spectrum issue 2
by christoph sawyer
World-making delineates the ways in which performances-both theatrical and
Table of Contents
everyday rituals-have the ability to establish alternative views of the world. These
Project Overview
alternative vistas are more than simply views or perspectives; they are oppositional
The List
ideologies that function as critiques of oppressive regimes of “truth" that subjugate minoritarian people. Oppositional counterpublics are enabled by visions, “worldviews," that reshape as they deconstruct reality. -José Esteban Muñoz
“What are you”? Let’s Talk About Sex Life in the Network Gay vs Queer Spaces What’s Your Drink (Gay Bars) AIDS and me Paris is Burning?
Project Overview
The second part of this project includes the creation of queer objects, like this zine and a piece of wood with a naked man in the woods etched onto it. This zine however is the most personal of the objects includes stories of my own queer experiences as a queer person.
My Senior Project is my queerness; it’s to create a queer world to reflect my own self. This project is a continuation of the activist work I’ve done inside and out of the New Media
The third part of this project includes the installation and performance of my work for my Senior Show. This event will bring together the art making skills I’ve learned, my previous works, Queer Theory, and
department, as well as the work that I’ve produced during my time in the New Media department.
my own performance. The event will feature a booth where I, dressed in my own drag, will engage
The first part of this project involves a workshop that I created for LGBTQ high school students. This
An activity which students in the workshops were also engaging in.
and conversations around LGBTQ issues that students face. The first workshop was with SAGA
My wish is to change perceptions, get people thinking differently, and to create a new queer world.
workshop was with GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) members at the Roosevelt High School in Yonkers,
Special thanks to my professor and dear friend, Shaka McGlotten. For without their support, this
workshop included documentation of my own queer New Media work, examples of queer art, zines,
(Sexuality And Gender Alliance) members at my high school, John Jay in Cross River, NY. The second NY.
visitors in conversations about their own gender and pronouns, while they create their own pronouns;
exhibition would not be what it is. Shaka spent countless hours helping me to craft and polish this project.
The List
“What are you”?
When I first began coming out to people in 8th grade, I kept a list on my iPod. I would write down each
With a father whose ethnicity is Puerto Rican and a mother whose ethnicity is English, I have an inter-
secret. If it got out I could try and figure out who shared it. One of my biggest fears was that my
background, which I don’t. I attribute their assumptions to my narrow eyes, which I inherited from my
person’s name, in chronological order. It was a comfort to me, it allowed me to keep tabs on my
sexuality would be rumoured or shared amongst my peers and that it would get back to my Boy Scout troop, which could mean I would get kicked. As someone who had been in scouting since first grade, devoted a lot of time to scouting, and wanted to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, I didn’t want this to happen.
esting appearance. When I first meet people, about half of them think I have some sort of ethnic Asian mother’s side of the family. She’s from a small town in Maine. While I was born in Venezuela, I only
lived there for about three years. We then moved to Puerto Rico and lived there for about two years
before we went the Northeast of the US and moved to NY. I grew up in Northern Westchester, a suburb of New York City. The community I lived in was predominately affluent and predominantly white. I
always felt comfortable with my community and peers and never felt different or marginalized, so I really identified as white, not as a non-person of color.
At the end of elementary school my father was sent to prison. Since then I haven’t spoken to my father, his parents, or most of his family. There’s one part of his family who we, my mother, sister, and I still
keep in contact with: they’re Puerto Rican and Dominican. Every holiday and birthday we usually get
together and celebrate over delicious Puerto Rican food. Since my father’s arrest I changed my middle and last name, which were his first and last name. They sounded Latin, but now I identify as Christoph Robert Sawyer. I kept Christoph because it’s a fucking awesome and unique name, Robert to honor
my mother’s father who is aging quicker than we’d like, and Sawyer to honor my mother and her family who have supported us so immensely. As you can probably guess, I have a very complicated relationship with my race and ethnicity.
QPOC is an acronym that stands for queer person of color. It’s a label that I’ve been beginning to
choose to identify with.Now the real question: what will this do to the ways I move through the world.
Identifying as white and moving through white spaces, will I do anything to give up the white privilege I’ve benefitted from?
Let’s Talk About Sex
Ever since 5th grade, when my peers
began “dating”, I’ve felt an anxiety to date and to
find “the one”; someone who I could share myself with, someone who I’d have this instant and deep
connection with, someone to spend the rest of my life with. This anxiety was only fueled when I was in high school, which is when I became comfortable identifying as gay, and there were only a
couple of out gay boys in my school. It was in-
credibly frustrating because I lived in the suburbs,
so there were few options. My town didn’t have an LGBTQ ceter and there were only two big LGBTQ events a year when I could meet other youth.
My first “boyfriend” was in the middle
One of the most significant romantic and sexual relationships and one of the most formative,
school, while I was in the high school. I would
was destructive. I think it’s important to discuss how sex and be both healing and destructive. I think
Straight Alliance (GSA) meetings. My Boy Scout
structive.
same day, with the GSA meeting right after school
When I described it to someone once, I said imagine if there was a scale for sexual experience and
year, they both independently decided to move
rience in person, my number was negative. It was negative because the experiences that formed me
ever, I invited my “boyfriend” with me. He was a
unlearn those experiences. Majorly I’ve had to learn how to relax, how to be present, and how to me
was, and one day after the GSA meeting we were
difficult for me.
rest of the school. Once I got home, I realized that
I’m at a place now where I’m more informed, I know what it’s like when relationships and sex are
outed and kicked out of Boy Scouts so I did the
much higher. But one of the most important things I’ve learned recently is being to identify what I want
band-aid. This trick didn’t last the whole meeting
ways have to involve penetration. Both cuddling and kissing can be healing just like sex can be healing.
have him come with me to my school’s Gay-
meetings and GSA meetings were always on the
that we don’t talk about sex nearly enough but especially how it can be healing and how it can be de-
and the Boy Scout meetings in the evenings. One
comfort, that the more you had sex, your score increased. But for me, because I barely had any expe-
meetings to the exact same day! One day how-
weren’t healthy, they weren’t balanced. It’s taken me a long time with a lot of experiences to undo, and
bit more physical and sexually experienced than I
open with my partner. Maybe these are things that most people learn over time but it’s been incredibly
making out in the bathroom, hiding away from the I had quite the hickey on my neck. I feared being
healthy and balanced. I’m at a place now where I feel much more confident and in control. My score is
only thing I could think of to hide it and put on a
as it relates to intimacy, because intimacy doesn’t have to always involve sex just like sex doesn’t al-
as I only kept fidgeting with it. Another one of the scouts notice but only congratulated me on my hickey.
Why is this search so hard? How long will it take? Why is this so confusing? Who can answer my questions? Time? Me? Can Time expose the answer? Can Time unravel this great mystery? (written by 8th grade christoph)
Life in the Network Like many millennials, I grew up with the internet.
While writing this I think of conservatives and
to join a Facebook Group called Gorgeous, Gay,
technology. I remember one of the first times I
by media, peers, and others in their lives who con-
group was to promote clubs in Manhattan. The
My dad was always really into computers and
started to think about the male body and seeing
it as something sexual was on an eCard. Back in
the early 2000s Sugarqube was a website where people could send ecards to one another. Some were cute, some were fun, and some were “For Her”. I remember being bored and curious so I
must’ve clicked through a lot of the different categories. Under Birthday>For Her is where I found “X-Ray (For Her)” and “Romantic Night”. These two Flash games/videos featured a very hunky
blonde who, when completely revealed, was only
others who believe that LGBTQ youth are shaped vert them or lead them down the path of queerness. Looking back, I remember my feelings, I
remember that the moment was so innocent and so pure, and so sort of funny. This eCard that’s
overtly sexual and intentionally crude is what I, a young boy, stumbled upon on the internet and it
sparked the fire this being queer and being queer in a world where the internet and media rule. It’s just so funny that the coding of that messaging
could be flipped and resonate with me so much.
wearing a tight, bulging brief/thong/speedo thing.
I remember a few years later going onto the
came from an eCard. This experience is what
Cam site; allowing gay men to text or video chat
So strange to admit but my sexual awakening
then lead me to Google images of penises and so
internet and finding this website that was an early with a sexy guy. At that point I didn’t have a way
began my complicated sexual relationship with the to pay for the site so I stuck with the trial version network.
of the site, which only allowed me to chat with the performer. I remember one specific time when I
went online using this site; I sat in the living on the computer and my grandmother and sister were
in the dining room. There was something thrilling and nerve wracking about that moment. I kept
having to hide the screen from my grandmother or I had to keep running to the room, I was nervous
about getting caught, but it was also so thrilling to
be intimate with another man and to be wanted by him, even if it was his job and it was through the network.
When I was in High School, a friend invited me
and Twenty-Something (GG20). The goal of the number of hours a week I spent interacting with
the group has really fluctuated since I first joined.
I only recently joined again after taking a two year break because I was checking the group too of-
ten; Checking out cute guys pics, posting my own
sexy selfies, commenting, and posting. This group allowed me, as a suburban high schooler, to
connect with gay men who live in New York City.
While many of the connections are in fact virtual, they do make me feel more connected to part of the gay community in NYC.
Gay vs Queer Spaces It was a couple days after my high school
skin sex.
queer people, people of color, and many other
friend in Oakland, CA. The two major events of
Francisco and Pride Parade experience was
conference with another New Media student
graduation that I took a trip to visit my mom’s gay
My gay mentor and guide for my first San
beautiful and amazing people. I attended this
this trip would include attending the San Francisco volunteering with the parade, this meant that I was Pride Parade and the Google Developer
Conference. This would be my first ever Pride Parade; something that both excited and
intimidated me. Would it be fun? Would I be asked to join gay sex parties? As a young, confident gay man with some sexual experience, the thought
of being an object of attention at the parade both
excited me and intimidated me. As someone who had much of their gay interactions and relationships
mediated through a screen, the thought of having to face so many gay men, presumably almost
naked with gorgeous, chiseled bodies made me hard and want to hide from shiness…
The more adventurous half of me wanted to sport my american-apparel, gold, lame short shorts.
However, after being reminded of how cold the
bay area can be, I reluctantly wore a pair of tight, brown corduroys I had from Urban Outfitters, a
long sleeve grey shirt, and a pink volunteer shirt
over that. However, I decided to be a bit daring a sport the only jockstrap I owned..the kind with a
thick band and with more thought put into function than style. In an effort to be a little bit of tease
but not too much, I would pull down my pant line
so as that it would still be appropriate and pull up my jock a tad bit, so that I could give men at the parade a tease but not enough to invite skin to
too a volunteer, and eventually allowed us to ride
in the parade in a golf cart, supporting the float in front of us if needed. It was quite a magical
experience being able to be one with the parade. Making me appreciate the faces of the audience, the crowd, the participants, the family over the ornate, beautiful floats. It was truly a magical
experience for me. Feeling the love and support radiate into the parade and flow down the path
like blood pumping from heart through the rest of the body, providing everyone with life and love.
While having several sexual experiences, most of
my relationship to gayness was mediated through screens, specifically through chatting on Grindr
and Facebook groups and through the sharing of nude photographs in those spaces. Because of this and my unfamiliarity with concrete gay
spaces, I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of this
parade, what to do afterwards…I knew that one
of my gay idols at the time, Tyler Oakley, lived in San Francisco; I kept checking to see if posted
anything on his social media about being at the
parade, hopefully with a location. I figured that if I
was going to be on the same coast as his, a rarity, that I should seizes the opportunity. Not quite having my sense of boundary fully developed yet, I
decided to take proactive steps to meet my virtual gay idol in person. After thinking a bit about the
and professor. My professor was helping ways in which iMessage worked, I figured out how to send him an iMessage. I first considered that he had an iPhone, then that he probably used
iMessage, next that most people have a primary email that’s a gmail, that is their first name dot
last name at gmail.com. This lead me to type his email in the message field and like magic the
email switched from green text to blue...AH-HA! I sent him some sort of message about hoping to
meet him while I was visiting. Of course he didn’t respond. I mean, who in their right mind would
agree to meet a total stranger who just randomly messaged them.
It’s been a journey for me, learning how to act
and be comfortable in gay spaces, especially gay bars. --Last summer, I attended the Allied Media
Conference(AMC), a place where people
involved in media, art and technology, who are also interested in addressing the roots of
problems and advances holistic solutions towards a more just and creative world come together. The conference attracts artists,
college and high school students, organizers,
facilitate the Design Justice Network Gathering and my peer and I were participants. The
gathering really brought together my passion for advocacy, technology, and art. It really showed me how New Media can go on to
create work that addresses and speaks on so-
cial issues. Prior to arriving, I was spending the summer in the Hamptons helping project
manage a home renovation and executive
assisting for my company’s CEO. I was living in a world of wealth, extravagance, and
whiteness. I got very comfortable with that life
and the summer residence. Flying to Detroit to attend AMC was a huge shock to me. It reminded me of my passions…
One of the most memorable experiences of the
trip and the reason why I’m writing about this; is when I attended a party at Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art. It was an experience unlike any other. I had to tell my friends because it
was just so incredible. It was a space where
intersectionality thrived, a vision for bars and parties in the future, a place where queer people, people of color, and many other
minorities could exist and have fun with one
another, where everyone loved and respected one another.
What’s Your Drink? (Gay Bars)
Prior to the Summer of 2015, I never really
“went out”, I never really drank, and I had never
been to a gay bar. During that Summer I did my “Eurotrip” for a month and a half before doing a month long study abroad program in Italy. I
started the trip in London. One of my girlfriends
who lives in London decided to introduce me to a gay couple that she was friends with so that I
could meet them and they could take me out. We met at a restaurant for dinner and then they took
me to this outdoor bar. They offered to buy me a
drink and I was so confused by the question and
renting an apartment in Le Marais, a gay
neighborhood of Paris. He was familiar with the
area and a lot of the gay bars, so he showed me around. One of the most memorable bars was
called Raidd. Raidd is a very interesting bar, in
that on certain nights you’ll gogo boys showering
in one of the booths of the bar, this hourly show is
then projected throughout the rest of the bar for all to see. Those who manage to get up close, al-
ways whip out their phones to snap pics and vids to show their friends later.
felt a bit anxious because I didn’t “go out”, I didn’t
and soda, which has remained as one of go-to
and I decided to use the chance to extend my trip
have a go-to drink. They suggested a vodka lime drinks. Before we parted ways, they gave me
suggestions of gay clubs and bars to visit SoHo,
a very gay neighborhood in London. I decided to hang out at the Starbucks across the street until
the bar opened up and so that I could charge my phone. I remember sitting and staring at the bar and being too anxious and scared to go in by
myself. I thought to myself...What would I do at a
bar by myself? Would everyone who chatted with
me expect me to go have sex with them? If I didn’t want to would they be really pushy? I fear and
inexperience got the better of me that night and
I ended up simply staring at the bar, trying to get
up the courage to go, but never succeeding. Later on the trip, after having a couple hookups, a few
more drinking experiences, and building up some more comfort being on my own, I visited my first gay bar, this time with a friend. My friend was
One of the last stops on the trip was in
Zurich, Switzerland. My class and I had a layover a little further. I headed into the center of the city with no clue where to go but to a gay bar. It was both a magical and scary experience. I had de-
veloped a comfort with being alone and exploring after all my travels. It was a beautiful night, it was their indepence day so there were fireworks and
the whole city was wondering the streets, enjoying the night. I eventually found a gay bar and felt so
proud of myself for going in on my own. I reminded myself of starting my trip being to afraid to go into a gay bar by myself and now I would go in, alone, order a drink, and be okay with it all.
AIDS and me
As a young gay man born in 1993, the AIDs crisis and AIDs/HIV has always for a long time
been foreign to me. In my heteronormative life, it’s rarely acknowledged; at least in emotion. The pain, the sadness, it didn’t echo inside me like the nightmare, that I feel I’m suppose to remember/know
as a gay man. As a gay man that moves in and out of NYC, who aspires to be a gay in the city, I now
believe it’s time for me to remember and learn about that nightmare. Growing up and being involved in
different LGBT organizations I feel like the discussion of AIDs only popped up in a few different circumstances. In a history class where we’d either discuss how AIDs was a virus that is popular in Africa or the AIDs crisis in the US, when it would be discussed so briefly and without emotion that I never got
that echo of a feeling inside me. In health class or somewhere we discussed sex, it was just mentioned that condoms can help prevent the spread of AIDs, but we never discussed the pained history that this
disease carries. In gay spaces it would be discussed but again the pain, the significance, it didn’t really resonate with me. “Those people”. “Those men”.
I think what I’ve yearned for, what I’ve needed is a story, a person, a name, something to make
the crisis, a memory. After watching Paris is Burning for the first time recently, things started to really click into place for me. This was a real epidemic, that really destroyed a community, and what re-
mained was a community that needed to demonstrate strength, but was also full of pain and fragility.
Every morning I think about the AIDS crisis and how fortunate I am that the spread of the virus
has slowed down significantly. Every morning I take what’s known as PrEP. PrEP is a daily medication for those who are at high risk of encountering HIV. As a man who has sex with other men, I put in that category. The medication is very popular amongst the gay and queer communities.
Paris is Burning? I remember hearing about it in passing, but
makeup, and wigs are all discussed. There’s a
and educated me was when the characters
about, people weren’t quite sure how it was being
and watch it. I once went as far as to begin
many of the new drag queens have for high end
Christopher Street Pier was a location that was
lot of queer people were dying. The stories that
never really bothering to get myself to sit down watching it on Netflix, but lost interest within the
first couple minutes and put something else on…
large part of the film that discusses the lust that
fashion; For Chanel, Gucci, Dior. The characters
in the film explain that there are two ways that the
women can get their hands on those brands; They
It was on the first day of Drag Theory and Practice steal or they pay with the money they make from when I finally got around to watching Paris is
sex work. That’s just how strong their desire is
about it. My Professor, a friend of mine, wanted
of mainstream media. Their love of fashion and
Burning. After the screening we had a discussion to know what the people who had seen the film
for the first time, thought. I remember feeling so
overwhelmed with emotions and having so many feelings to unpack that wished he didn’t call on
me, so that we could discuss the film one-on-one after class. Because I was friend’s with the
Professor and because he knew it was my first
time watching the film, what did he do? He called on me to discuss my gut reactions to Paris is Burning. As soon as I began speaking I
remember feeling so light headed, so much so
that I ended my reaction to the film with red splats on my notebook and an embarrassing nose
bleed. Now I’m sure half of you are wondering,
to look like the models in Vogue and other forms their lust for high end designers really resonated with me. My knowledge of fashion, style, and
trends really developed from my time working in
fashion retail. However, as a man I usually had a
pretty strict dress code and was limited to wearing menswear. This restriction became ingrained in
me and really stuck with me in my personal dress. One of the ways in which the film really impacted me was the way in which it made me think about
clothing and that I can wear clothing from whatever department and that I too can have the same dress and desire for fashion as the Greenwich, CT women do.
what the hell is this film about that could cause a
“Come on now, it is a known fact that a woman do
Paris is Burning is a documentary that came out
getting around that! You see it on channel seven,
person to get a nose bleed; well, let me tell you… in 1990 about the drag ballroom scene and
culture in the late 80s. The film made me think
about and face a lot of things about myself that I had tucked away and suppressed.
Throughout the whole film, clothing, fashion,
carry an evening bag at dinner time. There’s no between “All My Children” and “Jeopardy”,
”Another World”, “Dallas”, and the whole bit. An evening bag is a must! You have to carry something! No lady is sure at night.”
One of the other major ways the film impacted me
discussed cruising, sex work, and HIV. The
appearing in queer art research, but I had little knowledge of it. For those who don’t know the Christopher Street Pier is a pier in NYC where
mostly gay men went to cruise (have public sex) or to get picked out for sex work. And it was
usually the trans-women or gay men that were
doing sex work because they did not have a lot of employment options because they were so
vheavily discriminated against and it was a way
for them to make a lot of money. However, at the time, the spread of HIV was running rampant. At the time the virus was still being learned
spread, there were no cures or resources, and a the film explored hit me really hard. I had never
experienced an impactful story about AIDS. The
film really taught be about the seriousness of the virus and just how devastating the high number
of deaths were. Queer people were already being ostracised and were coming together as families to support one another (as proved in the film)
and then those communities had to experience frequent loss of those who they’d come to love.
The fear that I was told to know finally hit me after watching that film.