A Resistance of Normality through Imagery: Queer Aesthetics and Contemporary Queer Photography

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A Resistance of Normality Through Imagery

Queer Aesthetics and Contemporary Queer Photography

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Linda Zhengová S1657364 Master Thesis

Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University

Master’s in Media Studies, Film and Photographic Studies Supervisor: Dr. Eliza Steinbock

Second Reader: Dr. Pepita Hesselberth Word Count: 20 578

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Acknowledgements

Foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Eliza Steinbock for being a great thesis supervisor who always provided me with constructive feedback and helped me build my “lego.” Their expertise in the field of gender studies and visual culture proved to be a great match with my research. I am, therefore, very grateful for having them as my mentor.

I would also like to thank Janaan Farhat and Ish Doney for kindly checking my English and having a conversation with me about my thesis.

In particular, I would also like to thank my family for supporting and encouraging me in my studies. My gratitude goes especially to Pavel who always provided me with moral support and the motivation to continue.

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the contemporary queer photography of the artists Zanele Muholi, Momo Okabe, and Zach Blas. More specifically, it examines the role of different theories on gender, queerness, and photography in connection to queer time and space, haptics, affect, and queer opacity. These aesthetic elements are treated as potentially subversive in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the society of control. The frameworks of both queer and photography theories are employed to analyze the photographs’ formal and political aspects in order to explore their subversive possibilities. My readings and analysis of the photographs suggest that each of these artists deploys aesthetic features as queer tactics to resist the society of control. Additionally, based on the analysis of my own photographic series, Showering with Glasses (2018), I provide an artist’s perspective on possible methods to approach queer aesthetics and the ways in which they might be harnessed as queer tactics. By specifically addressing contemporary queer photography, my hope is to provide insight into what this genre is capable of achieving in the real world.

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Introduction

In 1992, one of the most prominent philosophers, Gilles Deleuze, wrote his text “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” His text can be understood as a reaction to Michel Foucault’s book

Discipline and Punish (1975) where Foucault analyzes the operation of disciplinary societies. In

such societies, subjects are observed hierarchically, their judgment is normalized, and they are constantly examined.1_{In contrast, Deleuze outlines a shift from an industrial and hence,}

disciplinary society towards a post-industrial society of control. He argues that this change took place together with the birth of neoliberalism as the operation of markets has become the main apparatus of social control.2_{Deleuze states that now, “control is short-term and [consists] of}

rapid rates of turnover, but also continuous without limit, while discipline was of long duration, infinite, and discontinuous.”3_{In this way, a society of control can be understood as an open}

system where people live in a sheer delusion of having freedom. In this system, power and responsibility are mediated through technology, making them diffused and decentralized as a result. Consequently, Deleuze highlights the necessity of undermining the system by stating that “there is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.”4

Since Deleuze does not provide any specific examples of such weapons, there is some room for interpretation which allows for a shift from theory to practice. The medium of photography can be regarded as a possible tool for the subversion of the society of control. Throughout history, photography has evolved from a scientific medium to document into a tool to criticize, suggest, and trigger new ideas in relation to what a particular image represents. In addition, thanks to the Internet and social media, people are constantly exposed to thousands of images every day. Nonetheless, not all imagery has the same impact and it is therefore important to investigate the type of photography that can challenge this system and the existing status quo.

Emerging in the 1990s, queer theory quickly infiltrated the art sphere, becoming particularly relevant to contemporary queer photography. Based on my research and analysis, I consider contemporary queer photography to be a suitable medium to challenge the society of control through its aesthetics which aim for the contestation of the viewer by inviting a non-binary gaze and a post-human imagining of ourselves. Correspondingly, this thesis attempts to

1_{See Foucault’s (1975) “Part Three: Discipline” and the sub-section “The Means of Correct Training” (170-195).} 2_{Deleuze, 1992, 6.}

3_{Deleuze, 1992, 6.} 4_{Deleuze, 1992, 4.}

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answer the question: How can the queer photography of Momo Okabe, Zanele Muholi, and Zach Blas—through the introduction of alternative time and space, affect, haptics, and opacity—function as weapons to counter the society of control?

This thesis starts with a brief introduction to gender and queer theory in order to situate this type of photography within a suitable framework that aligns with theories of photography. Furthermore in chapter one, specific queer aesthetics—such as queer time and space, affective and haptic aspects of queer photography, and opacity—are identified and treated as potential tools of subversion. To demonstrate the interchangeability of queer aesthetic features in queer photography, I have chosen to analyze the works of three contemporary artists: Zanele Muholi, Momo Okabe, and Zach Blas. These artists work in three different countries and cultural contexts but in the same historical period. My selection of their works is strongly personal as they were chosen based on my own perception of their works and the ways in which they resonate affectively with me. As such, I attempt in the next few chapters to delineate as accurately as possible the ways in which certain photographs can affect their viewers. This thesis additionally includes an epilogue discussing my photographic series Showering with Glasses (2018) where I aim to answer the question: What are possible methods for approaching queer aesthetics from an artist's perspective, and how can these methods be made to function as queer tactics? By exploring this process, I hope to provide an artist perspective on how to approach queer art from the maker’s position and demonstrate the urgency for creating queer art.

To briefly introduce the artists, Zanele Muholi (born 1972) is a South African documentary photographer and activist who defends the rights of South African queer communities. She is notable for decrying the oppression they are subjected to in the form of “corrective” rapes, murders, and discriminatory laws which are consistently enforced.5_In

chapters two and three, I analyze her work Faces and Phases (2006-2016) which documents South Africa’s black lesbians and transmen through traditional black and white portraiture that is largely set outdoors. However, in chapter four, I focus on her shift from portraying others to portraying herself in her series Somnyama Ngonyama [Hail the Dark Lioness] (2014-2016). In both works, she creates a confrontational dialogue with the viewer while simultaneously using different tactics of queer aesthetics, some of which correspond strongly with aspects of archive-making and the importance of curatorship in connection to her work.

The second artist discussed is Momo Okabe (born 1981), a Japanese documentary and art photographer who exposes the intimate details of her life to her viewers through the

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portrayal of her lovers and their surroundings. Throughout the upcoming chapters, I analyze her photographic series Bible, which features photographs taken of destroyed landscapes in the aftermath of the tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011. In this series, there is an intriguing juxtaposition of landscape images with private portraits where Bible photobook highlights the relationship between these two types of photographs even further. Similarly to Muholi, Okabe’s book Bible can be connected to photographic practices of archiving and specifically to Roland Barthes’ theory of punctum.

Lastly, Zach Blas is an American multi-media artist and writer who particularly addresses queer opacity in his work. In the following chapters, I concentrate on his project Facial

Weaponization Suite (2011-2014) which used biometric technologies and 3D programming to scan

and deform human faces before molding them into sculptures that served as different forms of masks. Although his work process makes use of many media forms, I still position his work within the discourse of photography as this medium is used in the beginning of this process to capture the participants’ faces. Similarly, in their final form, he uses his masks as tools to subvert the function of cameras by making faces unreadable to biometric technologies. This prevents any collection of data or information about the people wearing them. As a result, I consider Blas to be an artist who stretches the definition of photography because he not only uses the medium to create his work but his art also speaks back to and criticizes how the camera has been used to reinforce the mechanisms that enable the society of control to operate unimpeded. Therefore, his art is related to the concepts of visibility and invisibility where its main aim is to expose oppressive power structures that use biometric technologies while questioning the privacy violations taking place in the current era of surveillance capitalism.

Since each of these three artists is connected to queer time and space, affect, haptics, and queer opacity, even if to different extents, they are still discussed together in this thesis in order to identify their similarities and differences. They each use queer tactics with the goal of having an impact on the viewer and triggering a process of contemplation and self-reflection. Together, their art emphasizes photography’s political and social role where visuals become vehicles for such realization. Upon examining their aesthetics and potential transformative and subversive power, I believe that such analysis may facilitate a movement towards a new way of understanding and operating in reality and point to its changeability, thereby destabilizing current norms and binaries regarding sex, gender, and sexuality.

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Chapter One:

Queer Theory and Photography

Figure 1 – Momo Okabe, Bible, 2014, a spread of two full bleed images from Okabe’s photobook Bible, 36.7 x 26.5 cm, pages 50-51.

One day, I came across a photobook by Momo Okabe in between a selection of new releases in an art library. It’s title, Bible, caught my attention. I randomly opened the book to a page that showed a spread of two full bleed images (Figure 1), with the first depicting a destroyed landscape in dark yellow tones and the second showing a magenta-hued portrait of a person crying.

The choice of the complementary colors, purple and yellow, make the photographs immediately communicate with each other. The dialogue between the two photographs is also established through their composition as the vertical lines of the right image speak to the semi-horizontal lines on the left. On one hand, they seem to be divided but upon further observation, they appear to crash into each other and hence, create a sense of tension. The relationship between the two images is highlighted even further when flipping the pages—as if the two photographs suddenly merge and become one.

With regards to the context of this photobook, it tells a complex story about Okabe and her two ex-lovers’ sex transitions through images that are juxtaposed with photographs of Fukushima’s damaged landscape in the wake of the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster. This strange combination of documentary photographs with unusually saturated colors—which is

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suggestive of Okabe’s operation both in the realm of the real and unreal—may trigger feelings of longing, desperation, and a desire to escape to a potential alternative world. As Okabe stated herself, her photographs mirror her sexual experiences which she compares to “fear, despair and anger of facing death caused by the tsunami.”6_{The photographs may, therefore, be}

interpreted as an underlying struggle between desire and grief—feelings depicted through the subject’s face reflecting the existential struggle of a betrayed and wounded transgender body trying to survive in a Japanese society. However, the photographs simultaneously evoke a spark of hope which can be particularly sensed through the subject’s piercing gaze which almost appears to be an appeal to the viewer for help to change the situation in which the subject exists. This concrete representation of the tsunami together with an abstract depiction of transgender living through Okabe's use of colors and choice of subjects and objects reflects an approach that confuses any existing binary representations, particularly in connection to sex, gender, and sexuality. Consequently, it is impossible to read such images merely in relation to photographic theories as an additional framework is needed, which is queer theory in this case.

1.1 Queer Theory

Queer theory can be said to be built on anti-essentialist conceptualizations of gender7_which

highlight the term's socially constructed origin. The concept of gender remains in the center of academic debates in both the sciences and the humanities—indicating that defining the term is in no way an easy task. In her book The Second Sex (1956), existentialist Simone de Beauvoir famously states that “one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman.”8_{Based on this}

phenomenological interpretation,9_{post-structuralist Judith Butler attempts to provide a}

contemporary definition of gender as “in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather it is an identity tenuously constituted in time—an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts.”10_{Butler argues that these acts of gender manufacture the}

idea of gender and without them, there would be no concept of gender at all. Hence, Butler perceives gender to be a construction that “regularly conceals its genesis” where the repetition

6_{Neave, 2014.}

7_{For example, see the works of Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Lauren Berlant.} 8_{De Beauvoir, 1956, 273.}

9_{Phenomenology, in relation to gender theory, studies the ways in which “bodies get crafted into genders” (Butler,}

1988, 525). For a further discussion of de Beauvoir’s feminist contribution to the phenomenological approach to gender, see her book The Second Sex (1956).

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of acts is translated onto the body which then constitutes the essence of gender.11_{This repetition}

of acts is a reproduction of an already socially-established set of meanings which consequently become the form of their legitimation.12_{Therefore, Butler suggests that people’s bodies become}

crafted into genders that suit the culturally restricted corporeal space people currently live in.13

Furthermore, she proposes that the recurring presumption of a binary gender system, where gender corresponds directly with sex, has strong punitive repercussions for people who do not fit such a binary.14_{Butler explains that this is because the existence of gender identities}

that lie on the spectrum of discontinuity depends on existing norms of continuity which constantly denounce any non-conforming sexual desires and practices.15_{As a consequence,}

“‘gender identities’ that fail to conform to those norms of cultural intelligibility, [...] appear only as developmental failures or logical impossibilities.”16_{She claims that the possibility of}

transforming the current binary system lies in the inconsistency between such performative acts and the failure to repeat them, “or a parodic repetition that exposes the phantasmatic effect of abiding identity as a politically tenuous construction.”17

The emerging discourse of queer theory can be considered to be one attempt at escaping these punitive consequences for non-conforming gender identities as it rejects the notion of gender as a fixed and already established concept. The main reason for queer theory’s increasing popularity is that in contrast to gender, it is not a “thing”18_{and it is therefore}

impossible to incorporate it into a single discourse. As art historian Alex Pilcher states, “queer” is not a specific category; instead, it is a deviation from commonly agreed norms which makes

11_{Butler, 1988, 522.} 12_{Butler, 1988, 526.} 13_{Butler, 1988, 526.} 14_{Butler, 1999, 10; Butler, 1988, 522.} 15_{Butler, 1999, 23.} 16_{Butler, 1999, 24.}

17_{Butler, 1999, 179; By “performative acts,” Butler means the performance of gender as something that is not}

pre-constituted biologically but rather based on social agreements, turning it into a socio-cultural fiction. When referring to “a parodic repetition,” she uses the example of drag performances to delineate how such acts contribute to the realization that gender is a fabricated fantasy. Therefore, for Butler, the failure to repeat the acts of gender according to the norm or to transform gender into a parody can destabilize its function and hence, the oppression based on one’s non-conforming gender. She argues that above all, when the categories of gender are questioned (for instance, when encountering a transgender person who cannot strictly fit the pre-constituted binary of male or female), “the reality of gender is also put into crisis” by confounding the boundaries of what is real and unreal. For Butler, this realization has a subversive potential resulting in the understanding that what is “real” is unstable and susceptible to change (Butler, 1999, xxiii).

18_{By “thing,” I mean that in contrast to the concept of gender which is often reflected in widely recognized}

gendered objects (such as clothes or toys), the notion of queer does not necessarily have these prototypes due to its abstract definitions. Artists are only recently beginning to explore what a potential queer object would look like and what its function would be (see for instance Loo Zihan, Henry Franks, or Jaime Pitarch and their group exhibition Fault-lines: Disparate and Desperate Intimacies). However, it is important to additionally question whether queer scholarship needs queer objects in the first place.

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the term “both slippery and potentially subversive.”19_{Critical theorist reneé c. hoogland}

outlines a brief history of the use of the word “queer” and states that in the sixteenth century, the word “queer” was used to describe someone with “an unusual lifestyle or eccentric behavior.”20_{It was only during the nineteenth century that the word began to be used in a}

derogatory manner as it became infused with certain sexual connotations. For some people, the latter interpretation of the word “queer” continues to be prevalent. However, in the last few decades, “queer” has come to be more commonly understood as an umbrella term for people who practice “non-heteronormative modes of being and behavior.”21_{Hence, this specific}

definition of “queer” is thus the main basis from which queer theory stems.

According to hoogland, the main asset of queer theory is that it problematizes and questions “all forms of gender and sexual categorization.”22_{Similarly, sociologist Lucy Nicholas}

proposes that “queer” is a non-identitarian stance which can contribute to positive ethics and sociality “without undermining its own premises of celebrating limitless differences.”23_Hence,

“queerness” can be perceived of as a critical position rather than an identity.24_{Moreover, queer}

and critical theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick finds queer work that cannot be classified under any category of gender and sexuality to be the most exciting because it undermines all forms of essentialism.25

On the other hand, many theorists26_{have criticized queer theory for its abstractness and}

false universalism. In her text, Sedgwick underlines two main ways of understanding sexuality— as either “minoritizing” or “universalizing.”27_{The minoritizing approach is highlighted with}

the processes of identification that are used to delineate the homosexual minority which can problematically prompt separatism. Furthermore, she warns of the danger of queer theory where the universalizing approach predominates and hence can turn into false universalism where minority differences are overlooked through this approach’s abstract escape from specific gender identities.28_{A similar concern is expressed in the text Queers___ This (2010) by literary}

scholar Heather Love. She outlines the main difference between queer studies, on the one hand,

19_{Pilcher, 2017, 12.} 20_{hoogland, 2009, 101.} 21_{hoogland, 2009, 101.} 22_{hoogland, 2009, 101.} 23_{Nicholas, 2015, 2.} 24_{Nicholas, 2015, 6-7.} 25_{Sedgwick, 1994, 8.}

26_{See for instance: Love, 2010; Feldman, 2009; Cohen, 2005 [1997]; Sedgwick, 1990; Norton, n.d.} 27_{Sedgwick, 1990, 1.}

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and gay and lesbian studies, on the other, which is that the former’s move away from specific gender identities results in their generalization.29_{In contrast to theorists like hoogland, Nicholas,}

and Pilcher, Love argues that the notion of queer is never fully achieved and that it is difficult for her to let go of her lesbian identity completely. Rather, her interest lies in a “lived experience” where by describing it, she can expose the continuing inequality that structures the current world.30_{In general, recognizing these justified criticisms is important and is helpful in}

finding the right balance between these approaches.

I would like to argue that, especially in connection to art, I consider the abstractness and dynamics of queer theory to be liberating. Queer theory not only disrupts normative ways of thinking but also introduces and makes alternative forms of being possible. As queer theorists Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner propose, queer theory has the potential to be transformed into practice as in the mode of a queer commentary31_{which can be identified, for instance, as}

a text, an artwork, or a speech that aim to challenge the status quo regarding sex, gender, and sexuality. In contrast to gender which is based on a set of socially-determined meanings, queer commentary refuses “to draw boundaries around its constituency.”32_{Its main goal is to “create}

publics, publics that can comprehend their own differences or privileges and struggle; publics whose abstract spaces can also be lived in, remembered, hoped for.”33

In his 2002 article “Publics and Counterpublics,” Warner makes a distinction between the terms “publics” and “counterpublics.” He argues that the former has seven characteristics34

which can be summarized into a definition of “a space of discourse […] organized by discourse” where the concatenation of texts and their circulation over time create publics.35_{According to}

Warner, publics can be regarded additionally as “an engine for social mutation” which is ideologically dependent on an established “hierarchy of faculties that allows some activities to count as public or general, while others are thought to be merely personal, private, or

29_{Love, 2010, 181.} 30_{Love, 2010, 186.}

31_{According to Berlant and Warner (1995), a queer commentary “has vital precedents and collaborations in}

aesthetic genres and journalism” and “provides […] perspectives and archives to challenge the comforts of privilege and self-consciousness” (344-347).

32_{Berlant and Warner, 1995, 345.} 33_{Berlant and Warner, 1995, 344.}

34_{“1. A public is self-organized. […] 2. A public is a relation among strangers. […] 3. The address of public speech}

is both personal and impersonal. […] 4. A public is constituted through mere attention. […] 5. A public is a social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse. […] 6. Publics act historically according to the temporality of their circulation. […] 7. A public is poetic world-making” (Warner, 2002, 49-82).

35_{Warner, 2002, 50-62;} 35_{Warner, 2002, 50-62.}

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particular.”36_{On the other hand, counterpublics are publics which are “not merely a subset of}

the public, but constituted through a conflictual relation to the dominant public.”37_{The aim of}

counterpublics is to challenge existing hierarchies in their respective societies “by projecting a space of discursive circulation among strangers as a social entity.”38_{In this way, queer}

commentaries can be related more to counterpublics due to their subversive and transformative potential in regards to the dominant publics of heteronormativity. Hence, the concepts of queer commentary and counterpublics are crucial for the use of queer theory, as in this case, they provide a way to advance from merely academic contexts into real life scenarios.

While it is important to acknowledge the existing criticisms of queer theory, it is also necessary to utilize its strengths and build upon its limitations to search further for its abstract potentiality in practice. Through its abstractness and the envisioning of queer futures, I believe that queer photography can be a tool to realize queer theory in practice as it has the power to expose the oppressive binaries surrounding sex, gender, and sexuality. Queer theory can be considered a useful framework from which to approach queer photography because its capacity to create new aesthetics and forms of representation strongly corresponds with the formulation of queer commentaries, allowing for the emergence of counterpublics. These two concepts become possible by generating queer art and exposing it in both private and public spaces, having the power to momentarily disrupt normative ways of being and contribute to the creation of new contexts and hence, counterpublics. Thus, based on the above-mentioned theory, it is essential to analyze the ways queer photography might disrupt normative narratives and temporalities that structure people’s understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality and contribute to a fluid and ambiguous re-evaluation of such categories. Hence, the next section discusses queer theory in relation to art and specifically analyzes the aesthetics of queer photography where this potential might be realized.

1.2 The Aesthetics of Queer Photography

In connection to queer theory, art can also operate on a level of queerness and has the ability to produce a queer commentary. In the 1980s, queer art was defined as art created by homosexual artists dealing with issues of identity politics.39_{However, this reductive} 36_{Warner, 2002, 81-84.}

37_{Warner further argues that through this process, counterpublics allow its subjects to form their own subjectivities}

“around the requirements of public circulation and stranger sociability” (Warner, 2002, 84-85).

38_{Warner, 2002, 87.} 39_{Tate Glossary, 2018.}

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presupposition has been expanded in recent years and has begun to move in a different direction. Queer art is now more strongly associated with the development of queer theory and can be understood as a form of expression detaching from particular gender identities and the cultural stereotypes that surround them. Hence, queer theory functions in practice, such as in art, but it does not necessarily produce practical solutions. Instead, it suggests new possibilities and perspectives on the current state of politics. The question is, how can we identify queer visual practices and distinguish them from typical representations of gender binarism?

In his introduction to book Queer (2016), art historian David J. Getsy outlines the activist side of queerness which has evolved into “a mode of resistance to the oppression and erasure of sexual minorities.”40_{At the same time, this stance functions as a “rejection of assimilationism,”}

operating against the drive for homosexual communities to be accepted as “normal.”41_Hence,

this attitude is strongly reflected in queer art where anti-mainstream ideas and self-determination predominate as differences are celebrated. Furthermore, he argues that queer art, together with its definitions, has changed throughout history. Queer art had specifically adopted “politics of visibility” before the 1980s when street performances and guerilla art were on the rise.42_{Nevertheless, it was only during the AIDS crisis that this type of politics reached}

its climax because the situation demanded a global response that could enhance this visibility. During this turbulent decade of the 1980s, artists also focused on expressing their rage and often used “in-your-face” tactics to challenge the power inequalities they were experiencing at the time.43

According to Getsy, after the emergence of queer theory, artists started to explore “utopian and dystopian alternatives to the ordinary, adopt outlaw stances, embrace criminality and opacity, and forge unprecedented kinships, relationships, loves, and communities.”44

Therefore, the next sub-sections focus on the striking aesthetics of queer photography after the emergence of queer theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They seek to situate queer photography within an aesthetic discourse that is relevant to today’s historical conditions. It is additionally important to note that my attempt here is not to delineate aesthetics that are specific to queer photography but rather to pay attention to the purposes of queer aesthetics in relation to the photograph’s cultural and historical context. As a result, the concepts of queer time and space, haptic and affective aspects of queer photography, and queer opacity are discussed.

40_{Getsy, 2016, 12.} 41_{Getsy, 2016, 12.} 42_{Getsy, 2016, 16.} 43_{Getsy, 2016, 16.} 44_{Getsy, 2016, 26.}

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1.2.1 Queer Time and Space

According to queer theorist Judith Halberstam, it is necessary to address queer time and space from a different perspective than the conventional understanding of time through capitalism,45

which emphasizes progress and linearity. According to her, queer time and space develop in contrast to “institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction.”46 _{By refusing}

“normality,” they propose alternatives to the hegemonic time and space that currently structure the vast majority of postmodern capitalist societies. Alternative queer temporalities and spaces can be envisioned in art when the viewer is allowed to believe that queer futures can be “imagined according to logics that lie outside of those paradigmatic markers of life experience.”47_{Thereby, queer art establishes and analyzes linkages between various}

non-conforming bodies and practices and, through imagination, allows for trespassing on normative time and space.48

Queer temporality disrupts straight time49_{and can be interpreted as a mindset rather}

than a historical period.50_{Failure is a crucial aesthetic feature of queer art as “within the straight}

time the queer can only fail.”51_{As queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz states, the representation}

of failure in queer art can undermine the flow of straight time and highlight queer time’s erasure in it, hence, disturbing the overall notion of temporality.52_{Halberstam sees queer failure as a}

potential tool that can be used to exploit the ambiguity surrounding ideological apparatuses by

45 _{For a detailed description of the conventional understanding of time through capitalism, see}

Hernández-Navarro (2011) who provides an analysis of video art dealing with the topic of migration and identifies his selected artworks as an interruption of the hegemonic time of capital. For another account see David Harvey’s book The

Condition of Postmodernity (1989). Halberstam (2005) explains how his theory contributes to the understanding of time

as “organized according to the logic of capital accumulation” where those who benefit from capitalism “experience this logic as inevitable, and they are therefore able to ignore, repress, or erase the demands made on them and others by an unjust system” (7).

46_{Halberstam, 2005, 1.}

47_{Halberstam is specifically referring here to birth, marriage, reproduction, and death (2005, 2).} 48_{Seitler, 2014, 52.}

49_{Both Halberstam (2005) and Muñoz (2009) position their theory of queer time and space in contrast to the}

notion of straight time which can be understood as the time of heterosexuality and linearity. Specifically, Muñoz (2009) states that the straight time is a “self-naturalizing temporality” where its “presentness” needs to be questioned (25). He refers to Martin Heidegger’s book Being and Time (1996) which highlights time’s timelessness and ecstatic aspects (Past, Present, and Future), alluding to the presence of multiple temporalities at the same time (329). Through Heidegger’s book, Muñoz establishes a dialogue with time’s queerness as for him, queer time is based on ecstatic and horizontal temporality which paves the way for “a greater openness to the world” (25). Muñoz provides an example of a poem (“A Photograph” by James Schuyler) which for him embodies such timeless function (see pages 23-25). As the title and content of Schuyler’s poem indicate, the medium of photography may be particularly evocative of multiple temporalities when regarding the time of the viewer, the photograph, the photographer, and the subject depicted.

50_{Barber and Clark, 2002, 8; Muñoz, 2009, 171.} 51_{Muñoz, 2009, 174.}

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exposing the existence of alternatives to hegemonic systems.53_{The dominant time of capital}

eliminates the existence of any other times and, therefore, oppresses people who fail to fit into such time.54_{Correspondingly, the representation of queer time illustrates the fact that queers}

occupy a position “out-of-time” and “out-of-synch” with the dominant flow of time. By pointing towards the discontinuity of hegemonic time, exposure of queer time in art has the ability to unmask its oppressive power structures.

Muñoz states that the starting point for queer space is a critical imagination that reflects both self-analysis and social critique on “how the world could be and indeed should be.”55_In

this way, queer fantasy is related to utopian aspirations and their combination has the potential to pave the way for political transformation.56_{The existence of a queer utopia can be, therefore}

understood as a positive visualization of a queer future. As utopianism mirrors failure to be normal, this escapist imagination is one of the most crucial aspects of queer art’s aesthetics that can be used as a tactics to resist the current state of politics. Hence, there is a need to first imagine queer spaces, then search for them and lastly, find ways to maintain and celebrate them.57_{In addition, according to Halberstam, through the process of archiving, these spaces}

also need to be theorized and require a dynamic discourse that can surround them.58_{As a}

consequence, queer space relates back to Warner’s notion of counterpublics because as Halberstam argues, counterpublics can emerge and contribute to new understandings of space through artists’ place-making practices.59

The importance of imagination to queer time and space is particularly relevant in the domain of art. This envisioning of a different time and space can function as “a communicative and collective mode of transport” operating against societal demands.60_{Literary scholar Dana}

Seitler states that the aesthetic encounter that can be stimulated through the representation of queer time and space can enhance our vision in terms of affinities and relatedness and hence, contribute to a new understanding of ourselves in relation to the world, challenging any forms of alienation reproduced in “normal” time and space.61_{Just as Halberstam argues for an} 53_{Halberstam, 2011, 88-89.}

54_{Hernández-Navarro, 2011, 193.} 55_{Muñoz, 2009, 143.}

56_{Muñoz, 2009, 172.} 57_{Halberstam, 2005, 14.}

58_{Halberstam, 2005, 14; With this point, Halberstam is specifically referring to Samuel R. Delany’s theorization}

of queer spaces. For a further discussion on the maintenance of queer spaces, see Delany’s book Times Square Red,

Times Square Blue (1999).

59_{Halberstam, 2005, 6.} 60_{Muñoz, 2009, 144.} 61_{Seitler, 2014, 52.}

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archiving process in relation to queer time and space, I see potential in queer photography because it can serve as a suitable medium for establishing a sense of a collective memory and documenting the dynamics of queer activity. My hypothesis is that queer photography has the potential to provide deeper insight into the power structures of hegemonic spatiotemporality and has the capacity to subvert it by challenging the “conventional logics of development, maturity, adulthood, and responsibility.”62_{The representation of queer time and space may}

establish a sense of an imagined collective regardless of time and space, thereby contributing to a powerful queer aesthetic experience. This intensive experience has the potential to instill an affective relationship between the viewer and a cultural object where the artwork no longer embodies a merely visual representation but rather comes into existence in the mind of the viewer. Accordingly, affect is another important aspect of queer art and queer photography specifically which is further discussed in the following section.

1.2.2 Affective and Haptic Aspects of Queer Photography

Cultural studies scholar Ernst van Alphen defines affect as a transmitted intensity between a human body and an animate being or inanimate object, causing the viewer to be “shocked to thought.”63_{He explains “shock to thought” to be the result of affect which in this relation}

functions as a catalyst for critical inquiry.64_{Furthermore, he argues that affects are a byproduct}

of judgment, functioning as “physiological shifts accompanying a judgment” which happens “as a result of the evaluative, positive or negative, orientation toward an object or other person.”65

Van Alphen’s insights in relation to affect are crucial for the analysis of art as he acknowledges affective relations not only in human-to-human exchanges but also in human-to-inhuman ones where the latter is particularly relevant to the analysis of affective relations between the viewer and a cultural object. However, upon distinguishing affects from feelings by stating that affects “have no particular content or meaning” and that they are merely energetic intensities, his theory is in disagreement with scholars writing about photography in relation to affect where feeling is the focal point and is often understood to be the result of affect.66

In the book Feeling Photography (2014), photography scholar Shawn Michelle Smith outlines affective power as one of the main facets of queer photography. As suggested in the

62_{Halberstam, 2005, 13.} 63_{Van Alphen, 2008, 21.} 64_{Van Alphen, 2008, 22.} 65_{Van Alphen, 2008, 23.} 66_{Van Alphen, 2008, 24.}

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previous section, queer aesthetics function at “various intersections of sensory experience, imagined collectivity, and the material world.”67_{For Smith, queer photographs introduce an}

“affective mode of approaching the photograph” and strongly connect to Roland Barthes’ theorization of perceiving photographs through emotion.68_{In Camera Lucida (1980), Barthes}

introduces the concept of punctum which can be understood as an individual reaction to certain details in a photograph that emotionally affect the viewer.69_{This term functions in contrast to}

his related concept of studium which can be explained as cultural knowledge that shapes one’s interpretation of a photograph.70_{By defining punctum as a “wound,” a “prick,” and a “bruise,”}

Barthes indicates that this concept has affective power and is heavily subjective.71_{In this way,}

Barthes’ theory of punctum to some extent corresponds with van Alphen’s concept of “shock to thought” whereby the cultural object (a photograph, for instance) and its transmission of affect stimulates a shock response in the viewer.

In addition, Smith interprets Barthes’ understanding of photography as strongly haptic—reflecting a feeling of being surprisingly touched. Hence, for her, punctum triggers an affective response in the viewer and stimulates “a unique path of associations.”72_{As a}

consequence, this concept troubles the relationship between the signifier and signified as images embodying punctum require the viewer to see beyond the presented index while they still use indexicality to join this world onto another.73_{Therefore, in Smith’s perspective, queer}

photography continues the legacy of emotional viewing that Barthes introduced in his book and for her, it “opens the index onto other worlds, collapses disparate times, and conjoins the material and the spiritual.”74

Regarding haptics, the concept can be understood as a way of relating to the sense of touch. Media studies scholar Laura Marks identifies two types of perception: optic and haptic. According to her, haptic perception “is usually defined as the combination of tactile, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive functions, the way we experience touch both on the surface of and inside our bodies.”75_{Founded on her analysis of several video artworks, she argues that haptic images}

are based on the reduction of visuality and therefore, are often grainy, blurred, and lack a sense

67_{Seitler, 2014, 53.} 68_{Smith, 2014, 29-30.} 69_{Barthes, 1980, 25-27.} 70_{Barthes, 1980, 25-27.} 71_{Barthes, 1980, 25-27.} 72_{Smith, 2014, 34-35.} 73_{Smith, 2014, 35.} 74_{Smith, 2014, 31.} 75_{Marks, 2002, 2.}

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of depth.76_{In contrast, optic images are sharp, clearly identifiable and have a strong sense of}

depth which leads to a process of obtaining a visual mastery over the image. On the other hand, by displacing optics and inviting other senses to experience the act of perception, haptic imagery does not strive for mastery. Instead, it encourages a caressing gaze which blurs the boundary between the self and image.77_{In her book Touch (2002), Marks, therefore, establishes a method}

for reading haptic images and how they may contribute to a multisensory experience of an artwork while simultaneously inducing an erotic relationship between the viewer and the surface of an image. However, since Marks mainly bases her theory on the analysis of video art, it is necessary to further examine the extent to which her insights may be applicable to the medium of photography in later chapters.

In queer art, haptic aspects are often connected to an alternative approach to reading trans*78_{bodies. Queer theorist Jeanne Vacarro proposes that the experience of touch has the}

ability to escape “from the diagnostic forms of classification” of such bodies and instead introduces a “haptic, affective theorization of the transgender body”79_{through handmade}

objects. According to Halberstam, the aspect of the haptic that is understood as crafting provides artists with a range of possibilities so as to avoid the fetishization of bodies that is already embedded within the binary system of gender representation.80_{Halberstam further}

explains that the general binary representation entails that “what is not male appears to be female, what is not female appears to be male.”81_{Therefore, similarly to Marks, she argues that}

haptic forms of sensory perception do not strive for mastery but instead require the viewer to feel involved in the “act of looking, naming, and judging.”82_{This framework, thus, demands}

that viewers question their own relations to truth and authenticity with the aim of dismantling any form of body categorization.83_{As a consequence, this mode of perception has the potential} 76_{Marks, 2002, 8.}

77_{Marks, 2002, 8-9.}

78_{In her book Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (2018), Halberstam provides a definition of}

trans*: “I have selected the term “trans*” for this book precisely to open the term up to unfolding categories of being organized around but not confined to forms of gender variance. […] It makes trans* people the authors of their own categorizations. […] Trans* can be a name for expansive forms of difference, haptic relations to knowing, uncertain modes of being, and the disaggregation of identity politics predicated upon the separating out of many kinds of experience that actually blend together, intersect, and mix” (Halberstam, 2018, 4-5). Through “haptic relations to knowing” and “uncertain modes of being,” her definition also relates to the definitions of queer which highlight detachment from sex and gender categorization. For this reason, I am also employing this concept in this chapter. However, by doing this, I also do not want to portray “queer” and trans* as synonymous but rather related. 79_{Vacarro, 2014, 96-97.} 80_{Halberstam, 2018, 89-90.} 81_{Halberstam, 2018, 89-90.} 82_{Halberstam, 2018, 90.} 83_{Halberstam, 2018, 90.}

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to start the process of re-evaluating gender histories and re-imagining bodies in relation to technology, nature, class, race, and ability.84

Nevertheless, trans* can be understood as a more specific umbrella term related to transgender identities,85_{whereas queer is broader as it is connected to non-heterosexuality in}

general. Queer theory has often been criticized for overlooking transgender people by focusing primarily on gay and lesbian identities. For instance, gender and women’s studies scholar Susan Stryker argues that even though queer studies is “the most hospitable place to undertake transgender work,” there are still cases where “transgender phenomena are misapprehended through a lens that privileges sexual orientation and sexual identity as the primary means of differing from heteronormativity.”86_{Therefore, it is misleading to understand transgender}

studies as queer theory when the latter generally concentrates on “Western notions of sexual selves” whereas the former includes “non-Western configurations of personhood.”87_Thereby,

transgender studies adds a fruitful critique to queer theory by involving perspectives outside of Western conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality, and hence may contribute to a diverse dialogue involving a multitude of cultures and their people’s lives and experiences of love, thus bringing with it a queer potential to realize.88_{Therefore, even though the definitions of trans*}

and queer differ, I consider them to be connected especially in relation to haptic perception, which can function as a strengthening factor for queer imagination and utopia.

Furthermore, the notion of the haptic very much applies to queer photography— particularly in printed form—where touch can be emphasized and lead to contemplation, self-reflection and therefore, affect the viewer. As observed on pages fifty and fifty-one (Figure 1) of

Bible, the portrait of Okabe’s lover is related to a specific trans* experience which corresponds

to the struggles surrounding the sex transition from female to male. The photograph portrays a vulnerable trans* body that cannot be immediately categorized as male or female. Instead, the depicted body, which escapes a binary representation, may cause viewers to question their own processes of naming, judging, and categorizing. At the same time, the use of certain colors and the juxtaposition of the portrait with the landscape may lead to a detachment from the subject’s trans* identity and operate on a more abstract and queer level which mirrors Okabe’s world.

84_{Halberstam, 2018, 97.}

85_{The term primarily encompasses gender identities where a person’s gender does not correspond with their sex}

when assigned at birth and hence includes the terms transgender, transsexual, transfeminine, transmasculine, transwoman, and transman.

86_{Stryker, 2004, 214.} 87_{Stryker, 2004, 215.} 88_{Stryker, 2004, 215.}

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Therefore, the combination of the photographs paves the way for a fluid understanding of the work while portraying a concrete story attached to the struggle of someone with a specific trans* identity. As demonstrated with Okabe’s photographs, I consider the concepts of trans* and queer as potentially intermingling, an interaction which will be explored further in chapter three.

1.2.3 Queer Opacity

One of the latest facets to be highlighted in literature regarding queer art is queer opacity. Similarly to how haptics de-stabilize the optical, queer opacity can be said to stretch this notion even further by operating primarily in the realm of invisibility. The artist and writer Zach Blas is well-known for translating queer opacity into the sphere of art, defining this opacity as “an unknowability” and a poetics.89_{Moreover, he perceives this to be an ethical position that}

involves countering existing forms of domination, with the aim of exposing “the limits of schemas of visibility, representation, and identity that prevent sufficient understanding of the world and its peoples.”90_{As a result, queer opacity touches upon the relationships between the}

human and non-human and focuses on the ways in which human beings can be altered. In a similar manner, Muñoz discusses the concept of camouflage as a refusal of the natural order while simultaneously being strongly related to nature. Correspondingly, camouflage to Muñoz reflects the “impossibility of another world, of a different time and place” where its relationship to nature mirrors the queer potential that is currently unimaginable in straight time and space.91

Blas further proposes that while there are currently various types of queer aesthetics, they generally have the aim of highlighting visibility or invisibility. In the case of queer opacity, invisibility plays an important role because it adopts politics of “identity, state, anti-recognition” and hence, “politics of escape.”92_{Therefore, queer opacity can be understood as}

a form of radical resistance that demands weapons of destruction, security, and construction. Within this framework, the philosophers Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri urge for the creation of new weapons in order to achieve democracy today, an argument which corresponds with Deleuze’s call to look for new weapons in the current era of the society of control.93

89_{Blas, 2016, 149.} 90_{Blas, 2016, 149.} 91_{Muñoz, 2009, 139.} 92_{Blas, 2011, 22.}

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Blas suggests that in the present-day biopolitical age where control is present more than ever, non-existence has the potential to resist such control through the creation of new technologies.94_{In practice, he advocates for the creation of devices that avoid any identity}

representation and cannot be read by existing algorithms, thus encouraging people to turn their faces into weapons to escape such control.95_{His argument continues by citing a recent}

psychological study conducted by The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology96_{which analyzed}

“people’s ability to identify homosexual men from photos of their faces.”97_{The results have}

shown that the participants were incredibly accurate at recognizing a “homosexual face.” Consequently, Blas argues that this study confirms (and scientifically validates) the existence of recognition apparatus which prompts LGBT stereotyping.98_{According to him, the study}

propels categorization and hence, leads to “a visibility that controls us, and makes us easily knowable to those in power.”99_{Therefore, the call for creating weapons that Deleuze, Hard,}

and Negri propose in their texts can be reflected in the invisibility and un-readability of the face present in Blas’s art.

The subversive and controlling aspects of surveillance technology are particularly relevant to the field of photography where the camera can be understood as a multipurpose object that can simultaneously function as an improvised weapon as well as a useful tool. The camera is, on one hand, an apparatus of control as it is programmed to make things and subjects visible. In the biopolitical age, the camera uses an invisible process to further track and control the subjects it captures (especially certain racial and gender non-conforming individuals). On the other hand, the users that are aware of the functionality of the camera and have the capacity to reverse this controlling process also have the opportunity to subvert the system by using the camera to portray invisibility and hence, to become unreadable to the system. Correspondingly, in chapter four, I further analyze the extent to which queer photography dealing with queer opacity can function as a subversive tool for countering the society of control.

94_{Blas, 2011, 23.} 95_{Blas, 2011, 23.}

96_{The study was conducted in 2008. For the summary of its results, see Bering (2009).} 97_{Bering, 2009; Blas, 2011, 23.}

98_{Blas, 2011, 23.} 99_{Blas, 2011, 23-24.}

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1.3 Conclusion

This chapter has served as a justification for using queer theory and the literature on queer aesthetics as a suitable framework for analyzing contemporary queer photography. Butler’s theory of gender has shown that gender is a social construct and its existence depends on performative acts that constantly reinforce it. Furthermore, the literature on queer theory has proposed that the notion of “queer” is a resistant position escaping any form of stable and fixed gender identification and hence, has a subversive power to confront essentialism or any mode of categorization.100_{By analyzing these arguments, I have established that queer theory is a}

relevant framework for approaching queer art and specifically queer photography.

The section on queer aesthetics has revealed that there are three important characteristics of queer photography: queer time and space, affective and haptic aspects of queer photography, and queer opacity. In practice, these features can possibly serve as a critical opportunity to challenge the society of control we currently live in. At the same time, a bridge between queer theory and photography has been established and can be further explored in terms of its aesthetics in connection to photographic theories of affect, time and space, and archive. Therefore, the first analyzed aspect of queer photography is queer time and space which is explored in the following chapter and serves as one of the three main angles from which I approach the queer photography of Muholi, Okabe, and Blas.

100_{This conclusion was based on the academic texts of Sedgwick (1994), hoogland (2009), Nicholas (2015), and}

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Chapter Two:

Queer Time and Space

2.1 Strange Space, Thirdspace, and Queer Space?

In the previous chapter, specific conceptualizations of queer time and space such as those developed by Halberstam and Muñoz were analyzed and can be further understood by relating them to comparable concepts outside of queer theory. For instance, concepts such as “strange space” and “thirdspace” can be interpreted as broader categories to which queer times and spaces may belong. Such concepts are further elaborated on by media studies scholars André Jansson and Amanda Lagerkvist, who introduce the concept of estrangement in their 2016 book

Strange Spaces, and explain it as a situation causing one to feel strange and unfamiliar when one’s

perception and knowledge are challenged.101

They argue that the situation of estrangement produces strange spaces which can be defined as spaces that contribute to a “transformed state of affairs […] foreboding something unknown or new.”102_{According to them, this process is evoked by affections of otherness,}

meaning “the ‘exile,’ the ‘obscene,’ the ‘deviant,’ or the ‘queer.’”103_{In this way, strange spaces}

can be interpreted as inclusive of queer space as throughout its history, queer theory has pointed to the existence of heteronormativity which as a result de-stabilized “the normality of straight spaces.”104_{By departing from familiarity and one’s ingrained knowledge, queer spaces}

correspond directly with the definition of estrangement. However, this can also have negative consequences because placing a person in an estranged situation may stimulate “strange responses” based on one’s normative knowledge and perception, with the possibility of causing “a form of unanticipated empowerment emanating from the obscene off-spaces of the oppressed.”105_{According to queer theorist Teresa de Lauretis, the operation of off-spaces}

(referring to the discursive and social Other) is located within hegemonic discourses but rather on their margins.106_{In this way, there is a hierarchical relationship between hegemonic spaces}

101_{Specifically, Jansson and Lagerkvist (2009) provide eight characteristics defining the concept: “to remove}

something from its familiar place; to make someone a stranger to a condition of place; to withhold from a person’s perception or knowledge; to render alien; to alienate in feeling or affection; to make unlike oneself; to render strange or unfamiliar in appearance; to be astonished” (2).

102_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 2.} 103_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 2.} 104_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 5.} 105_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 6.} 106_{De Lauretis, 1987, 26.}

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and off-spaces which is based on “tensions of contradiction, multiplicity, and heteronomy.”107

As a consequence, Jansson and Lagerkvist argue that strange spaces are able to relocate subjects in forms that may engender “new spaces for critical exchange and radical response.”108_The

theorization of strange spaces is, therefore, in alignment with Warner’s concept of queer counterpublics which also deals with the creation of new spaces through the displacement and contestation of “normality.”

These definitions of the strange space can also be related to Edward Soja’s term thirdspace109_{which is defined as an “interstitial realm” enabling the expansion of what is}

“possible, thinkable, and projectable,” making it not simply symbolic but rather a combination of the real and imagined.110_{Accordingly, the political geographer argues that thirdspaces are}

infiltrated by politics and ideology that materialize social relations of “production, reproduction, exploitation, domination, and subjection.”111_{In his book Thirdspace (1996), he argues that}

thirdspaces question binary oppositions by introducing the possibility of an “Other” which functions as a “disordering, deconstruction, and tentative reconstitution of their presumed totalization producing an open alternative that is both similar and strikingly different.”112_The

thirdspace is, therefore, distinct from physical and mental spaces as it is not merely their integration but instead “a transcending composite of all other spaces.”113_{Thus, there is a}

relationship between conceptualizations of strange space and of thirdspace through the incorporation of both imagined and material realms which come across as a defiance of spatial and temporal norms, something additionally shared with queer time and space. In order to identify how these alternative spaces might operate in practice, I analyze a number of artworks, paying special attention to the ways these artists represent themselves or their community through their works.

107_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 6.} 108_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 6.}

109_{Soja defines thirdspace in relation to Henri Lefebvre’s book The Production of Space (1974) and his theory of}

firstspace and secondspace. Lefebvre defines firstspace as a physical space constituted by social practices and secondspace

as a mental space composed of representations of space (74). For Soja, conceptualizations of firstspace and secondspace are no longer applicable because spaces today do not contain a single social category. Instead, they include multitudes allowing for the exploration of possible hybrid spaces and their complexity in relation to oppression, inclusion, and exclusion in addition to their susceptibility to change. Accordingly, Soja argues that thirdspace is a social/lived space that is distinguishable from firstspace and secondspace while containing both material and imagined elements (Soja, 1996, 62-68).

110_{Jansson and Lagerkvist, 2009, 15; Soja, 1996, 68.} 111_{Soja, 1996, 68.}

112_{Soja, 1996, 60-61.} 113_{Soja, 1996, 62.}

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2.2 The Role of Context, Presentation, and Imagination in the

Existence of Queer Time and Space

2.2.1 Zanele Muholi

Figure 2 - Imaginary Fact Exhibition Installation View of Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases, South Africa Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, Courtesy of Zanele Muholi.

In her artwork, Zanele Muholi aims to bring queer visibility to South African history and culture. Her style can be categorized somewhere between documentary photography and portraiture, for instance, her series Faces and Phases tells a story of a local queer community subjected to multiple levels of discrimination.114_{This series was exhibited at the 55}th_Venice

Biennale in 2013 where Muholi was part of South Africa’s Pavilion (Figure 2). In this space, the viewer was presented with a wall full of unframed black and white portraits. Each of the subjects faces the viewer directly and the images were displayed next to each other in a grid. At the same time, some negative space remained around each photograph, connoting a sense of alienation. This feeling can be associated with Jansson and Lagerkvist’s concept of estrangement as

Imaginary Fact attempts to portray a space of the discursive and social Other and hence, makes

viewers aware of their own privileged position in relation to the subjects depicted.

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Furthermore, the images were hung up in six rows from the bottom to the top of the wall, which means some of the images were barely visible. Simultaneously, due to the narrow space which defined the passage and hence, the perception of the photographs, the viewers were forced to walk and to observe the photographs from close proximity. As a result, this display encouraged a sense of intimacy between the viewer and the photographs which could lead either to a sympathetic gaze or a gaze of discomfort triggered by the exposure to so many direct looks.115_{In any case, this display resulted in a confrontation which had the potential to resonate}

deeply with the viewer. Interestingly, the grid was not complete as there were some gaps in the display where some portraits seemed to be missing. These gaps could be interpreted as missing people—the victims of violence directed against this community.

Consequently, the display invites viewers to contemplate and imagine the conditions endured by South Africa’s queer community by having them experience an encounter with these people’s faces and particularly their confrontational gazes. By provoking this process through such a display, the community was given the chance to queerly occupy the space of the gallery and the mind of the viewer.

Figure 3 - Joseph Underwood, Precarious Imagining Exhibition View of Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases, 2014, Dakar, Senegal.

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Another place where Muholi displayed her work was at Dakar’s Raw Material Company in 2014 (Figure 3). This group exhibition was part of Dak’Art Biennale116_{and its aim was to}

expose queer issues in Africa. Similarly to Imaginary Fact, the photographs were presented unframed, simply pinned to the wall. However, in Precarious Imagining, the absence of negative space in the grid display more closely resembles a “do it yourself” approach (due to its clumsy and less professional outlook) and connotes a sense of unity instead of alienation as in the previous case.117_{The empty spaces in this grid can be read either in a positive or negative light.}

On one hand, the empty spaces might be interpreted as the victims of the continued violence towards South Africa’s queer community and their missing narrative in history. On the other hand, the gaps may optimistically represent an open, imaginary space that is available for another person to join. This dual interpretation was triggered by the images’ proximity to each other which, in contrast to the installation in Venice, did not communicate an absence but rather allowed for more ambiguity regarding the empty space.118_{Furthermore, the gaps and}

the grid’s imperfect shape could be related to the group’s dynamics and malleability as if anyone could come and add, remove, or change the position of each portrait, creating the impression that the series is in constant flux. It seems that this display was even more effective than in

Imaginary Fact because its humble presentation became deeply personal as the psychological

distance between the viewer and the photographs was minimized. Precisely due to its effectiveness, the exhibition had to be shut down only one day after its initial opening. The reason for its closure was an outrage expressed by a group of vandals who attacked the gallery and destroyed some of the works.119_{Their motive, explained to be the exhibition’s violation of}

Senegalese laws and morality, was later supported by the Senegalese government who ordered the exhibition’s closure.120

As has been suggested by Jansson and Lagerkvist, Precarious Imagining and its closure demonstrated how estrangement can lead to negative and radical responses based on one’s normative knowledge and perception.121_{As the display became an interruption of hegemonic}

time and space, its temporary disruption exposed the oppressive functions of dominant spatiotemporality. Through this display and the consequences that followed, Muholi shed light

116_{This exhibition was part of the 11}th_{Biennale of Contemporary African Art and included other artists such as}

Kader Attia, Jim Chuchu, Andrew Esiebo, and Amanda Kerdahi (Steinhauer, 2014).

117_{Underwood, 2015.} 118_{Underwood, 2015.} 119_{Steinhauer, 2014.} 120_{Steinhauer, 2014.}

A Resistance of Normality through Imagery: Queer Aesthetics and Contemporary Queer Photography