ABSTRACT

D1G1TR@N1 REVo/eLu/aTIONS is a body of work I completed as part of the Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities project, for which I was selected as the Irish. This piece starts with the artistic concept which inspired the exhibition, and is then followed by a reflection of my personal experiences of navigating the world with Gender Dysphoria^TM whilst in the midst of various lock-downs. It describes my return to cyberspace as a form of escapism, which ultimately led me to the piece created for the Full Stack Feminism exhibition Manifestations (Sept. 2023 at the University of Sussex).

Imagine a world, dressed in hot pink flames and smog that might just have last night’s glitter and the sickly sweet scent of Britney Spears’ ‘Midnight Fantasy’ laced throughout its dense vapour. Men enslaved and jacked into intravenous supplies of oestrogen, Transexuals lining the streets adorned in gold plated barely-there armour and McBling era whale-tail thongs, carrying crystal encrusted needles, draped in artillery belts full with vials of hormones. Society has collapsed and the TRANS has taken over, reshaping the world as an OTT (over-the-top) chaotic hellscape with no gender- just ‘cunt’.2 Welcome to the ‘AbomiNATION’ honey, ‘trans’ or get ‘transed’- there’s no escaping this outbreak, the world you know is gone and there’s no turning back. The notions of man and woman are meaningless, everyone is a ‘doll’,3 smoky eyes are blended with compressed ashes of the long gone TERFS4 of the old world and blush is the blood of men that refuse to join the fold- armageddon has never looked so sexy.

Artist-in-Residence - Motivations and Inspirations

The work stemmed from a place of frustration and angst, pre-access to HRT (hormone-replacement therapy), living at home in a small city of 50,000 people- the last time I lived here was as a teenager, struggling hardcore with Gender DysphoriaTM and isolated from queerness (at least offline).
Being an adult living at home, working part-time, while transitioning, trying to access healthcare and simply navigate society as a trans-woman, I found myself returning to the escapism I engaged in as a child- Cyberspace.

I escaped into the world of ‘Elden Ring’ as Kaiju,5 a female Spellblade of my own creation, with her sights set on following the witch ‘Ranni’s vision for a new world, dismantling the old order of the Erdtree. Character creation granting me the ability to imagine a body constructed of polygons that resonated with my own desires of physicality-(Kaiju is tall, broad, and toned, soft featured in the face, busty and curvaceous but bu and strong, ironically a blend of qualities i hope to attain and others that trigger my dysphoria AFK)6 and the world providing me with a vision of a decaying society, fallen cultures and an outlet for my yearning for revolution (violently achieved of course.)

My entire practice revolves around this notion- Cyberspace as a means for radical self-metamorphosis, equipping oneself with the tools to explore identity and culture (primarily gender variance and sexuality) in absence of the restrictions of physicality and social paradigms. Aesthetically my work has always referred to video-games, online microcultures and the visuals of the Y2K era that I was exposed to in my formative years, D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS being no exception to that rule drawing inspiration from 00’s video games ‘girly bruiser’ archetypes- as seen in Lollipop Chainsaw, Tomb Raider, Bayonetta, Bloodrayne, etc.- as well as a clear visual reference to the design of Bratz dolls that dominated childhood bedrooms of my generation, who themselves have a defined legacy of low-poly 3D animated artefacts.

I would be remiss not to mention the outright Biblical imagery of the works also - I was raised Catholic, not fundamentally so, yet the presence of God and the absolute existence of Hell and the Devil was addressed in my upbringing, culturally as an Irishwoman and also as a morbid hyperfixation I developed in my youth for theology, folklore, witchcraft and eschatology (particularly the Book of Revelations, whose allegory is throughout the body of work). This spurned [in the work] an initial reference to 1993’s Doom in which, while taking breaks from Elden Ring, I found myself gunning my way through throngs of demons in a verging-on-apocalyptic world that is faced with the legions of Hell attempting to break through its gates to our plane. I imagined what it would look like to be modded and reskinned in a cuntier fashion, glitter, sparkle, revealing armour, vials of Estradiol as health pick-ups, and thus D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS was born.

REVo/eLu/aTIONS in practice and method

D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS is the third in a series of explorations of the intersections between Transness and Cyberspace-

1. D1g1TR@N (2021) - My degree show work that investigated the initial concept of Cyberspace as a ‘sandbox’ for trans youth, and how as result of this inherent link between the digital and the self, Trans people are Cyborgs (a lá Donna Haraway)

2. D1G1TR@N RE: Loaded (2022)- The desire to liberate oneself from the confines of virtual self-expression, how to transfer the data from the digital-self to the physical-self

Each acting as an imagined archive of experiences, notions and culture of the trans cyborg with a blended existence of online/oine.

D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS has another layer though, one aspect of my engagement with Cyberspace that is new (relative to my childhood escapism) is the unavoidable implementation of doomscrolling7 in my daily routine (I’ve weaned of it now don’t worry).

I cannot begin to explain how harrowing it is to log-on and instantly be faced with an algorithmic curation of stories, posts, videos and memes that are all telling me how AWFUL it is that I’m Trans or how awful it is to be Trans. As an Irish Trans woman I exist in a state of unease, the influence of TERF Island (the UK) to my right, and its radically hateful younger cousin (the US) to my left. While Ireland is not necessarily accepting or even tolerant of my queerness, it’s largely left ignored-I can even legally change my name and my gender marker without medical intervention,8 which is a privilege I won’t disregard, I still find myself anxiously waiting for my government to be consumed by the eldritch hive-mind of english speaking nations in furthering the (global) systemic oppression and violence against my community,

I find it utterly ridiculous and farcical that contemporary discourse around transness paints our community (and mere existence) as some empirical, ideological plague, actively seeking out fresh new victims to infect and absorb into our “lunacy”. Trans people do not have influence to that degree, we are portrayed as near apocalyptic in power, the sanctity of western binary gender, the universal truth of science, the structure of society all collapsing at our whims. From trans exclusionary think pieces in British media, with JK Rowlings9 being the most publicly visible, to media-spotlit medical scandals like the Tavistock Clinic,10 and State-Laws in the US being passed that outright ban drag shows and consider assisting a child through transition as an abuse that should be reported to child-protective services.11 Transphobic rhetoric has very loudly slinked into layman's conversations online as well as profound political discourse AFK- what are we to do with these abominations? How do we stop them before everything we know collapses? Won’t somebody please think of the ‘children’!?

Approaching this body of work I was reminded of my fellow Irelander Johnathan Swift’s (1729) ‘A Modest Proposal’. My practice has always had a fondness for the tongue-in-cheek, the kitsch and satirical, I think in line with an Irish approach to hardship that uses gallows humour. ‘A Modest Proposal’ was an essay written in 1729 that proposed the impoverished Irish Catholics (under English rule) earn more money by selling their children to aristocracy and the wealthy as livestock. I’m openly a fan of the absurd and carried this satirical tradition into this body of work, like Swift, proposing a vision for society that confirms the assumed barbarity and sinisterness of “Trans ideology” [in this case].

D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS then acts as a proposed answer to ‘the Transgender Debate’ , claiming the supposed influence that Trans individuals seem to have over society, violently enforcing our ideology and colonising the CisHetero landscape, reshaping it in our own vision, echoing the actions of Kaiju in Elden Ring, or even the Demons in Doom.

An Act of Protest - Manifestations Exhibition

The residency and body of work came to a conclusion in an exhibition and conference titled ‘Manifestations’ curated by Laurence Hill, FSF curator, who describes the exhibition as ‘an act of protest’. While the majority of work was researched and developed prior to knowing the curatorial vision, I could not have been happier with an outlet for the work that nurtured and amplified the political and emotional charge of the work. One critique I often get in regard to my practice is that it could be perceived as ‘violent towards the female form’ or that it is ‘too angry, shouldn’t I be uplifting the community and creating a positive message for acceptance’. On one hand I can understand how one would come to this conclusion, and I can see what they are trying to say, on the other I wonder if this question would be asked if I were a cis woman and my work was not ‘Trans’- is your inherent perception of me as ‘male’ informing your opinion? Generally, whenever I experience emotion or opinion passionately I am perceived both as ‘the hysterical woman’ and ‘the male aggressor’- ‘Manifestations’ granted me the opportunity to exhibit work in a space, to an audience that wasn’t inclined to approach my work with that on the forefront of their mind- it was refreshing. D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS is by far my most impassioned body of work yet and I am curious to see how dierent audiences may interact and perceive the ‘Tranny Apocalypse’ in all its rage.

D1G1TR@N REVo/eLu/aTIONS was initially meant to be the final chapter of my D1G1TR@N series, quite literally the end times, although it resonated with the true meaning of Apocalypse, from the Greek ‘apokálupsis’- revelation, disclosure. This residency and in turn body of work revealed to me that I am not ready to lay down my arms and shed the moniker of D1G1TR@N, I’ve only just begun, the revolution hasn’t happened yet sweetie- and this time I'm on hormones!

A Special Thank you to,

Laurence Hill, Sandra Kelly, Cearúilín Ní Rua, Steven Cody, Aoife O’Toole & Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities.

Bibliography

Hidetaka Miyazaki-“Elden Ring”, 2022, FromSoftware

John Romero, Sandy Peterson- “Doom”, 1993, iD Software

Hideki Kamiya- “Bayonetta”. 2009, PlatinumGames

Goichi Suda, James Gunn- “Lollipop Chainsaw”, 2012, Grasshopper Manufacture

“Douay-Rheims Bible, The Apocalypse of Saint John (Revelation)”

Haroon Sidique, “Appeal court overturns UK puberty blockers ruling for under-16s”, 2021, the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/17/appeal-court-overturns-uk-puberty-blockers-ruling-for-under-16s-tavistock-keira-bell

7. Ellie Mui, “A timeline of JK Rowling’s comments about women and transgender rights”, 2023, the Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/jk-rowling-tran s-twitter-timeline-b2326256.html

8. Sandra Knipsel, “Anti-trans laws use child protective services to harm transgender youth”, 2022, Rochester.edu, https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4313812-supreme-court-refuses-to- revive-florida-drag-show-law/

9. Zach Schonfeld, Supreme Court refuses to revive Florida drag show law, 2023, the Hill, https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4313812-supreme-court-refuses-to-revive-florida-drag-show-law/

10. Bess Levin, “Drag Queens: 1, Ron DeSantis: 0”, 2023, Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/ron-desantis-drag-brunch-supreme-court

11. Broey Deschanel, “Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All”, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1yfsfQphmo&list=PL-G5hGcs3OTSyu8Q9C3AupSh9S1g30Rd8&index=3&t=1060s&ab_channel=BroeyDeschanel

12. , Honey Bat, “Visceral Femininity: A Bloodborne Video Essay”, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVXV14Vv3M&list=PL-G5hGcs3OTTcbdfUs_cwWIAAWztmmtnb&index=12&ab_channel=HoneyBat

13. Yhara Zayd, “A Monstress Comes of Age: Horror & Girlhood”, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkUbP2KVVl8&t=571s&ab_channel=Yharazayd

14. Donna J. Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991), 149-181.https://bit.ly/3ky2er4

15. Legacy Russell, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (New York: Verso, 2020).

https://www.legacyrussell.com/GLITCHFEMINISM

16. VNS Matrix, “A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century,” 1991.

https://vnsmatrix.net/projects/the-cyberfeminist-manifesto-for-the-21st-century