Talk and Performance: “Surfaces and Traversals—Trans, Otokonoko, Genderqueer”
Photo: Ryu Kawamoto (2, 3)
[Talk & Performance Event “Surfaces and Traversals—Trans, Otokonoko, Genderqueer”]
Asahi Konuta / ilya, TARKY Toshima, Masayuki Yoshida (with support from qp)
People talk about “a place of one’s own.” Well, maybe they don’t—or maybe there are people who have no need to say such a thing at all. People who seem to have had a secure place to settle in from the moment they were born. But do such people really exist? One might be tempted to say, with a knowing air, “Actually, everyone is wandering around, and people like that do not exist in the first place.” And yet, in the end, I have a feeling that there are actually quite a lot of them. Aren’t there perhaps too many in this world? Well, be that as it may, what is a “place”? In the first place, is it a fixed space outside myself?
In other words, does such a space already exist outside me, somewhere I can enter? Perhaps so. And such a “place” can sometimes be very important, and for some people it may be indispensable to their survival.
But what if, at this point, we consider another kind of place, one that is neither outside nor inside, or a traversal from one place to another? It would pass through the body, gender, social boundaries, manga, and anime, crossing their surfaces.
(The following is from the announcement for “Surfaces and Traversals.”)
An attempt to loosely talk about “otokonoko,” “trans,” and “queer,” discussing works by Yun Kouga and Fumiko Fumi, Mineo Maya’s Patalliro!, as well as various manga, anime, and other fields of expression, while somehow waiting for the moment when the complexity of representation and something that cannot be reduced to a simple image intersect.
Although this event is centered mainly on talks by Asahi Konuta / ilya and TARKY Toshima, it is also intended as a “work as action,” something that departs somewhat from conventional forms of discourse by suddenly starting a comedy sketch or breaking into song.
Generally speaking, manga and anime unfold on a single “surface,” where various images and meanings proceed, although they are not necessarily reducible to anything simple. The problematics of the body’s “surface” will also be addressed here, including makeup, clothing, tattoos, and so on. What kinds of narratives and practices might emerge from grasping the surface, changing it, or crossing, or “transing,” its boundary?
Furthermore, I hope that the “surface” of the place where these things are discussed, the “surface” of this stage itself, might also trans, moving and traversing, crossing over. I wonder if that might be possible. (TARKY Toshima)
Date: Wednesday, November 29
Time: 19:00–20:00 (Doors open at 18:45)
Capacity: 15
Admission: ¥1,500
Venue: Social Kitchen (699 Shokokuji Monzen-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto)