tlači me v (o)queer!«, odličen grafit aktivistične skupine Vstaja Lezbosov, je zajel celo mavrico lokalnih interpretacij tega izmuzljivega pojma, ki se povečini izključujejo. Kaj pomeni queer, če pink partizanke očitno nočejo, da jih kdorkoli tlači v njegov okvir? Mar ni bil queerovski aktivizem mišljen kot upor proti togemu in ozkemu razumevanju identitet? Kako in kdaj se je izrazito opozicijski koncept spremenil v lastno nasprotje? Zastavljajo se še druga vprašanja, recimo, v katerih kontekstih se pri nas pojavlja ta izmuzljiva tujka? Ali zastopa novo samoopredelitev, novo nevidnost (za LGBTI skupnost), življenjski slog, modno muho, novo politiko, posebno teoretsko metodo ali celo novo paradigmo? Menda ne vsega naštetega?
Skratka, odkar je tudi v Ljubljani v določenih krogih popularno trditi, da si queer, je iskanje politično spodbudnih odgovorov na omenjena vprašanja še posebej pomembno za lezbično in gejevsko skupnost, saj queerovska novotarija (zaenkrat) zadeva predvsem njo. Zakaj? Ker je ta skupnost, kot je leta 1997 na podlagi intervjujev z lezbijkami zaključila Suzana Tratnik, naš »alternativni dom«, iz njega pa so tudi v Ljubljani izključeni »tisti, ki niso 'v celoti drugi', a tudi 'ne povsem/zadostno naši'«; torej obrobneži, odpadniki, izobčenci ali, kot bi rekli Američani, queeri.
Vabljene, vabljeni!
V sredo, 25. maja 2011 ob 20.00 v Klubu Tiffany (ŠKUC - Kulturni center Q).
»Ne tlači me v (o)queer!«, odličen grafit aktivistične skupine Vstaja Lezbosov, je zajel celo mavrico lokalnih interpretacij tega izmuzljivega pojma, ki se povečini izključujejo. Kaj pomeni queer, če pink partizanke očitno nočejo, da jih kdorkoli tlači v njegov okvir? Mar ni bil queerovski aktivizem mišljen kot upor proti togemu in ozkemu razumevanju identitet? Kako in kdaj se je izrazito opozicijski koncept spremenil v lastno nasprotje? Zastavljajo se še druga vprašanja, recimo, v katerih kontekstih se pri nas pojavlja ta izmuzljiva tujka? Ali zastopa novo samoopredelitev, novo nevidnost (za LGBTI skupnost), življenjski slog, modno muho, novo politiko, posebno teoretsko metodo ali celo novo paradigmo? Menda ne vsega naštetega?
Skratka, odkar je tudi v Ljubljani v določenih krogih popularno trditi, da si queer, je iskanje politično spodbudnih odgovorov na omenjena vprašanja še posebej pomembno za lezbično in gejevsko skupnost, saj queerovska novotarija (zaenkrat) zadeva predvsem njo. Zakaj? Ker je ta skupnost, kot je leta 1997 na podlagi intervjujev z lezbijkami zaključila Suzana Tratnik, naš »alternativni dom«, iz njega pa so tudi v Ljubljani izključeni »tisti, ki niso 'v celoti drugi', a tudi 'ne povsem/zadostno naši'«; torej obrobneži, odpadniki, izobčenci ali, kot bi rekli Američani, queeri.
Na ta in podobna vprašanja bomo skušali odgovoriti s pomočjo Tee Hvala, sociologinje, ki je kontekste, v katerih se pojem queer pojavlja v Sloveniji, raziskala v eseju Težave s spolom, ki je bil objavljen v februarski številki revije Tribuna.
Vabljene, vabljeni!
V sredo, 25. maja 2011 ob 20.00 v Klubu Tiffany (ŠKUC - Kulturni center Q).
1. maj 2011
Essay 'Queer Trouble in Ljubljana'
On Friday, April 29th 2011, I presented my essay Queer Trouble in Ljubljana at the Import – Export – Transport: Queer Theory, Queer Critique and Activism in Motion conference in Vienna. Below, you can read the abstract and introduction. The complete version is going to be published in 2012 by Zaglossus.
The essay was originally written in Slovene and published in two versions; the short one can be downloaded as PDF from Tribuna magazine (February 2011), the full-length can be read in Feminizam - politika jednakosti za sve anthology (ProFemina, Belgrade, 2011).
Queer Trouble in Ljubljana
Abstract
“Ne tlači me v (o)queer”, a graffiti on the streets of Ljubljana claimed “do not push me in a box” and “do not label me as queer”. It summarized an array of contradictory interpretations of the term queer that have appeared in the local academia, LGBTI media and LGTBI community in the last fifteen years. I analyze them in order to see how imported ideas about queer identity, queer politics and queer theory have been received, questioned and transformed by local knowledge production and practices.
Introduction
People who do not participate in feminist or lesbian and gay (LGBTI) initiatives in Ljubljana but contribute to other political struggles often ask me what the meaning of the word queer is. Since they know I am co-organizing Rdeče zore (Red Dawns), a self-proclaimed feminist and queer festival, they expect me to know. It is a difficult question, I begin, and there are several answers, only some of which are politically encouraging. Then I quote “Ne tlači me v (o)queer,” a paradoxical graffiti written by Vstaja Lezbosov (The Insurrection of Lesbos) activist group in 2009. By claiming both “do not push me in a box” and “do not label me as queer” the slogan summarized an array of contradictory interpretations of the word queer that have appeared in the local academia, LGBT media and LGBTI community in the last fifteen years – in that order of appearance. The graffiti also suggested that ideas about queer identity, queer theory and queer politics have been significantly changed by local knowledge production and practices; changed in ways that bare no resemblance to the discourse of anti-assimilationist activists in the United States in the early 1990s. Since the term was adopted from literature about activism in the U.S. and brought to a completely different sociopolitical context, the change was expected. Less expected was its consequent refusal in large parts of Ljubljana's lesbian and gay movement. Indeed whom or what does the word queer represent today if young lesbian activists do not want to be “pushed” in its frame? In other words, how did this decisively oppositional concept turn into its own negation, into yet another constraining “box”?
In the U. S., queer activism formed within the LGBTI movement in response to the compromising politics of “homo-cons”. In order to reach their aims – gradually reduced to the demand for recognition of their “we're-just-like-you” normality – privileged members of the movement flirted with patriotic, militarist, racist, sexist and even homophobic politicians. In Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's words, activist groups such as Gay Shame “sought to expose both the lie of a homogenous gay/queer ‘community’, and the ways in which the myth of community is used as a screen behind which gay people with power oppress others and get away with it” (Sycamore 2004: 272). Twenty years later, conservative voices can be heard in Slovenia as well even though the political differentiation of the movement happened in another context.
The lesbian and gay movement in Ljubljana began to form in the mid 1980s together with other civil rights movements, many of which – including the peace movement and the feminist movement – were institutionalized after Slovenia declared independence in 1991. The gradual pacification of struggle demanded by their sponsors (the state, Western foundations) did not affect the LGBTI movement to the same extent. Activists from the 1980s say that their insistence on autonomy, diversity and specific visibility was challenged later, in the late 1990s, when neoliberal capitalism and political conservatism began to show their sharpest teeth. As sexism and homophobia increased, some lesbian and gay groups invigorated their Leftist attacks on institutions of power while others, especially those that embraced identity politics as their only viewpoint, continued to seek legal recognition by those same institutions.
The term queer was introduced when the political differentiation of the movement began to take shape. It was met by curiosity, political analysis and historic memory. On the one hand, queer activism seemed to offer merely a new name for practices that were already present in the movement of the 1980s. As such, the term was superfluous. On the other hand, the introduction of queer theory coincided with the “cultural turn” in academia when recognition became the most important theme of feminist and LGBTI studies – studies that had only recently entered university programs. As such, queer theory was viewed with suspicion: it seemed to be yet another colonizing discourse, one that fit too nicely with the voluntarist ideology of neoliberal capitalism. The fact that queer activism advocated a further fragmentation of the relatively small movement confirmed, rather than rebutted that suspicion.
Of course, discursive colonization of local knowledge is only possible if there is nobody to counter it. If there is, the meaning of an imported concept is going to change. If it turns out to be politically harmful or inefficient, the concept can be altogether refused and abandoned – or used by those who profit from its inefficiency. In the words of feminist political theorist Lidija Radojević: “In Slovenia, the meaning of ‘queer’ […] is going to be defined by the people who are thinking about it” (Hvala 2010a: 71). So far, the term has been most often discussed in relation to gender identity or/and sexual orientation and in relation to a distinct lifestyle and club culture. Less often, it referred to academic research methods, contemporary artistic practices and political organizing. The obvious question is whether or not queer as a concept can be accommodated within all those frames of reference and if so, at what cost. I am not going to attempt to answer it as the focus of my essay lies elsewhere: I am going to look at a variety of interpretations in the LGBTI movement in order to see how the concept was adjusted to suit our needs.
(...)
The essay was originally written in Slovene and published in two versions; the short one can be downloaded as PDF from Tribuna magazine (February 2011), the full-length can be read in Feminizam - politika jednakosti za sve anthology (ProFemina, Belgrade, 2011).
Queer Trouble in Ljubljana
Abstract
“Ne tlači me v (o)queer”, a graffiti on the streets of Ljubljana claimed “do not push me in a box” and “do not label me as queer”. It summarized an array of contradictory interpretations of the term queer that have appeared in the local academia, LGBTI media and LGTBI community in the last fifteen years. I analyze them in order to see how imported ideas about queer identity, queer politics and queer theory have been received, questioned and transformed by local knowledge production and practices.
Introduction
People who do not participate in feminist or lesbian and gay (LGBTI) initiatives in Ljubljana but contribute to other political struggles often ask me what the meaning of the word queer is. Since they know I am co-organizing Rdeče zore (Red Dawns), a self-proclaimed feminist and queer festival, they expect me to know. It is a difficult question, I begin, and there are several answers, only some of which are politically encouraging. Then I quote “Ne tlači me v (o)queer,” a paradoxical graffiti written by Vstaja Lezbosov (The Insurrection of Lesbos) activist group in 2009. By claiming both “do not push me in a box” and “do not label me as queer” the slogan summarized an array of contradictory interpretations of the word queer that have appeared in the local academia, LGBT media and LGBTI community in the last fifteen years – in that order of appearance. The graffiti also suggested that ideas about queer identity, queer theory and queer politics have been significantly changed by local knowledge production and practices; changed in ways that bare no resemblance to the discourse of anti-assimilationist activists in the United States in the early 1990s. Since the term was adopted from literature about activism in the U.S. and brought to a completely different sociopolitical context, the change was expected. Less expected was its consequent refusal in large parts of Ljubljana's lesbian and gay movement. Indeed whom or what does the word queer represent today if young lesbian activists do not want to be “pushed” in its frame? In other words, how did this decisively oppositional concept turn into its own negation, into yet another constraining “box”?
In the U. S., queer activism formed within the LGBTI movement in response to the compromising politics of “homo-cons”. In order to reach their aims – gradually reduced to the demand for recognition of their “we're-just-like-you” normality – privileged members of the movement flirted with patriotic, militarist, racist, sexist and even homophobic politicians. In Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's words, activist groups such as Gay Shame “sought to expose both the lie of a homogenous gay/queer ‘community’, and the ways in which the myth of community is used as a screen behind which gay people with power oppress others and get away with it” (Sycamore 2004: 272). Twenty years later, conservative voices can be heard in Slovenia as well even though the political differentiation of the movement happened in another context.
The lesbian and gay movement in Ljubljana began to form in the mid 1980s together with other civil rights movements, many of which – including the peace movement and the feminist movement – were institutionalized after Slovenia declared independence in 1991. The gradual pacification of struggle demanded by their sponsors (the state, Western foundations) did not affect the LGBTI movement to the same extent. Activists from the 1980s say that their insistence on autonomy, diversity and specific visibility was challenged later, in the late 1990s, when neoliberal capitalism and political conservatism began to show their sharpest teeth. As sexism and homophobia increased, some lesbian and gay groups invigorated their Leftist attacks on institutions of power while others, especially those that embraced identity politics as their only viewpoint, continued to seek legal recognition by those same institutions.
The term queer was introduced when the political differentiation of the movement began to take shape. It was met by curiosity, political analysis and historic memory. On the one hand, queer activism seemed to offer merely a new name for practices that were already present in the movement of the 1980s. As such, the term was superfluous. On the other hand, the introduction of queer theory coincided with the “cultural turn” in academia when recognition became the most important theme of feminist and LGBTI studies – studies that had only recently entered university programs. As such, queer theory was viewed with suspicion: it seemed to be yet another colonizing discourse, one that fit too nicely with the voluntarist ideology of neoliberal capitalism. The fact that queer activism advocated a further fragmentation of the relatively small movement confirmed, rather than rebutted that suspicion.
Of course, discursive colonization of local knowledge is only possible if there is nobody to counter it. If there is, the meaning of an imported concept is going to change. If it turns out to be politically harmful or inefficient, the concept can be altogether refused and abandoned – or used by those who profit from its inefficiency. In the words of feminist political theorist Lidija Radojević: “In Slovenia, the meaning of ‘queer’ […] is going to be defined by the people who are thinking about it” (Hvala 2010a: 71). So far, the term has been most often discussed in relation to gender identity or/and sexual orientation and in relation to a distinct lifestyle and club culture. Less often, it referred to academic research methods, contemporary artistic practices and political organizing. The obvious question is whether or not queer as a concept can be accommodated within all those frames of reference and if so, at what cost. I am not going to attempt to answer it as the focus of my essay lies elsewhere: I am going to look at a variety of interpretations in the LGBTI movement in order to see how the concept was adjusted to suit our needs.
13. apr. 2011
Vabilo na okroglo mizo in odprtje razstave 'Zlobna deklica'
Srbska vizualna umetnica Ana Nedeljković v svoje ustvarjanje vključuje različne umetniške prakse, med katerimi prevladujeta ilustracija in prostorska instalacija. Projekt Zlobna deklica temelji na prepoznavnem ženskem liku in njegovi manipulativni rabi v različnih kontekstih. Zlobna deklica v ironičnem smislu predstavlja ultimativno bitje, ki je hkrati nevarno, norčavo in naivno. Skozi prostor se širi z nenadzorovanim podvajanjem in pri tem ustvarja neštete klone, ki se zbirajo v skupinah in si, kot nekakšni virusi, prisvajajo vse, kar jim pride blizu.
Odprtje razstave: ponedeljek, 18. april 2001 ob 20:00 v galeriji Kamera (Kino Šiška)
Projekt Ane Nedeljković odpira vprašanja o reprezentacijah žensk v umetnosti in širšem kulturnem prostoru. O njih se bomo na okrogli mizi Hudobni svet – zlobna deklica? pogovarjale/i z avtorico, teoretičarko Teo Hvala ter novinarko in moderatorko pogovora Mašo Ogrizek.
Okrogla miza: ponedeljek, 18. april 2001 ob 18:30 v galeriji Kamera (Kino Šiška)
Vabljene, vabljeni!
Dogodek organizira Kulturno in izobraževalno društvo U3KRASNE v sodelovanju s CUK Kino Šiška.
23. mar. 2011
Predstavitev stripa Nemirno morje
Zgodba se prične junija 1991, ko se počitniško jadranje po Jadranu sprevrže v beg pred vojno v Jugoslaviji. Da je morje nemirno tudi v krajih, kamor se zagrebška umetnica in galeristka, ki je nenadoma postala begunka, zateče s svojim partnerjem in hčerkico, je razvidno že iz tveganih postankov v grških in italijanskih pristaniščih. V sklepnem delu se umetnica, ki pričakuje drugega otroka, z družino zateče na Nizozemsko, kjer se odloči, da bo raje plula po viharnih vodah svobode, kot da bi pristala na životarjenje na mrtvem morju nizozemske azilantske politike.
Helena Klakočar je diplomirala na Oddelku za grafiko na Akademiji za likovno umetnost v Zagrebu, iz slikarstva in animiranega filma pa na Nizozemskem. Poleg samostojnega dela je kot slikarka, ilustratorka, striparka in animatorka sodelovala z umetniškimi skupinami Zzot, Divlje oko in Migrative Art. Med letoma 1990 in 1991 je vodila program zagrebške Galerije SC. Sodelovala je na več mednarodnih razstavah, trenutno pa pripravlja projekt F.W.P. / Prvi svjetski mir. Za prvi del Nemirnega morja, ki je izšel l. 1999 pri belgijski založbi Freon, je l. 2000 na mednarodnem stripovskem festivalu v Angoulemu v Franciji prejela nagrado Alph-Art za najboljšo tujejezično knjigo in posebno nagrado radia France Info.
Dogodek organizira Kino Šiška v sodelovanju s Forumom Ljubljana.
Časopis Dnevnik je 4. junija 2011 objavil intervju z avtorico pod naslovom Realnost begunskega življenja.
16. mar. 2011
The World SF Blog: Reflection on In Other Wor(l)ds workshops
The "ideologically suspect" World SF Blog, dedicated to new science fiction, fantasy, horror and comics from around the world is edited by Lavie Tidhar. On March 14th, the blog featured my article on In Other Wor(l)ds workshop series where I explain how and why it all started four or five years ago ... The article can be read here or below.
In Other Wor(l)ds: Workshops in Collective Writing of Feminist-Queer Science Fiction
As a feminist activist, passionate reader of utopian fiction and hesitant writer, I often wondered why nobody in Slovenia seemed to be interested in literary games, for example in collective explorations of unthinkable ideas and unheard-of styles. My question and a possible answer might have something to do with the fact that I am relatively young yet older than my country.
Let me explain. I come from a twenty-year old country whose official language, Slovene, is spoken by two million people. In 1991, Slovene literature was appropriated for nation-building goals as it neatly legitimized the claim for Slovene independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – even though this political demand had little to do with art and a lot to do with the rise of ethnocentrism in the region. This (and the war that soon spread to Croatia and most fatally wounded Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina) has profoundly influenced the “serious” status of literature in Slovenia.
As an art form of national importance, literature has been serving the interests of established authors and theorists who continue to prescribe aesthetic norms that discourage innovation and guarantee that marginal authors and genres are going to stay in that position. Of course, an alternative writing scene does exists but genres such as science fiction, fantasy or horror are barely present. And since the literary market is so small (the usual print run for works released by small publishers is 800-1000 copies for fiction and 500 copies for poetry), genre authors can forget about either commercial or critical success. I was never sure whether this was a blessing or a curse.
With the help of my friends, many of whom are musicians, comics artists and zine writers, I was able to think of it as a blessing. They often organised music and comics jam sessions where strange, sometimes humorous, sometimes poetic, sometimes scary conjunctions arose from, so it seemed, pure chance. I enjoyed these encounters very much and in 2007, I decided to invite other amateur writers to jam with me and make writing a less solitary experience. So we sat around a table and started playing the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. Since we were less interested in automatic writing than in the points of interaction, we adjusted the technique to our needs. We decided upon a character, a setting or a plot twist and began to write. When our aching fingers forced us to stop, we assembled the pieces into a messy monster-piece, read it out loud and almost died laughing. The synchronicities were fantastic and frightening, as if our unconscious cared little for our elimination of the game’s automatic aspect. It seemed that our “emphatic repudiation of individualistic artistic value”, as Mel Gooding puts it in The Book of Surrealist Games (1993), really resulted in a “collective revelation” – one that taught us to trust our imagination and our abilities as writers.
The first public workshop took place in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) at the feminist-queer festival Ladyfest in 2008. The title In Other Wor(l)ds seemed most fitting for the occasion. It paid homage to Gayatri C. Spivak’s book In Other Worlds (1987) in which she tried to develop a methodology that would allow for non-patronising representations of “Third World women” in (Western) theory and fiction. It referred to another author whose view on the distance between – or rather, proximity of – fiction and fact is exciting for feminists and other intuitive visionaries. In the context of science fiction, Wittgenstein’s famous statement that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” seemed to suggest that it is possible to write about Others, those metaphorical aliens, in ways that change my own (position in the) world in the process. In short, science fiction seemed to be the perfect genre for people who think about otherness in practical details, rather than abstract concepts.
At the workshop, I invited the participants to write stories that relate or transform gender variant human characters to aliens, fremdsprachenmonstermavens, kiggies, dodots, levitating broomsticks and other queer creatures. We discussed examples of feminist Sci-Fi to see what has been done, what hasn’t been done and why it might be still hard to do it. For example, we asked why does the critique of Cartesian dualism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s ground-breaking novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) not automatically extend to the critique of homophobia. And why does the Other, the radically different, the hardly imaginable, often seem so monstrous? We also talked about the ways to queer the rigid conventions of gender and genre. Since ideas in Sci-Fi are often disguised as characters, we figured they are inevitably gendered, thus it must be possible to genderfuck with them in all sorts of ways. So we tried out the recipe.
In Amsterdam, we defined the characters and a plot feature. We wrote about Bo, the human, and Vlar (or Vlarrr), the non-human character. We said we’ll let them choose the setting as long as they accept to meet and run away from – or towards – something together. The stories were written by Brigitte, Anne, Sara, Diny, Caroline, Nina, Anouk and yours sincerely. The second workshop happened in Salzburg (Austria) at a conference about innovations in open-access media. Since we wrote with pens on paper, we focused on the social innovation of a very old medium indeed: language. We decided to split in a German-speaking and an English-speaking group because these were our only common languages: the group consisted of eleven people whose mother tongues were Portugese, English, Slovak, French, German and Slovene. We managed to hold hostage individual authorship for three hours and wrote about three characters – Kim, V, and 0/1 – whose gender and character were subject to rapid change. The stories took place in Salzburg in the year 2050 and were written by Cristiane, Debi, Red, Dušan, Paul, Sarah, Christian, Nikoletta, Jenny and Imre. Later, I self-published the English stories from both workshops in a zine called – you guessed it – In Other Wor(l)ds.
Since then, the concept has been used for brainstorming purposes at other independent feminist-queer events in Belgium and Great Britain to promote zine-making and self-publishing. A participant from Amsterdam, an architect, told me she and her colleagues found it useful in their profession. As for me, I finally held some workshops in my home-town, Ljubljana, in 2010. We were hosted by a radical library, an arts association and twice by a feminist-lesbian collective. The characters varied from Rx Vulgaris (a symbiotic mechanoplant), Vanja (a transgender cyborg), The Decoratives (gay activists) and female anthropomorphic cats fighting gentrification to local politicians and self-appointed intellectuals – suggesting we disguised political satire as Sci-Fi. The combination certainly worked! In addition, the hosts liked us enough to help us scrape together funds for the release of a book entitled Svetovi drugih (KUD Anarhiv, 2010).
The most recent workshop happened on February 19th 2011 at the winter edition of Lad.i.y.fest in Berlin. We played several Surrealist writing games in Sci-Fi settings with feminist-queer aspirations. For example, we collectively (de)constructed sentences like “The sexy robot slapped a strong community.” Later, we wrote several short stories, based on our favourite Exquisite Corpse sentences.
I no longer have to wonder where are all the people interested in literary games. I found them and learned that, locally speaking, “serious” literature and its inevitable identity crisis, is none of my concern. The fact that I am older than my country is an absolute advantage: I don’t even have to take myself seriously!
In Other Wor(l)ds: Workshops in Collective Writing of Feminist-Queer Science Fiction
As a feminist activist, passionate reader of utopian fiction and hesitant writer, I often wondered why nobody in Slovenia seemed to be interested in literary games, for example in collective explorations of unthinkable ideas and unheard-of styles. My question and a possible answer might have something to do with the fact that I am relatively young yet older than my country.
Let me explain. I come from a twenty-year old country whose official language, Slovene, is spoken by two million people. In 1991, Slovene literature was appropriated for nation-building goals as it neatly legitimized the claim for Slovene independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – even though this political demand had little to do with art and a lot to do with the rise of ethnocentrism in the region. This (and the war that soon spread to Croatia and most fatally wounded Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina) has profoundly influenced the “serious” status of literature in Slovenia.
As an art form of national importance, literature has been serving the interests of established authors and theorists who continue to prescribe aesthetic norms that discourage innovation and guarantee that marginal authors and genres are going to stay in that position. Of course, an alternative writing scene does exists but genres such as science fiction, fantasy or horror are barely present. And since the literary market is so small (the usual print run for works released by small publishers is 800-1000 copies for fiction and 500 copies for poetry), genre authors can forget about either commercial or critical success. I was never sure whether this was a blessing or a curse.
With the help of my friends, many of whom are musicians, comics artists and zine writers, I was able to think of it as a blessing. They often organised music and comics jam sessions where strange, sometimes humorous, sometimes poetic, sometimes scary conjunctions arose from, so it seemed, pure chance. I enjoyed these encounters very much and in 2007, I decided to invite other amateur writers to jam with me and make writing a less solitary experience. So we sat around a table and started playing the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. Since we were less interested in automatic writing than in the points of interaction, we adjusted the technique to our needs. We decided upon a character, a setting or a plot twist and began to write. When our aching fingers forced us to stop, we assembled the pieces into a messy monster-piece, read it out loud and almost died laughing. The synchronicities were fantastic and frightening, as if our unconscious cared little for our elimination of the game’s automatic aspect. It seemed that our “emphatic repudiation of individualistic artistic value”, as Mel Gooding puts it in The Book of Surrealist Games (1993), really resulted in a “collective revelation” – one that taught us to trust our imagination and our abilities as writers.
The first public workshop took place in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) at the feminist-queer festival Ladyfest in 2008. The title In Other Wor(l)ds seemed most fitting for the occasion. It paid homage to Gayatri C. Spivak’s book In Other Worlds (1987) in which she tried to develop a methodology that would allow for non-patronising representations of “Third World women” in (Western) theory and fiction. It referred to another author whose view on the distance between – or rather, proximity of – fiction and fact is exciting for feminists and other intuitive visionaries. In the context of science fiction, Wittgenstein’s famous statement that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” seemed to suggest that it is possible to write about Others, those metaphorical aliens, in ways that change my own (position in the) world in the process. In short, science fiction seemed to be the perfect genre for people who think about otherness in practical details, rather than abstract concepts.
At the workshop, I invited the participants to write stories that relate or transform gender variant human characters to aliens, fremdsprachenmonstermavens, kiggies, dodots, levitating broomsticks and other queer creatures. We discussed examples of feminist Sci-Fi to see what has been done, what hasn’t been done and why it might be still hard to do it. For example, we asked why does the critique of Cartesian dualism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s ground-breaking novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) not automatically extend to the critique of homophobia. And why does the Other, the radically different, the hardly imaginable, often seem so monstrous? We also talked about the ways to queer the rigid conventions of gender and genre. Since ideas in Sci-Fi are often disguised as characters, we figured they are inevitably gendered, thus it must be possible to genderfuck with them in all sorts of ways. So we tried out the recipe.
In Amsterdam, we defined the characters and a plot feature. We wrote about Bo, the human, and Vlar (or Vlarrr), the non-human character. We said we’ll let them choose the setting as long as they accept to meet and run away from – or towards – something together. The stories were written by Brigitte, Anne, Sara, Diny, Caroline, Nina, Anouk and yours sincerely. The second workshop happened in Salzburg (Austria) at a conference about innovations in open-access media. Since we wrote with pens on paper, we focused on the social innovation of a very old medium indeed: language. We decided to split in a German-speaking and an English-speaking group because these were our only common languages: the group consisted of eleven people whose mother tongues were Portugese, English, Slovak, French, German and Slovene. We managed to hold hostage individual authorship for three hours and wrote about three characters – Kim, V, and 0/1 – whose gender and character were subject to rapid change. The stories took place in Salzburg in the year 2050 and were written by Cristiane, Debi, Red, Dušan, Paul, Sarah, Christian, Nikoletta, Jenny and Imre. Later, I self-published the English stories from both workshops in a zine called – you guessed it – In Other Wor(l)ds.
Since then, the concept has been used for brainstorming purposes at other independent feminist-queer events in Belgium and Great Britain to promote zine-making and self-publishing. A participant from Amsterdam, an architect, told me she and her colleagues found it useful in their profession. As for me, I finally held some workshops in my home-town, Ljubljana, in 2010. We were hosted by a radical library, an arts association and twice by a feminist-lesbian collective. The characters varied from Rx Vulgaris (a symbiotic mechanoplant), Vanja (a transgender cyborg), The Decoratives (gay activists) and female anthropomorphic cats fighting gentrification to local politicians and self-appointed intellectuals – suggesting we disguised political satire as Sci-Fi. The combination certainly worked! In addition, the hosts liked us enough to help us scrape together funds for the release of a book entitled Svetovi drugih (KUD Anarhiv, 2010).
The most recent workshop happened on February 19th 2011 at the winter edition of Lad.i.y.fest in Berlin. We played several Surrealist writing games in Sci-Fi settings with feminist-queer aspirations. For example, we collectively (de)constructed sentences like “The sexy robot slapped a strong community.” Later, we wrote several short stories, based on our favourite Exquisite Corpse sentences.
I no longer have to wonder where are all the people interested in literary games. I found them and learned that, locally speaking, “serious” literature and its inevitable identity crisis, is none of my concern. The fact that I am older than my country is an absolute advantage: I don’t even have to take myself seriously!
23. feb. 2011
In Other Wor(l)ds stories from Berlin
The In Other Wor(l)ds workshop took place at the f.a.q. Laden in Neukölln on February 19th on the occasion of Lad.i.y.fest Berlin. We played several Surrealist writing games in Sci-Fi settings with feminist-queer aspirations: Definitions (Question and Answer), Conditionals and two versions of Exquisite Corpse. In the first version, we collectively (de)constructed sentences like “The sexy robot slapped a strong community”, in the second we wrote short stories, based on our favourite Exquisite Corpse sentences.
The following mistress-pieces were written by Nina, Laura, Tanja, Dare, Sybille, Katha, Raoul, Cy, Tina, Audrey, Sabine, Skyler, Tea and another (for now) anonymous participant. The list of stories will expand as soon as we manage to decode our exquisite handwritings. Until then – enjoy the ones below …
Many thanks to Lad.i.y.fest organisers for hosting the workshop and the Slovenian Embassy in Berlin for donating the wine! (The Surrealists were right: “The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine!”)
Definitions (Question and Answer)
What is your idea of queer science fiction?
Biting the dog again and again.
What does a star look like?
Like the cow that went up the mountain.
Why is it cold?
Because the night belongs to the creatures.
Is there such a thing as luminous wonder?
Depends on the light.
Must there be light at the end of the tunnel?
Look, the teddy bear is acting like a cat!
What is the best place for a secret?
That would be just too complicated to answer.
Which pizza do you like? Peperoni?
No, the one with the book from last year.
When is it the time to fall in love?
I don’t care. Let’s just do it now.
Why are sad people so complicated?
Because blue robot ponies don’t have a sex.
Why did the Snowqueer slip on the pavement?
Because the stars are pink and there is a huge teddy bear jumping on the top of the mountain.
What’s your favourite way of making sure you’re really awake for class in the morning?
I look for a fly that flew millions of years ago in a tropic forest and got trapped in amber.
Where did you find this book?
That’s misleading the truth written in the book.
Why did you sell that pink car?
Because the nuns told me so.
How can you travel from London to Siberia?
Look for a white rabbit with your answer in her mouth.
What would you do if you noticed you peed in your pants after laughing too hard?
It’s quite simple: you would want to try to cover it with a large carpet.
Conditional
If you walk into a queer party and you can’t find anyone who looks like you, then you can fit two green jellies inside your trifle spacesuit.
Exquisite Corpse
Follow the links to reach the stories based on the first three sentences.
An ambitious thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg.
A beautiful facility manager is insisting on a heart-breaking glass window.
A wild teddy bear cried over a deconstructed baby.
The yelling princess hurt an apple-shaped glitz business.
A stupid bicycle basket fell onto a terrible caterpillar.
The beautiful bowling ball is spitting a slow cigarette.
A blue ant sculpted the queeriest crocodiles!
An amazing power is playing with spicy gloves.
A rather curious box will devour an exhausted mirror.
The wonderful Amazons danced with a very used box.
The phenomenal train met a furious birthday cake.
The sexy robot slapped a strong community.
A precious cupboard secretly fell on Cinderella.
Part 1: An Ambitious Thought ...
In Other Wor(l)ds stories from Berlin - Part 1:
An Ambitious Thought Is Swimming With the Multiple Cyborg
I. No Escape
The ambitious thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The flowers are falling from the trees, the birds are singing out loud and there's a terrible noise that seems like thunder: it is the nostalgic voice of another cyborg coming from the distance and it sounds like the saddest song on Earth ... Our multiple cyborg decides there and then ...
… to go to Earth and look for the other cyborg and maybe save it from its sadness. But the 1st cyborg had forgotten how people live on Earth. It was seen by the anti-terrorist forces and put in jail. There, it heard so many sad songs that it couldn't recognize the one it heard on its planet. As the 1st cyborg had no gender, the guardians put it in a cell in the women's quarter, alone, because in their world, if you are not a man you are not something else but assimilated to women. So the 1st cyborg descended deeper and deeper into sadness and soon its mission was forgotten. It thought only of the sad songs and its inability to fit into one gender box or the other. Teardrop after teardrop fell onto the concrete floor until one day one of those salty teardrops tore a hole in the floor, opening a trapdoor and sending the 1st cyborg down down down until it landed at the feet of the cyborg it had intended to save from sadness when it came to Earth.
“Hi, there you are! I was waiting here for you, really sad and terribly alone,” the other cyborg said.
“Yes, I heard your sad voice and so I decided to look for you and free you from your sadness,” the 1st cyborg explained, “but now I see this idea was too romantic. Since I've been caught and trapped here, I've become just as sad as you are.”
“Yes, but at least we're not alone now, and maybe we can escape from here.”
The other cyborg already looked a bit happier.
“But we are in a prison, there is no way to escape!”
II. The Supersonic Message
An ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The cyborg carried this thought for a really long time. Thoughts were falling from its head like a fish bowl kicked so strong that all the fish fly far away ... Anyway, a head full of thoughts and some strange memories: memories from the wild sex party they threw last night.
What was that? Nostalgic thoughts? They represented what the cyborg has been longing for: cyborgs from all kinds of places, dancing to slow motion songs in ballerina suits. Oh, for sure it felt like swimming. Swimming in a sea of metallic kisses and passionate oil. That was when the multiple cyborg remembered that special robot that looked like a piece of machine from the future in 1920. All kinds of thoughts started to return to its head: “I’m gonna organize a play party this evening!”
The cyborg thought of sending a supersonic message to the whole galaxy, one that can be translated as: “Welcome to the strangest place in the universe! Everything is possible here: fucking cyborgs, aliens, robots and maybe lost humans … for one night in our timespace but in your timespace, it could represent more or less, it depends!”
The cyborg sat back, satisfied with its message. Smiling to itself, it pressed its scrawny grey thumb on the ‘send’ button.
III. Revenge of the Lonely Cyborg
The ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The thought swims backwards, against the current, passing through channels and bouncing off rocks and fallen tree stumps, further and further into the past. The cyborgs swims alongside the thought, guiding it around islands and through marshy areas. While floating under a bridge, one lazy summer afternoon, the thought questioned itself.
“Why am I going backwards?” it said loudly to itself. One of the older cyborgs raised his wide head out of the water and answered: “Because you must revisit the past before you can move into the future.”
Slowly floating, the thought wondered what he would find in his past. At this point he couldn’t remember where he was coming from nor which way he had gone so far. Only when he bounced against a rock or a tree stump, he had a short flashlight of memories, astonished and confused about the way he had made so far. Where was the beginning, his origin? Or was there no origin at all? Would he just lose himself on the journey, fragmented and untraceable? And then, even if he could follow the way back to one origin, what would it tell him about the future?
Probably that he should take care of the dog more often, or write some letters to his family – the kind of precious advice that life is teaching you all through. Or: don’t step on the line, try to walk the sidewalks without stepping on the lines because that brings bad luck.
Anyway, the cyborg was lonely. A forty year old cyborg with no hopes for a future (technology doesn't last that much), thinking and meditating all day long: why nobody told me that technology doesn’t last forever, that we must be trashed too, necessarily, at a certain point? Why nobody teaches us this in school and we have to learn it the hard way ... when our metal is only good for ironing?
Even the complaining and meditating took too long, so our cyborg took a life-changing decision: “I am going to crash to the Earth, in a techno-pole, to show them where technology leads: to death ... Ah, ah, ah, I am becoming diabolic because no hope is left, no future for me, no future for others! I am going to destroy all 'scientific centers' and put bombs everywhere! Maybe the survivors will find parts of my body, maybe they'll wonder how a cyborg could be so lonely?! They might understand that all planets are perfect and loneliness exists everywhere …”
IV. In the Here and Now
The ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with a multiple cyborg called Az. It lives in another world, far from us. Whoever built it had in mind an ideal world. Az should be clever, free-minded, not straight, but it met another cyborg called By, lost in this ideal world.
By: It’s boring, we don't have to fight anyone!
Az: I don’t agree! This world is so wonderful, no more discrimination! Everyone can live freely!
By shook its head sadly: “What good is freedom if it wasn't fought for? Furthermore, what do we learn by relaxing in this peaceful paradise? Is there no challenge here, can't we use our minds for a single moment?”
Az didn’t know what to say. It arrived to this ideal world just a few days ago: “How long have you been here?” it asked.
“3 years, 99 days, 4 hours and 36 minutes,” By replied.
Az: “And what did you do all this time? You just seem to be bored with this perfect place and you’ve forgotten what it means to fight. Now the fighting for freedom looks like a great heroic adventure to you but don’t forget about the all pain and suffering it causes!” Az looked a bit furious because his beautiful thought was questioned that way.
Oh, stop telling me what to think,” By replied angrily, “you came here with your fantastic thoughts about perfect life, telling me your wisdom – but you didn’t live this life! What do you know about it?”
“The point is that when you arrive to the ideal world, nothing is like you imagine it would be. When you live 'this' life, the ideal world is far away, unreachable. And it seems to be perfect because our reality is 'here'. Our reality doesn’t taste good, the ideal world does. But the ideal world is not here.”
When By stepped into the ideal world he couldn’t believe it because it had became part of the 'here' and the 'here' is where we experiment, what we live. And if we live something we don’t like, then we have to fight to change it. This desire for change, even in the paradise of the ideal, was too shocking for By, who realized that he was never living in such an ideal place, that this static picture was an illusion of reality. When By met Az, he realized there were many things that needed to be done. And that’s when he joined Az in the fight. He also realized that Az was not a 'he' but a 'she' and that by calling 'him' 'he' was trying to see the world as a place made only for him.
When he saw that there were others, different ones, and saw a part of the fight as well, he started to call Az for what she was, a complete cyborg, independent of pronouns. And both kept on fighting together. Ideal world or reality, call it as you want. The fact is that they are fighting HERE.
Part 2: A Beautiful Facility Manager ...
An Ambitious Thought Is Swimming With the Multiple Cyborg
I. No Escape
The ambitious thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The flowers are falling from the trees, the birds are singing out loud and there's a terrible noise that seems like thunder: it is the nostalgic voice of another cyborg coming from the distance and it sounds like the saddest song on Earth ... Our multiple cyborg decides there and then ...
… to go to Earth and look for the other cyborg and maybe save it from its sadness. But the 1st cyborg had forgotten how people live on Earth. It was seen by the anti-terrorist forces and put in jail. There, it heard so many sad songs that it couldn't recognize the one it heard on its planet. As the 1st cyborg had no gender, the guardians put it in a cell in the women's quarter, alone, because in their world, if you are not a man you are not something else but assimilated to women. So the 1st cyborg descended deeper and deeper into sadness and soon its mission was forgotten. It thought only of the sad songs and its inability to fit into one gender box or the other. Teardrop after teardrop fell onto the concrete floor until one day one of those salty teardrops tore a hole in the floor, opening a trapdoor and sending the 1st cyborg down down down until it landed at the feet of the cyborg it had intended to save from sadness when it came to Earth.
“Hi, there you are! I was waiting here for you, really sad and terribly alone,” the other cyborg said.
“Yes, I heard your sad voice and so I decided to look for you and free you from your sadness,” the 1st cyborg explained, “but now I see this idea was too romantic. Since I've been caught and trapped here, I've become just as sad as you are.”
“Yes, but at least we're not alone now, and maybe we can escape from here.”
The other cyborg already looked a bit happier.
“But we are in a prison, there is no way to escape!”
II. The Supersonic Message
An ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The cyborg carried this thought for a really long time. Thoughts were falling from its head like a fish bowl kicked so strong that all the fish fly far away ... Anyway, a head full of thoughts and some strange memories: memories from the wild sex party they threw last night.
What was that? Nostalgic thoughts? They represented what the cyborg has been longing for: cyborgs from all kinds of places, dancing to slow motion songs in ballerina suits. Oh, for sure it felt like swimming. Swimming in a sea of metallic kisses and passionate oil. That was when the multiple cyborg remembered that special robot that looked like a piece of machine from the future in 1920. All kinds of thoughts started to return to its head: “I’m gonna organize a play party this evening!”
The cyborg thought of sending a supersonic message to the whole galaxy, one that can be translated as: “Welcome to the strangest place in the universe! Everything is possible here: fucking cyborgs, aliens, robots and maybe lost humans … for one night in our timespace but in your timespace, it could represent more or less, it depends!”
The cyborg sat back, satisfied with its message. Smiling to itself, it pressed its scrawny grey thumb on the ‘send’ button.
III. Revenge of the Lonely Cyborg
The ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg. The thought swims backwards, against the current, passing through channels and bouncing off rocks and fallen tree stumps, further and further into the past. The cyborgs swims alongside the thought, guiding it around islands and through marshy areas. While floating under a bridge, one lazy summer afternoon, the thought questioned itself.
“Why am I going backwards?” it said loudly to itself. One of the older cyborgs raised his wide head out of the water and answered: “Because you must revisit the past before you can move into the future.”
Slowly floating, the thought wondered what he would find in his past. At this point he couldn’t remember where he was coming from nor which way he had gone so far. Only when he bounced against a rock or a tree stump, he had a short flashlight of memories, astonished and confused about the way he had made so far. Where was the beginning, his origin? Or was there no origin at all? Would he just lose himself on the journey, fragmented and untraceable? And then, even if he could follow the way back to one origin, what would it tell him about the future?
Probably that he should take care of the dog more often, or write some letters to his family – the kind of precious advice that life is teaching you all through. Or: don’t step on the line, try to walk the sidewalks without stepping on the lines because that brings bad luck.
Anyway, the cyborg was lonely. A forty year old cyborg with no hopes for a future (technology doesn't last that much), thinking and meditating all day long: why nobody told me that technology doesn’t last forever, that we must be trashed too, necessarily, at a certain point? Why nobody teaches us this in school and we have to learn it the hard way ... when our metal is only good for ironing?
Even the complaining and meditating took too long, so our cyborg took a life-changing decision: “I am going to crash to the Earth, in a techno-pole, to show them where technology leads: to death ... Ah, ah, ah, I am becoming diabolic because no hope is left, no future for me, no future for others! I am going to destroy all 'scientific centers' and put bombs everywhere! Maybe the survivors will find parts of my body, maybe they'll wonder how a cyborg could be so lonely?! They might understand that all planets are perfect and loneliness exists everywhere …”
IV. In the Here and Now
The ambitious nostalgic thought is swimming with a multiple cyborg called Az. It lives in another world, far from us. Whoever built it had in mind an ideal world. Az should be clever, free-minded, not straight, but it met another cyborg called By, lost in this ideal world.
By: It’s boring, we don't have to fight anyone!
Az: I don’t agree! This world is so wonderful, no more discrimination! Everyone can live freely!
By shook its head sadly: “What good is freedom if it wasn't fought for? Furthermore, what do we learn by relaxing in this peaceful paradise? Is there no challenge here, can't we use our minds for a single moment?”
Az didn’t know what to say. It arrived to this ideal world just a few days ago: “How long have you been here?” it asked.
“3 years, 99 days, 4 hours and 36 minutes,” By replied.
Az: “And what did you do all this time? You just seem to be bored with this perfect place and you’ve forgotten what it means to fight. Now the fighting for freedom looks like a great heroic adventure to you but don’t forget about the all pain and suffering it causes!” Az looked a bit furious because his beautiful thought was questioned that way.
Oh, stop telling me what to think,” By replied angrily, “you came here with your fantastic thoughts about perfect life, telling me your wisdom – but you didn’t live this life! What do you know about it?”
“The point is that when you arrive to the ideal world, nothing is like you imagine it would be. When you live 'this' life, the ideal world is far away, unreachable. And it seems to be perfect because our reality is 'here'. Our reality doesn’t taste good, the ideal world does. But the ideal world is not here.”
When By stepped into the ideal world he couldn’t believe it because it had became part of the 'here' and the 'here' is where we experiment, what we live. And if we live something we don’t like, then we have to fight to change it. This desire for change, even in the paradise of the ideal, was too shocking for By, who realized that he was never living in such an ideal place, that this static picture was an illusion of reality. When By met Az, he realized there were many things that needed to be done. And that’s when he joined Az in the fight. He also realized that Az was not a 'he' but a 'she' and that by calling 'him' 'he' was trying to see the world as a place made only for him.
When he saw that there were others, different ones, and saw a part of the fight as well, he started to call Az for what she was, a complete cyborg, independent of pronouns. And both kept on fighting together. Ideal world or reality, call it as you want. The fact is that they are fighting HERE.
Part 2: A Beautiful Facility Manager ...
Part 2: A Beautiful Facility Manager ...
In Other Wor(l)ds stories from Berlin - Part 2:
A Beautiful Facility Manager Is Insisting on a Heart-Breaking Glass Window
I. Clashing Histories
A beautiful facility manager insisted on a heart-breaking glass window.
“Give in, give in to my beauty!” shouted the manager. By now she was in despair. Normally, her charms always worked, no matter how pressing the window’s heart-ache was. This window didn’t make a screech. One if its panes moved slightly, from left to right, as if to say: “No.”
“What do I have to do to heal your shattered window-heart? I tried duct tape, chewing gums, even the new subparticle glue … Please, talk to me!”
Was this a dream? A bad one, it seemed. A kind of nightmare. Since when did he notice that this special window was talking to him? And why did he think it was female? Nobody knew he liked women. It was forbidden, the machines didn’t want it. Why was he so sad about the broken glass? He couldn’t remember. This shouldn’t be happening. The machines. Was evolution really this bad?
He was male. That was the only thing he knew.
“Go to hell,” he shouted, “go to hell, all of you!”
Stretching Robin woke up. He looked over to the corner where he kept the window. She was still there. Shattered. And his dream slipped away from him.
“Time for another appointment with the high Wita. Stay there,” he said, “and don’t move.”
Talking to a mirror again, oh dear. He crawled up the ladder and into the air vent that protruded insignificantly into the room. He had to make his way to the bowels of the ship. It was magik time. He had to witness the Ritual.
“Psst.”
He heard a sound as he tried to wriggle him ample hips through the small hole. He paused, sweating. No other life forms apart from the Facility workers were allowed in the ship. That’s unless you count the witches. And of course, no one knew about them.
“Psst.”
He heard it again. He lowered his feet down onto his screen shelf where all the Universe’s oracles were kept. He pushed his shoulders through, and bruising the right one, he landed with a bump on the second layer of his cabin.
The only thing with even a vague Life-Energy was the mirror. But that was impossible. Surely the forces had died long ago with the genocide that had rid the planets of all humans. Womyn. Was that how it was spelled? He wasn’t sure. The histories seemed to clash.
Moving over to the mirror, he observed his long lashes repeated in her eyes.
“Why the fuck mirrors? Are mirrors glasses? Window-glasses? What a stroke of genius of fate. Of course, at this point people did not believe in faith, a somewhat anachronistic concoction, anymore. But then, in spite of technology, how do you know – to have picked mirrors as the last remnant of life-energy?
The thought of recovering a mirror, that symbol of vanity and coherence of the self, tickled Robin’s sense of glory. He pictured himself as the hero, just like in the texts he had at one point read in brain training.
Robin the hero would save those he loved most – women, womyn – and himself, rescue them from the planet where it was possible to survive only with the help of mirrors. Robin didn’t know exactly where to but knew how it should look like. He gave the idea a second thought and suddenly he wasn’t sure anymore if he knows where to go. Sure about the need to leave and sensing that the journey away from the planet will be long and exhausting but nonetheless necessary, Robin started preparing for the journey of his life.
II. Potatoes Don't Have a Gender
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. She was sitting in a large oval room, surrounded by kaleidoscopes of windows. Rainbow-light was reflecting everywhere, bouncing off her hair, giving it the colour of the old flags she had seen in the history Portals, carried on poles by strange women with short hair. Her salopettes were slightly wet with sweat and she was sitting surrounded by fragments of broken glass.
A short, curvy figure walked up to her: “What are you doing, Ariadne?”
“Shh!,” the other said. Her stained fringe shook irritably: “'I'm concentrating.”
It had taken her so long to get to this point, she felt. And yet only a few hours ago she had been sitting in the mess-cafeteria, sipping her tomato juice with Vox. And now they were here, at last. And she had to concentrate. Hard. Or everything might be lost.
Vox ate her mashed potato hungrily. Ariadne was acting strangely. Quiet, frowning. Holding her tomato juice in her hand, barely drinking it and eating nothing, even though they had a busy day of Lyte Krystal mining ahead. What the hell was going on with her?
Annoyed, she finished and slurped down her cold, luminous energy T. In a way she felt manipulated, as if she was in some kind of sarcastic system of cow-willing-sipping luminous energy T in the morning, replenishing, just to pour all the energy into the Lyte Krystal. On the other hand, their plan was projecting an arduous night ahead.
While sipping on the mashed potatoes (yes, they could be sipped as well if X-rayed with the sharp light of the awakening morning), they were sorting out the last details of the night that was lying ahead. They didn't let themselves be bothered by the annoying phone ringing, or by people who were passing by, iodizing in wonder at the two persons sitting on the floor, surrounded by glass-spirals, eating breakfast and talking just as casually as if they were shopping at the market. No, they didn't let themselves be disturbed by the BIG ONE, who was flying into town and who was way more important than any of their human concerns.
Ariadne's concentration period was finished. She opened her eyes again and instantly the rainbow-light disappeared from her voluminous hair. As she looked around herself, nervous about the BIG JUICY ONE's arrival, she noticed that her hair looked even longer and darker in the shattered glass reflection. She wished she could cut it right there, at once, just like Vox did after seeing the holographic representation of her strong predecessors' history of struggle against the BIG ONE. What worries! Now, only a hundred years later, she and Vox were on a diplomatic mission to introduce the BIG ONE to the new mashed potatoes recipe which healed the heart-break off all species, BIG and small.
Everything became great as Vox accepted the new wisdom. And everybody really loved the BIG POTATO ONE. Potatoes don't have a gender. Who knew it would be that easy? And it all started with a facility manager ...
III. Metamorph Now!
A beautiful facility manager insisted on a heart-breaking glass window. So he looked at it. Why do these cyborgs always destroy windows? That was his life: queering ponies, broken crocodiles.
“Mr. Suffer?”
Oh, no. He hated to be called by his real name.
“Yes, divine queen of perverts?”
Cyborgs are so logically engaged. You can’t win.
“Why is there a teddy lying on the second floor?”
“I don’t know. Do you wish that I metamorph it?”
“No, thanks.”
And then he saw it. The face in the window. Again. This planet was a mess.
He looked down and returned to his work. They called him Mr. Suffer but nobody knew his real name. He forgot it a long ago, in the Third-Iron-Age. And no one bothered to give cyborgs a name these days. There were too many of them … us … no, them. So hard to think of the trillions of slick figures of his kind. And of course, that is what the humans always wanted. To de-figure them. To take cyborg culture and hide it from all second-class citizens of the Eleventh Galaxy. No wonder, he thought cynically. With the combined life-force of these eternal lifeforms, a revolution could be staged.
“Screech.”
Again he heard it, that sound that his Professoress once described as the sound of fingers scraping a blackboard.
“Screech.”
Quickly, he looked up. Nothing.
“Queenie, oh queenie,” he mumbled.
His Supervisoress reappeared.
“About that teddy: can you metamorph it after all? Its fuzzy little legs are bringing out my maternal instincts.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Typical, he thought. She was scared.
Scribbling little letters which don’t deserve their name onto the surface of the table, the divine queen of perverts was pondering: “Is there a difference between Teddies and Cyborgs, and if yes, who gets to name them? In a way, Teddies had been just very lucky but maybe also strategic in selling their fuzzy legs as completely inoffensive; so trivial and cute that revolutionary metamorphosis could not be thought of.”
Queenie started thinking aloud but just couldn't get it why the Cyborgs were always said to be biologically engaged. After all, she never saw any Cyborg sharing its desire with another Cyborg. At least not with her own eyes. Or was she simply ignorant? Maybe she imagined desire in a certain way, thought it had to assume a certain shape ...
In this moment, Mr. Suffer realised he was in his own world. There were still teddies around him but no cyborgs in sight although he could swear he smelled the overwhelming saliva from their mouths ... not in sight but surely present. Instead, only a sales-person was looking at him like he was insane. He was sure that this sales-person thought so, but he didn’t care about it. Cyborgs were around him and they might have desires, too (he just didn’t see them) ... and he himself ... yes, he himself ... a small flash of insight grew … became huge ... yes, he desired them! He desired THEM!
“Oooh! Cyborgs,” he screeched like a nail scraping against rusty metal, “why wasn’t I constructed as an autoerotic cyborg, why can’t I just please myself?!”
“Don’t despair,” shouted the divine queen of perverts, “metamorph! Metamorph now!”
“Yes, I am ... am ... mmh ...”
His electronic consciousness faded out for a second, perhaps a century. When he opened his eyes again, he realized he was tied to the iron frame of a velvet-red bed. A dozen fluffy and warm teddies were sitting on his chest, salivating with desire and gazing transfixed into his many compound eyes.
“Who am I,” he thought, “what have I become?”
Perhaps it no longer mattered ...
IV. One grows, one grows up to the task of growing
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. The window belonged to a fancy shop with antique teddy bears. They were not in the best shape, some of them were missing legs, some of them had no head, but looking at them, the facility manager could cry tears – so beautiful they were in their uniqueness! They were to be exhibited, the facility manager decided, and so s_he went against the conviction of her_his colleagues and clients who thought s_he's gone crazy. S_he was standing in front of the shop, looking at it from a distance, aware of the treasure that was lying behind the wooden bulk windows. S_he was thinking of teddy bears and their heads and legs and bellies and filling that was partly pushing to the surface of their beings. S_he could almost smell their fur, it had the sweet odour of years of humidity.
“Aaa-khm!”
The facility manager moved her/his beautiful head towards the sudden sound. What was that?
“Aaa-khm,” repeated the sound and by now (s)he knew that this was not some random noise from the street, not the cracking of the boards that covered the window – no, the sound was coming from behind the boards. (S)he brought her perfectly violet nose closer to the window and looked at the damp teddy bears from real close. One of them seemed to move slightly, as if to stretch its muscles. Suddenly, it pulled out a sign that said: “WE ARE NOT EXHIBITS. FLUCK YOU!”
“What?”
“Which part of the sentence you didn't understand?”
“Maybe the 'Fluck you' part.”
“C'mon, I'm a bear. Do you expect a perfect pronunciation or what?”
“I didn't even know that a toy is able to talk.”
“I'm lonely. And my name is Zoo, by the way.”
“What kind of a name is 'Zoo'?”
The bear seemed to grow: “What kind of a job is a 'facility manager'?”
“You're a naughty little bear.” Am I really talking to a bear, she thought in the mean time, I should visit the doctor. While it wondered, the bear apparently returned to its inanimate stasis. And then: “Naughty little bear, am I? Are you trying to dominate me or what?”
Aa-khm laughed: “Well, I guess they don't call you 'Bears' for nothing. Who would think that toys are into BDSM?!”
To her/his surprise, the teddy laughed heartily with her. Did it understand? No one, not even the Sybil-IV's got his/her jokes. They were too old-fashioned, filled with references to a time long gone. So s/he kept laughing, hysterically now, the sound coming deep from hir belly.
“Look, shut-up,” the teddy bear hissed, “you've got to get me out of here. I'm old and trapped. Look, my shagging is starting to get mouldy.” Zoo held up a leg impatiently, showing Aa-khm the newly-formed star crystals. Zoo was here for too long and too frustrated to bandy about PleasSex with a facility manager. However, s_he was pleasantly appealing. Zoo quickly thought about how simple it was for it to label people as appealing or not. Where did it learn that? Behind the glass window, checking out passers-by.
Like a balloon with its sides stretching, Zoo became larger. A kind of an unpleasant feeling, but one grows, one grows up to the task of growing, stretching, filling up space. Like a yeast dough with a slightly fractured surface. Fractured? It started with some cracks, cracks turning into fractals, like sprinkled sugar all over the place. A kind of slow-motion but steady, then a point of fullness, a point where glass resistance is overwhelmed by Zoo's mighty belly, crashing and cracking, shattering all over the floor. The glass window is broken, and so is Zoo's mightily enlarged heart. Literally.
V. Embizzle's Home
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. Glass had proven instrumental to Embizzle's daily routine at least once or twice before. Its power to break people's hearts, literally, helped her once to dodge a ticket checker, another time to stop a night train from departing on time.
Looking at the window frame, Embizzle could not help giving in to the – what was by now thought to be obsolete – way of insulating living units. So Embizzle was choosing the occasions, the moments when it used its power very carefully and sparsely. It always focused on something that was incredibly important to it or to those it loved. And it loved people very much. Throughout the years it would observe how its use of power made people do things they wouldn't do otherwise but were just more right – they brought more equilibrium and justice (however vague this concept might be). However, when people would act in a more just way, their hearts would turn bigger and bigger until they would explode.
Embizzle itself was hurt by it and now, at this point was wondering whether the glass windows were the key to get rid of all this pain. After all, the glass was supposedly emotionless – and motionless. But wasn't there always something, someone behind the window glass?
Embizzle tried to look through the dusty window but only saw its own reflection. Its beauty was typical of its species: vertical eyes, horizontal nose, vertical mouth et cetera. But Embizzle was used to her face. So used, xe no longer noticed it. Right now she knew only one thing: her reflection in the dark dusty window was on her way, preventing her from seeing what was behind it. So s/he smashed the window with her fist.
She was surprised to see how easily the glass broke. How soft. It melted away and she was surprised again. The window was hiding a different room. There stood a scientist and mumbled: “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Embarrassing. Her beloved H was a small scientist? An ant? An insect with a writing pad in its hands? Ridiculous?
Embizzle wished she hadn't broken the window. This story was going to end really bad and she knew who would suffer in the end – herself. Looking at the scientist she noticed something strange about the creature. Although it definitely had insecticide characteristics it also had the same slightly slanting eyes as H, Embizzle's own long mouth. But, as well as this, the scientist had long white fingers, which were writing feverishly in a book. Looking at H, her own heart was breaking.
“Hello Embizzle.” The creature smiled: “Recognise me? I am your syster.”
And Embizzle knew then, where her ana…est dreams and skills had led her. Here. Home. To this beautiful, tri-specied creature, truly a child of the anti-speciesist Order's own philosophy. Looking at her, Embizzle knew that her hardest work had only just begun. Instead of breaking hearts, she would now have to learn to mend her own.
Part 3: A Wild Teddy Bear ...
A Beautiful Facility Manager Is Insisting on a Heart-Breaking Glass Window
I. Clashing Histories
A beautiful facility manager insisted on a heart-breaking glass window.
“Give in, give in to my beauty!” shouted the manager. By now she was in despair. Normally, her charms always worked, no matter how pressing the window’s heart-ache was. This window didn’t make a screech. One if its panes moved slightly, from left to right, as if to say: “No.”
“What do I have to do to heal your shattered window-heart? I tried duct tape, chewing gums, even the new subparticle glue … Please, talk to me!”
Was this a dream? A bad one, it seemed. A kind of nightmare. Since when did he notice that this special window was talking to him? And why did he think it was female? Nobody knew he liked women. It was forbidden, the machines didn’t want it. Why was he so sad about the broken glass? He couldn’t remember. This shouldn’t be happening. The machines. Was evolution really this bad?
He was male. That was the only thing he knew.
“Go to hell,” he shouted, “go to hell, all of you!”
Stretching Robin woke up. He looked over to the corner where he kept the window. She was still there. Shattered. And his dream slipped away from him.
“Time for another appointment with the high Wita. Stay there,” he said, “and don’t move.”
Talking to a mirror again, oh dear. He crawled up the ladder and into the air vent that protruded insignificantly into the room. He had to make his way to the bowels of the ship. It was magik time. He had to witness the Ritual.
“Psst.”
He heard a sound as he tried to wriggle him ample hips through the small hole. He paused, sweating. No other life forms apart from the Facility workers were allowed in the ship. That’s unless you count the witches. And of course, no one knew about them.
“Psst.”
He heard it again. He lowered his feet down onto his screen shelf where all the Universe’s oracles were kept. He pushed his shoulders through, and bruising the right one, he landed with a bump on the second layer of his cabin.
The only thing with even a vague Life-Energy was the mirror. But that was impossible. Surely the forces had died long ago with the genocide that had rid the planets of all humans. Womyn. Was that how it was spelled? He wasn’t sure. The histories seemed to clash.
Moving over to the mirror, he observed his long lashes repeated in her eyes.
“Why the fuck mirrors? Are mirrors glasses? Window-glasses? What a stroke of genius of fate. Of course, at this point people did not believe in faith, a somewhat anachronistic concoction, anymore. But then, in spite of technology, how do you know – to have picked mirrors as the last remnant of life-energy?
The thought of recovering a mirror, that symbol of vanity and coherence of the self, tickled Robin’s sense of glory. He pictured himself as the hero, just like in the texts he had at one point read in brain training.
Robin the hero would save those he loved most – women, womyn – and himself, rescue them from the planet where it was possible to survive only with the help of mirrors. Robin didn’t know exactly where to but knew how it should look like. He gave the idea a second thought and suddenly he wasn’t sure anymore if he knows where to go. Sure about the need to leave and sensing that the journey away from the planet will be long and exhausting but nonetheless necessary, Robin started preparing for the journey of his life.
II. Potatoes Don't Have a Gender
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. She was sitting in a large oval room, surrounded by kaleidoscopes of windows. Rainbow-light was reflecting everywhere, bouncing off her hair, giving it the colour of the old flags she had seen in the history Portals, carried on poles by strange women with short hair. Her salopettes were slightly wet with sweat and she was sitting surrounded by fragments of broken glass.
A short, curvy figure walked up to her: “What are you doing, Ariadne?”
“Shh!,” the other said. Her stained fringe shook irritably: “'I'm concentrating.”
It had taken her so long to get to this point, she felt. And yet only a few hours ago she had been sitting in the mess-cafeteria, sipping her tomato juice with Vox. And now they were here, at last. And she had to concentrate. Hard. Or everything might be lost.
Vox ate her mashed potato hungrily. Ariadne was acting strangely. Quiet, frowning. Holding her tomato juice in her hand, barely drinking it and eating nothing, even though they had a busy day of Lyte Krystal mining ahead. What the hell was going on with her?
Annoyed, she finished and slurped down her cold, luminous energy T. In a way she felt manipulated, as if she was in some kind of sarcastic system of cow-willing-sipping luminous energy T in the morning, replenishing, just to pour all the energy into the Lyte Krystal. On the other hand, their plan was projecting an arduous night ahead.
While sipping on the mashed potatoes (yes, they could be sipped as well if X-rayed with the sharp light of the awakening morning), they were sorting out the last details of the night that was lying ahead. They didn't let themselves be bothered by the annoying phone ringing, or by people who were passing by, iodizing in wonder at the two persons sitting on the floor, surrounded by glass-spirals, eating breakfast and talking just as casually as if they were shopping at the market. No, they didn't let themselves be disturbed by the BIG ONE, who was flying into town and who was way more important than any of their human concerns.
Ariadne's concentration period was finished. She opened her eyes again and instantly the rainbow-light disappeared from her voluminous hair. As she looked around herself, nervous about the BIG JUICY ONE's arrival, she noticed that her hair looked even longer and darker in the shattered glass reflection. She wished she could cut it right there, at once, just like Vox did after seeing the holographic representation of her strong predecessors' history of struggle against the BIG ONE. What worries! Now, only a hundred years later, she and Vox were on a diplomatic mission to introduce the BIG ONE to the new mashed potatoes recipe which healed the heart-break off all species, BIG and small.
Everything became great as Vox accepted the new wisdom. And everybody really loved the BIG POTATO ONE. Potatoes don't have a gender. Who knew it would be that easy? And it all started with a facility manager ...
III. Metamorph Now!
A beautiful facility manager insisted on a heart-breaking glass window. So he looked at it. Why do these cyborgs always destroy windows? That was his life: queering ponies, broken crocodiles.
“Mr. Suffer?”
Oh, no. He hated to be called by his real name.
“Yes, divine queen of perverts?”
Cyborgs are so logically engaged. You can’t win.
“Why is there a teddy lying on the second floor?”
“I don’t know. Do you wish that I metamorph it?”
“No, thanks.”
And then he saw it. The face in the window. Again. This planet was a mess.
He looked down and returned to his work. They called him Mr. Suffer but nobody knew his real name. He forgot it a long ago, in the Third-Iron-Age. And no one bothered to give cyborgs a name these days. There were too many of them … us … no, them. So hard to think of the trillions of slick figures of his kind. And of course, that is what the humans always wanted. To de-figure them. To take cyborg culture and hide it from all second-class citizens of the Eleventh Galaxy. No wonder, he thought cynically. With the combined life-force of these eternal lifeforms, a revolution could be staged.
“Screech.”
Again he heard it, that sound that his Professoress once described as the sound of fingers scraping a blackboard.
“Screech.”
Quickly, he looked up. Nothing.
“Queenie, oh queenie,” he mumbled.
His Supervisoress reappeared.
“About that teddy: can you metamorph it after all? Its fuzzy little legs are bringing out my maternal instincts.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Typical, he thought. She was scared.
Scribbling little letters which don’t deserve their name onto the surface of the table, the divine queen of perverts was pondering: “Is there a difference between Teddies and Cyborgs, and if yes, who gets to name them? In a way, Teddies had been just very lucky but maybe also strategic in selling their fuzzy legs as completely inoffensive; so trivial and cute that revolutionary metamorphosis could not be thought of.”
Queenie started thinking aloud but just couldn't get it why the Cyborgs were always said to be biologically engaged. After all, she never saw any Cyborg sharing its desire with another Cyborg. At least not with her own eyes. Or was she simply ignorant? Maybe she imagined desire in a certain way, thought it had to assume a certain shape ...
In this moment, Mr. Suffer realised he was in his own world. There were still teddies around him but no cyborgs in sight although he could swear he smelled the overwhelming saliva from their mouths ... not in sight but surely present. Instead, only a sales-person was looking at him like he was insane. He was sure that this sales-person thought so, but he didn’t care about it. Cyborgs were around him and they might have desires, too (he just didn’t see them) ... and he himself ... yes, he himself ... a small flash of insight grew … became huge ... yes, he desired them! He desired THEM!
“Oooh! Cyborgs,” he screeched like a nail scraping against rusty metal, “why wasn’t I constructed as an autoerotic cyborg, why can’t I just please myself?!”
“Don’t despair,” shouted the divine queen of perverts, “metamorph! Metamorph now!”
“Yes, I am ... am ... mmh ...”
His electronic consciousness faded out for a second, perhaps a century. When he opened his eyes again, he realized he was tied to the iron frame of a velvet-red bed. A dozen fluffy and warm teddies were sitting on his chest, salivating with desire and gazing transfixed into his many compound eyes.
“Who am I,” he thought, “what have I become?”
Perhaps it no longer mattered ...
IV. One grows, one grows up to the task of growing
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. The window belonged to a fancy shop with antique teddy bears. They were not in the best shape, some of them were missing legs, some of them had no head, but looking at them, the facility manager could cry tears – so beautiful they were in their uniqueness! They were to be exhibited, the facility manager decided, and so s_he went against the conviction of her_his colleagues and clients who thought s_he's gone crazy. S_he was standing in front of the shop, looking at it from a distance, aware of the treasure that was lying behind the wooden bulk windows. S_he was thinking of teddy bears and their heads and legs and bellies and filling that was partly pushing to the surface of their beings. S_he could almost smell their fur, it had the sweet odour of years of humidity.
“Aaa-khm!”
The facility manager moved her/his beautiful head towards the sudden sound. What was that?
“Aaa-khm,” repeated the sound and by now (s)he knew that this was not some random noise from the street, not the cracking of the boards that covered the window – no, the sound was coming from behind the boards. (S)he brought her perfectly violet nose closer to the window and looked at the damp teddy bears from real close. One of them seemed to move slightly, as if to stretch its muscles. Suddenly, it pulled out a sign that said: “WE ARE NOT EXHIBITS. FLUCK YOU!”
“What?”
“Which part of the sentence you didn't understand?”
“Maybe the 'Fluck you' part.”
“C'mon, I'm a bear. Do you expect a perfect pronunciation or what?”
“I didn't even know that a toy is able to talk.”
“I'm lonely. And my name is Zoo, by the way.”
“What kind of a name is 'Zoo'?”
The bear seemed to grow: “What kind of a job is a 'facility manager'?”
“You're a naughty little bear.” Am I really talking to a bear, she thought in the mean time, I should visit the doctor. While it wondered, the bear apparently returned to its inanimate stasis. And then: “Naughty little bear, am I? Are you trying to dominate me or what?”
Aa-khm laughed: “Well, I guess they don't call you 'Bears' for nothing. Who would think that toys are into BDSM?!”
To her/his surprise, the teddy laughed heartily with her. Did it understand? No one, not even the Sybil-IV's got his/her jokes. They were too old-fashioned, filled with references to a time long gone. So s/he kept laughing, hysterically now, the sound coming deep from hir belly.
“Look, shut-up,” the teddy bear hissed, “you've got to get me out of here. I'm old and trapped. Look, my shagging is starting to get mouldy.” Zoo held up a leg impatiently, showing Aa-khm the newly-formed star crystals. Zoo was here for too long and too frustrated to bandy about PleasSex with a facility manager. However, s_he was pleasantly appealing. Zoo quickly thought about how simple it was for it to label people as appealing or not. Where did it learn that? Behind the glass window, checking out passers-by.
Like a balloon with its sides stretching, Zoo became larger. A kind of an unpleasant feeling, but one grows, one grows up to the task of growing, stretching, filling up space. Like a yeast dough with a slightly fractured surface. Fractured? It started with some cracks, cracks turning into fractals, like sprinkled sugar all over the place. A kind of slow-motion but steady, then a point of fullness, a point where glass resistance is overwhelmed by Zoo's mighty belly, crashing and cracking, shattering all over the floor. The glass window is broken, and so is Zoo's mightily enlarged heart. Literally.
V. Embizzle's Home
A beautiful facility manager was insisting on a heart-breaking glass window. Glass had proven instrumental to Embizzle's daily routine at least once or twice before. Its power to break people's hearts, literally, helped her once to dodge a ticket checker, another time to stop a night train from departing on time.
Looking at the window frame, Embizzle could not help giving in to the – what was by now thought to be obsolete – way of insulating living units. So Embizzle was choosing the occasions, the moments when it used its power very carefully and sparsely. It always focused on something that was incredibly important to it or to those it loved. And it loved people very much. Throughout the years it would observe how its use of power made people do things they wouldn't do otherwise but were just more right – they brought more equilibrium and justice (however vague this concept might be). However, when people would act in a more just way, their hearts would turn bigger and bigger until they would explode.
Embizzle itself was hurt by it and now, at this point was wondering whether the glass windows were the key to get rid of all this pain. After all, the glass was supposedly emotionless – and motionless. But wasn't there always something, someone behind the window glass?
Embizzle tried to look through the dusty window but only saw its own reflection. Its beauty was typical of its species: vertical eyes, horizontal nose, vertical mouth et cetera. But Embizzle was used to her face. So used, xe no longer noticed it. Right now she knew only one thing: her reflection in the dark dusty window was on her way, preventing her from seeing what was behind it. So s/he smashed the window with her fist.
She was surprised to see how easily the glass broke. How soft. It melted away and she was surprised again. The window was hiding a different room. There stood a scientist and mumbled: “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Embarrassing. Her beloved H was a small scientist? An ant? An insect with a writing pad in its hands? Ridiculous?
Embizzle wished she hadn't broken the window. This story was going to end really bad and she knew who would suffer in the end – herself. Looking at the scientist she noticed something strange about the creature. Although it definitely had insecticide characteristics it also had the same slightly slanting eyes as H, Embizzle's own long mouth. But, as well as this, the scientist had long white fingers, which were writing feverishly in a book. Looking at H, her own heart was breaking.
“Hello Embizzle.” The creature smiled: “Recognise me? I am your syster.”
And Embizzle knew then, where her ana…est dreams and skills had led her. Here. Home. To this beautiful, tri-specied creature, truly a child of the anti-speciesist Order's own philosophy. Looking at her, Embizzle knew that her hardest work had only just begun. Instead of breaking hearts, she would now have to learn to mend her own.
Part 3: A Wild Teddy Bear ...
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