ii. Queer Aesthetics Shifting Perceptions of Binaries

Body temperature regulating mechanism consisting of water- lle tube aached to a so pad that rests on the forehead Body temperature regulating mechanism consisting of water-filled tube attached to a soft pad that rests on the forehead

Resistance based mechanism aached Resistance based mechanism attached to ap wrapping around the pregnant to flap wrapping around the pregnant person’s stomach, assisting pushing. person’s stomach, assisting pushing

Limb supporting apparatus with free Limb supporting apparatus with free movement capabilties, allowing for movement capabilities, allowing for multiplicity of personal comfort. multiplicity of personal comfort

Wearable contraption consisting of Wearable contraption consisting of shearing device to cut the umbical cord, holding device for mixture for the healing of the vagina and the elongated application device for the same. shearing device to cut the umbical cord, holding device for mixture for the healing of the vagina and the elongated application device for the same

Limb supporting apparatus with free Limb supporting apparatus with free movement capabilties, allowing for movement capabilities, allowing for multiplicity of personal comfort. multiplicity of personal comfort

Slide to aid the lile human’s exit out of Slide to aid the little human’s exit out of the host’s body. the host’s body

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Pool to be occupied by the lile human. Pool to be occupied by the little human. Space for the removal of the lile Space for the removal of the little human from the host by disaaching human from the host by disattaching the umbical cord. the umbical cord

Queer Aesthetic: Shifting Perceptions of Binaries

When bodies are standardized, their expected behaviours are standardized as well. This image is attempting to challenge the accepted “rituals” of childbirth. When every person giving birth experiences it in different ways, why is the universalized horizontal bed the space of that experience?

The image shows a pregnant person in a contraption that is engineered by the scavengers to have free movement to allow for the pregnant body to position itself the way it needs to. The person in the back is manually aiding pushing using a resistance-based mechanism that allows them to push using their legs. The tube at the top of the mechanism holds water that trickles down the tubes and wets the attached fabric, keeping the pregnant person’s body temperature low. The baby slides down the tube into a pool as it leaves the body. These images have borrowed elements from indigenous birthing practices of being somewhat vertical while giving birth and the Nilotic tribe practice of assisted pushing. 123

This image, and the others depicting this thesis are manifestations of queer aesthetics and, therefore, mimicry. 124 Large scale, industrial pieces of machinery are used as representations of the meta-being of the Capitalocene— technology. They metaphorically represent the widespread, diverse branches of the term—from digital technology to space technology. This representation is to manifest on paper, the ironic queering of capitalist technology to be diverse engineered by those occupying this speculative world. In the Capitalocene, technology is weaponized to be a tool of oppression that disproportionately harms and polices othered bodies. By representing those othered groups as the ones appropriating the very technology that was harnessed to harm them, and dismantling its original instrumentality, a potentiality, as Giorgio Agamben calls it, emerges. 125 Jose Esteban Muñoz discusses temporalities in relation to Agamben’s concept of potentiality by saying, “Potentialities have a temporality that is not in the present but, more nearly, in the horizon, which we can understand as futurity,” 126 By establishing a temporal difference between potentiality and possibility and situating images of queer world-making within the futurity of potentiality rather than the “present-ness” of possibility, a post-capitalist, queered world becomes a future to strive for, rather than an abstract thought that “cannot” exist in the capitalist present. It becomes, what Muñoz mentions, a

123. “Born at the End of a Rope: Embracing Indigenous Childbirth Traditions to Save Lives,” United Nations Population Fund, February 14, 2019, https://www.unfpa.org/news/ born-end-rope-embracing-indigenous-childbirth-tradi tions-save-lives. 124. Bhabha, 153. 125. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 99 126. Ibid, 99.

Resistance based mechanism for holding Resistance based mechanism for holding and pushing food through. and pushing food through

Twisting mechanism with needles at the Twisting mechanism with needles at the end that aach to protruding food end that attach to protruding food bundles bundles and braids them together and braids them together

Slide for food braids to slie down amidst Slide for food braids to slide down amidst the dripture of enhancing agent. the dripture of enhancing agent

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Squishing mechanism allowing food Squishing mechanism allowing food pushed in through to be broken down pushed through to be compacted and compacted through pressure and be through pressure and be pushed down in pushed dout in cyclindrical bundles. cylindrical bundles

Holder and dripper of food enhancer Holder and dripper of food enhancer agent agent

Bundle holder lled with food cooking Bundle holder filled with food cooking agent and heated pebbles for the agent and heated pebbles for the soaking soaking of food bundles. of food bundles

“utopian performativity” that “suggests another modality of doing and becoming that is in process, unfinished.” 127 This prescription of the unfinished to the process of world-making gives it the space it needs to be fluid and break free from the rigidity of capitalist and colonial categories.

This speculated world or no-place is characterized by multiplicities —it is built on the acceptance of intersectionality. As it attempts to blur the binaries amongst and between humans, non-humans, nature, culture and technologies, this world establishes the intersectional identities of all these beings as the foundation of this blurring. Therefore, these images are a manifestation of that. The same contraption that was used as a birthing mechanism, is utilized as a mechanism to build food, as shown in this image. The resistance mechanism used by the person to aid pushing now becomes a collection spot that can push compressed food out through the holes that held the pregnant person’s body. The leg holders hold a fabric filled with herb water that drips over the food bundles as they roll down the slide the baby slid down on, into the same pool. One being or one action doesn’t hold privilege over the other, and the nuanced sentiments attached to actions are questioned.

Within the rigidity of the capitalist world, reproduction is attributed “sacred-ness” while the body of the person giving birth is policed. The bodies of people with uteresus are put under extreme scrutiny—abortion laws privilege lives of unborn foetuses over the life of the person giving birth, reproductive agency of trans and non-binary people with uteresus is questioned and stolen, morality of womxn giving birth without being married is maligned. This dichotomy of value placed on the action of reproduction and the person giving birth is attempted to be broken down in this series of images. Hygiene, when preparing food has different variations and traditions around the world and all those traditions are rooted in local knowledge. Culture is developed around food preparation. By attributing a multiplicity of purpose to the birthing apparatus by representing it as a food preparation apparatus as well, stigmas of “uncleanliness” attached to giving birth and other biological processes of the reproductive system like menstruation implemented by patriarchal systems are decolonized.

A blurring of culture and technology occurs in these two images as well, where technology produces culture and culture depends on technology to remain fluid. The queered technological aesthetic that decolonizes the discourse of reproduction and aids in food production, also decolonizes what constitutes as culture. Cultural preservation is a priority in marginalized communities since culture is heavily based in history. Capitalist narrative of modernity renders culture an

127. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 99

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Bathing space occupied by bird. Bathing space occupied by bird. Potentially hunting ground if it doesn’t Potentially hunting ground if it does not see the hawk soon. see the hawk soon

object of the past, or not modern. This divides culture and technology and places them in two different linear temporalities. In queer(ed) futurity, however, technology is a shapeshifter which is inherently non-binary, and temporalities flow through one another. This topples the notion of static culture and knowledge and allows technology to be intrinsic to cultural production.

The third image allows further appropriation of the apparatus where it is utilized as a watering hole for a small bird and a possible hunting ground for the hawk watching. Amongst the binaries that divide the capitalist world, the divide between humans and non-human organisms is used to substantiate other divides as well. Hierarchy of value of life is established in terms of human-ness and human proximity, and results in induced anthropocentrism. This image is a rejection of the first thought that the viewer thinks of—the birds are occupying the technology used for birthing and food preparation—but rather, that the birds are occupying this technology as a space that affords occupation.

The narrative of boundaries has divided even the non-human world into hierarchies—hierarchies that direct human empathy. Companion species like dogs and cats and indoor plants are subjects of empathy due to their proximity to humans, while millions of animals become objects as they are mass murdered in capitalist food production plants. Anna Tsing, in her book The Mushroom at the End of the World discusses this phenomenon—“Over the past few decades , many kinds of scholars have shown that allowing only human protagonists into our stories is not just ordinary human bias; it is a cultural agenda tied to dreams of progress of modernization. There are other ways of making worlds. Anthropologists have become interested, for example, in how subsistence hunters recognize other living beings as “persons,” that is, protagonists of stories. Indeed how could it be otherwise? Yet, expectations of progress block this insight: talking animals are for children and primitives. Their voices silent, we imagine well-being without them. We trample over them for our own advancement; we forget that collaborative survivals require cross-species coordinations.” 128 This multi-species, collaborative existence is part of Indigenous knowledge and that of communities of color globally, but have been ignored by the worship of modernization and modernity which render these epistemologies an object of the past.

This image is, therefore, an establishment of a multispecies, collaborative existence in a post-capitalist world, where hierarchies of human and non-human are broken down and the worth of non-human lives are not established in human terms.

128. Tsing, 155.