Strike a Pose, Struggle It Out

This play is based on a true story. The events depicted in this play took place from 1996 to 2022. At the request of the characters in the play, the names have been changed.

Strike a Pose, Struggle It Out

Written by Teng Xue

Design for Performance and Interaction, UCL

Tutor: Ava Aghakouchak

Table of contents

Act I, Prologue: Oliver’s Perplexity ……………………… 3-6

Act II, Constraints and Liberation ……………………… 7-14

Act III, Interlude: Queerness, VR and Perspectives ……... 15-19

Act IV, Reprise: The Constraint and Liberation ………... 20-22

Act V, Climax: Ovah ……………………………………. 23-28

Act VI, Epilogue: The Perplexity ………………………… 29-30

Act I, Prologue: Oliver’s Perplexity

Scene I: Curiosity and Subculture

Sitting in his tiny room in this giant western city, Oliver took a sip of his latte, bitter as usual. The environment is a tricky monster, Oliver always thought so, tricky in the way of growing up as a queer in east Asia, tricky in the way of not knowing his position or where to belong, tricky in the transition of mindset from the eastern to the western context.

It’s common to find that much of the coverage in western mainstream publications remains geared toward white readers. Using critical discourse analysis, Asian queer people have been marginalized by simply been ignored their existence or employed existing stereotypes about Asians in general (Chongsuk Han, 2008). It’s hard for Asian queer to fit in or to find a suitable place within this mainstream queer community Thereby, maintaining queer as largely a ‘white’ category and relegating Asian queer to the margins of the community (Chong‐suk Han, 2008)

Figure 1, Cover of Attitude, a Mainstream Gay Magazine

A subculture is a group of people who share a set of secondary values (Peranda, 2017). In the current situation, marginalized queer people are within a subculture. As most marginalized groups do, marginalized queer people tend to stick together, they create subcultures within the subculture. “It’s a shelter, a comfort zone, it’s a place to feel belonged. It’s a utopia of personal liberation.” Says Zeikowitz (2004), Subcultures are diverse, and there are many forms of expression ranging from performance, art, and music to fashion, and lifestyle.

Perhaps out of curiosity, over the past years, Oliver has gained his interests in queer studies and body movements as well as exploring and experiencing underground events to give him a better understanding of the community and the subculture that he is supposed to belong to

Figure 2, Punks Courtesy

Scene II: Ballroom, Voguing and Kinship

Scrolling his phone, Oliver accidentally found a very expressive and queer form of dance – voguing. Which is usually held in ballrooms

Gradually, he became more and more fascinated, and he wanted to know more.

Starting from its history. In the early 1970s, Black and Latinx gay, trans and queer people developed a thriving subculture in house balls, where they could express themselves freely and find acceptance within a marginalized community (Morgan, 2020) It unveiled, grew, and thrived globally in the past decades. Till nowadays, it has been evolving into a place that welcomes everyone.

From its inception, the early ballroom houses offered security for Black and Latinx queer, gay and trans people. These houses became more like families than teams, led by house “mothers” or house “fathers” to guide and groom their house “children” for the world.

“In ballroom, houses offer the primary infrastructure upon which the scene is built,” explains Julian Kevon Glover (2016), assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies and Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University in an interview. “It provides the basic but special kind of kinship structure and demonstrates alternative possibilities for what kinship can look like. Moving away from this reliance on one's biological family, and complicating ideas of a family of choice.”

This special kinship and social structure within this underground subculture got Oliver’s attention, “What do people usually do there? What’s the origin? What makes ballroom special from other dance genres, social events and mainstream everyday life?”

He keeps wondering about these questions…

Figure 3, Dancers voguing at nightclub Mars in New York City, 1988

Figure 4, House of Ninji

Balls held the so-called competitions between houses by categories. Categories range from the face (the judging of a house member’s beauty) to the body (the appreciation of a house member’s curves), to the runway, to performances including vogue. Vogue is a type of improvisational dance inspired by the poses of models in fashion magazines (Chatzipapatheodoridis, 2017). There are different ways of voguing, the “old way” is the one that dates back to the 1970s and 1980s.

the song Vogue

1990s,

brought this subculture into the mainstream spotlight, at that moment of bloom, other elements of the dance were ushered in, to form two new types of vogue dancing, which are called “new way” and “vogue fem” (Gavaldon, 2021) While the “new way” is characterized by the precise movement of the arms, wrists and hands, “vogue fem” is known for breaking down into either fast, angular movements or much slower, sensual and deliberate movements. The five fundamental elements of vogue include hands, duckwalk, catwalk, floor performance as well as spins and dips (which are often erroneously referred to as “shablams” or “death drops”) according to Gavaldon (2021).

Figure 6, New Way Performance, 2018

Figure 8, Five Elements of Voguing

Then in the

thanks to

by Madonna which surprisingly

Figure 5, Old Way Performance, 1998

Figure 7, Madonna at Wembley Stadium, London, 1990

Willi Ninja, known as the godfather, ground-breaking voguing dancer as well as father of the legendary house of Ninja described voguing as a specific way of throwing attitudes, shade, or criticizing opponents on the dance floor (Paris is Burning, 1990) But, beyond a dance style and competition, voguing came to represent much more.

“Voguing is very much about telling one's story through movement... that is one of the main differences of voguing compares to any other form of dancing. And that for me, because of who is doing it, is very much an act of resistance to an entire world that not only tells us that our lives are devoid of meaning but also tells us that we have nothing to contribute,” says Glover (2016) “It's a kind of self-liberation, an embodied kind of resistance, to these cultural messages. To say, ‘No, I have a story to tell, and my story is going to be so convincing, that in this particular atmosphere you're going to be able to clearly understand what it is that I'm saying.”

Scene III: VR Through the Eyes of a Queer

From the perspective of queer people, Oliver thinks when speaking of current VR technology and queer access, from the very beginning a queer sensibility in tech is a more radical concept. Of course, people are making VR for better traffic and better health care, games and porn, but they’re not making it necessarily transcend where we need to be in our understanding of gender and queerness.

This problem makes Oliver think of how can queer sensibility in tech be a less conceptual expression? How to transcend our understanding of gender, identity, and queerness through VR?

In addition, it seems to be common sense that current VR experiences encourage movements/participation of the body, which makes him think from the opposite, what would happen if there were no/fewer body movements involved?

What can virtual reality bring us while our body is physically constrained?

And finally, can we transcend our understanding of gender, identity, and queerness through immersive experiences in VR while body has been physically limited?

Act II, Constraints and Liberation

Starting with the relationship between constraints and liberation as well as queerness, Oliver embarked on a journey to find an antidote to that question

Scene I: Queer vs the World

Homosexuality appeared and even became popular as early as the ancient Greek period (Drescher, 2010). At that time, male and teenage same-sex love was mainly popular among leisurely traditional clan nobles and rich people, it was not only accepted, but also respected (Halperin, 2000), and there were even a large number of people at that time. Poems related to it appear, such as the 1388 lines handed down by Theognis, the last 158 lines are all about the love of men and boys:

“Oh, beautiful boy, Since the Cypriot goddess has bestowed upon your grace, Your beautiful form is admired by all, Then listen to these words,

Put my gratitude into your heart, You have to know how difficult it is for a man to endure love.” (Theognis)

And it was not until the 1990s that queer theory came into being (Anderson, 2014), it is a new branch of postmodern feminist theory that emerged in the 1990s. After inheriting the consistent deconstruction of sex and gender in postmodern feminism, it has further developed its theory (McLelland, 2018). And beyond the scope of philosophy or feminism, it has become a broad, ironic political and cultural resistance movement. Adherents of this theory no longer call themselves gay or lesbian but call themselves queer.

Now queer is not only in theory, but it also goes deep into film, art and other more intense forms of expression.

Oliver remembers it was 5th April 2017 in the Tate Britain in London, that the UK held the first special exhibition "Queer British Art". This exhibition presents the works, stories and lives of LGBTQ art creators in the 100 years from 1861 to 1967. Oscar Wilde, Simon

Figure 5, Young man and teenager engaging in intercrural sex, 550 BC–525 BC, Louvre

Figure 6, Teresa de Lauretis the first queer theory conference, 1990

Solomon, Maud Allen, David Hockney... They used words, brushes and dances and digital forms to tell the audience one after another private but fascinating stories.

In Oliver’s opinion, Queer community is often in a situation where they have to “act”: “Firstly, they have to hide their true self, secondly, they need to express their true feelings. The injustices, aspirations and reality they experienced were vaguely and powerfully manifested by the creators through artistic means and only possible through artistic means.”

“Although more people will pay attention to the queer community through these manifestations.”

Oliver says to himself. “When we discuss queer art separately, does it mean that even today, it is still a constrained, special exist?”

As the famous American art theorist Douglas Crimp once said: “I think everyone in this world has to negotiate and coordinate in their lives, whether they are artists, critics, editors or audiences. We do not forget our identities, but we can have multiple identities and multiple interests at the same time.”

Scene II: Sexuality and Queerness in Ancient China

Countless times, Oliver wished he hadn't been born in such a place. It is worth mentioning that in a social environment like this, it’s a complete guilt to think that way (Wu, 2003), which makes him feel worse and suffocating.

Figure 7, Queer British Art

In general, the ancient Chinese had rather open and accepting views of human sexuality until the 13th century (McLelland, 2018) Today, many historical references available indicate that unlike in Europe, in ancient China people were not seriously persecuted for engaging in same-sex sexual behavior. homosexuality was widespread, recognized and fairly tolerated, although not fully accepted (Ruan, 1991; Samshasha, 1997; Chou, 1997), in ancient China it is popular or a trend especially for poets in the Tang dynasty to have same-sex lovers to write poems to, besides having wives, it is also normal for emperors in different dynasties to have same-sex companions (Wu, 2003). Same-sex encounters were only seen as behavior, not the core or some special nature of the person. “Male homosexuality may have been a familiar feature of Chinese life in prehistoric times China’s earliest historical records contain accounts of male homosexuality ” says Wu (2003). The ancient Chinese called men who had same-sex attraction Long Yang or Xiang Gong and used terms like Yu Tao (“sharing the remaining peach”) or Duan Xiu (“cut sleeve”) to denote gay relationships (Halperin, 2000), which are all positive expressions.

However, none of these speculations occurred before the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.), a time when the public attitudes of the Chinese people toward human sexuality were beginning to become more inhibited. After being invaded and defeated by the Western powers in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, “progressive” Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century believed that Chinese traditions were “backwards” and the actual cause of China’s defeat; they looked to Westernization as a cure for the nation (Stevenson and Wu, 2012). This occurred at a time when homosexuality was regarded as a psychiatric condition in the West. Consequently, a pathological view of homosexuality and other antihomosexual attitudes were adopted by the Chinese along with Western technology and other “progressive thoughts.”

Oliver also learned that it was only after 1949 that homosexual behavior was seriously punished in China and served as grounds for persecution during Chinese political upheavals between the 1950s and 1970s (Wu, 2003)

“What’s happening, was the history moving backwards?”

In the 1980s, the Chinese government’s “open door” policy made it possible for the Chinese gay and lesbian community to develop (Stevenson and Wu, 2012) It was also at that time within this special social background that they developed a special name “tongzhi” for themselves, which used to mean a group of people with the same ambitions that were commonly used as the secret signal that connects queer people at that time.

He remembers the first time he heard the word was through his mother’s tongue, all the look of disgust and confusion on her face, he can never forget.

Figure 12, Woman spying on male lovers, Qing-Dynasty, Chinese Sexual Culture Museum, Shanghai

Despite the official pathologizing position of Chinese psychiatry–the prevailing view until recently–starting in the late 1980s, gay-friendly scholars and health professionals began to sympathetically research the gay (TongZhi) community in China and advocate for sexual minorities. It was not until 2001 that the latest edition of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders removed the diagnosis of homosexuality but still retained a diagnosis resembling ego-dystonic homosexuality (Chong-suk Han, 2008). Nevertheless, the “TongZhi” community in China has much work left to do before achieving full civil rights.

Due to changes in the social environment, the development of queer art in China has also shown different states in different periods (Zeikowitz, 2004). In the past, because of the influence of social conditions and traditional factors, the social structure of China was very different compares to the west. The dissemination of queer art in China was greatly constrained, there was no way for artists to "go up against the wind" to promote queer art (McLelland, 2018). But nowadays the social atmosphere is becoming more and more open. coupled with some integration of Western ideological trends, young artists have also started to express queer art in their own way, challenging the heterosexual system and heterosexual hegemony in mainstream culture, aiming to break through the prison that suppresses people's free choice. Still in the real environment of Chinese contemporary art, queerness, as a certain creative theme, a certain visible part of the creation, has not yet developed a representative, and it is still very early and scattered (Anderson, 2014). It's not mainstream, it's just slowly emerging from the ground. As queer artists and art, they don't want to be classified as a category. As a motif, it is developing. The issue we have to focus on is broader, and as a part, it will become richer, but at the moment, it is far from being representative.

Scene III: Chapter One: The Age of Chaos

It was at the age of five, just like any other kid, it is normal to fight and make physical contact in kindergarten and he enjoyed it. But when the boy across the table kept hitting his calf with his feet at a joint lunch, he felt something new and different for the first time.

Was it positive?

Was it negative?

It was a chaotic feeling

From then on, he does what a boy should do as usual, hang out with the boys with competitive sports, flirt with girls with love letters He never questioned the intentions, as he believes the fact that it was what he should do although there was always a question mark underneath

as time goes by, the more he thought about it, the more struggle he would,

“What has happened to Chinese queer in the field of art?”

the feeling of being on his own, being the freak one and confused was consuming.

It was not until the age of 15 that the word “queer” came into his life while having a random conversation with friends. That was an overwhelming moment as if all his worldviews were based on ignorance until then. T

here was hope, the hope of being straight and “normal”, there was a belief, the belief of there is no such thing as “queer”.

The resistance and sense of not belonging established his initial thoughts of why people choose to live as “queer” while there are obvious constraints of being queer in the social environment.

In the context of Chinese culture, the family occupies a very important position (McLelland, 2018)

“They influence our opinions and decisions. We have all wanted to leave them, but we can't actually leave them.”

He says so while staring at the word “queer” on his computer, “There’s always an invisible bondage between us, isn’t it?”

He can't help thinking of his first conversation with his mother about queer issues, at that moment, he cannot even tell who he was, all those great and unconditional love seem so fragile, he felt like a traitor, it was a rainy day, but there was a storm raging in the house.

Chapter Two: The Enlightenment

It was not until middle school that Oliver tumbled upon pornography, the images were so strong that he even had trouble sleeping afterwards.

Pornography has been distributed on such a widespread and easily accessible scale (Burke, 2016). This is thanks to the internet with some people claiming that it takes up a huge percentage of total web content (Seitz, 2019) There’s no doubt that pornography can leave

negative mental and physical influences. In terms of sexuality, it is one of the most effective measures to make people realize that they’re into things they’re already prone to be into.

There is no doubt that pornography has become one guilty pleasure for him, pornography products make him feel like there are two personalities living inside him. They say people do go through some phases and periods in their life when they desire things different to what they usually want, or they awaken something that has already been there (Cowen, 1991).

That’s what happened to Oliver’s mind, he recognized that it was perfectly normal when you live in a heteronormative society to realize that you have non-straight desires because it was not encouraged for you to think you might.

Chapter Three: Inquisitiveness and Attempts

There’s a lighthouse ahead and then?

He was always alone. When Oliver was forced to join the football team, he knew he didn't belong there. “There has to be a way to reach out.” He said to himself.

Perhaps because he was born in a small city, thanks to the internet, he made a lot of attempts out of curiosity. “Danlan.org” – an east Asian queer online forum was the first thing in which he found connections, good and bad, more importantly, he got an unprecedented sense of belonging.

From then on, Oliver has witnessed the rise of social media, especially queer social media in east Asia as well as the entire world

“Can you imagine all of the queer people I knew at the beginning were from the queer social media or dating APPs?”

One day he was talking about this with his university friends, “I can feel that they are everywhere but there’s nowhere else to find them.”

Coming out in this country could be a mission impossible (McLelland, 2018) Oliver once dated a boy, but it took half a month before he found out that he was experiencing a “marriage of convenience”, which is a marriage between a gay and a lesbian arranged in response to parental expectations of a conventional marriage that commonly happens in China (Furth, 1991).

He felt very sympathetic to this behavior

And also frustrated by the constraints this society places on the queer community. He expected that in another context, this constraint might disappear.

Scene IV: Chapter One: Who’s the Popular Boy?

As soon as Oliver came to the western world, he noticed that it seems to be true that there are differences between being the same queer individual in different social content (O’Connor, Stravynski and Hallam, 1997). The same thing was he still feels trapped in this queer body. But at this time, the constraints were more not from the society, but from the queer community itself.

Oliver still remembers when he was in Asia, At the very beginning of queer socializing under the influence of the internet and technology, whenever he opened the dating app, there were almost no real pictures on everyone’s profile (Chiang, 2010) including himself.

“It was a guessing game, and everyone was anonymous.”

Things got better in the next few years. But oddly, all users were trying their best to chase a certain male image (Ayres, 1999) - Muscular, bearded, with similar poses and dresses. There’s a certain unspoken queer status and stereotypical mainstream figures of the queer community along with the influence and development of technology and online relationships/kinship (Wu, 2003). People who are queer but embodied in different physical appearances are gradually and secretly classified.

“Would the situation change in a different social context?”

Oliver wonders.

After moving to this western city, he finally got a chance for new queer experiences. he decided to open the dating app and tried to reach out in the same way he did back then, Frustratingly, being neglected and blocked are the most common endings (Chiang, 2010), and it didn't take long for him to realize that the constraints of hierarchy still existed here. But unlike the previous classification based on body and appearance, race is a huge influencer here (Ayres, 1999) Hierarchy and centralization here exist not only in social media but also in mainstream queer media, film and television, pop culture, queer events, everyday life and even pornography.

As to western pornography. In gay porn in particular, before 2000, gay Asian actors exist only for the pleasure of white men (Tsang, 1994). In his seminal work, Fung, a famous Asian American porn actor finds that gay Asian porn actors always take the bottom role

Figure 13, Rachrd Fung, Orientations: Lesbian and Gay Asians, 1984

of a passive recipient of anal sex, except for one instance. Even in the one exception where the Asian porn actor plays the active sexual partner, the narrative of the “plot” has him performing the role of the white man’s domestic servant. In this way, even the normally aggressive and active sexual role of the “top” is couched in the Asian man’s “service” of the white man (Fung, 2007).

Chapter Two: The Cloaked Truth

All of these experiences and knowledge gradually formed an order in which queer people could involuntarily find their own place and class (Burke, 2016), what it means to be a proper queer as well as the unspoken cloaked truth in queer society and even mainstream queer culture that values masculinity over femininity, active over passive, and virile over submissive.

In doing so, queer culture inevitably creates a hierarchy of those who belong in the queer community and those who are simply marginal members (Chong‐suk Han, 2008). The subconscious and profound constraints within the community are even more severe than those outside the community.

At the same time, the development of science and technology has a subtle impact on the social structure system of the entire queer community (Tsang, 1994).

In other words, can we use technology to ease the constraints within the community, develop empathy and understanding, and affect the kinship and social structure of queer community positively?

Act III, Interlude: Queerness, VR and Perspectives

From the perspectives of non-queer people, queerness is just a concept, from the perspectives of mainstream queer people, the queerness of the marginalized ones is just a concept. Constraints always exist as long as there’s no empathy (Bowring, 2004).

There’s an old Chinese saying “Huan Wei Si Kao” which means the ability to change roles and walk in other people’s shoes.

“Can we use VR technology to realize ‘Huan Wei Si Kao’ and even trigger people's empathy?”

Scene I: Current VR and Queer Accesses:

There is no doubt that VR technology has penetrated every aspect of daily life, as to Current VR with Queer content, Oliver has found several expressions as follows:

1. VR Chatrooms: Most Chatrooms are LGBTQ+ friendly and there is a huge community on Reddit full of people looking for gay VR chatrooms.

2. VR APPs: Alternative ways for queer people to make friends and feel connected.

3. VR travels provide an immersive platform for those to experience gay events and spots including pride parades etc.

4. VR Arts: for/associated with queer people such as Virtual Drug features 3D scans of drag queens

5. VR Porn: most of the content that people are looking for.

Figure 14, Gay VR Chatroom Posts on Reddit Figure 15, Top Rated Queer VR Porn Sties

Scene II: The Machine to Be Another

Neuroscientific research has developed ways to create fascinating cognitive illusions. These illusions can generate the feeling of having a different body or of being the body of another person. In these neuroscientific experiments, the psychological and physiological responses of research subjects suggested that they felt as if they had a different body (Petkova, Khoshnevis and Ehrsson, 2011). It didn’t matter if the “new body” was of a digital avatar or a plastic mannequin. Neuroscientists call this phenomenon the Body Transfer Illusion (or the Full Body Ownership Illusion (De Oliveira et al., 2016).

Curious about the psychological consequences of experiencing oneself as a different body, the scientists used VR technologies for many different experimental setups and designs. In one famous study, neuroscientists could demonstrate that research subjects with white skin revealed a significant reduction of implicit racial bias after seeing themselves from the firstperson perspective of a digital avatar with dark skin (De Oliveira et al., 2016)

The burgeoning field of neuroscientific embodiment research got Oliver excited: “How can translate these potentially beneficial effects of laboratory science into pro-social interventions available for everyone?”

The neuroscientific research suggests the great potential of Embodiment Virtual Reality (EVR) for a more positive sociality (Petkova, Khoshnevis and Ehrsson, 2011). Embodied VR systems could help to overcome negative stereotyping between groups and improve pro-social behaviour by encouraging active perspective-taking, or empathy.

Empathy is commonly defined as an individual’s ability to feel another person’s emotional state while being aware of that feeling’s origin (De Oliveira et al., 2016). In this way, empathy is an active perspective-taking, which can be linked to mutual understanding and prosocial behaviour, such as altruism and compassion.

The importance of empathy for a positive sociality has been discussed not only in scientific studies but also in applied fields of education, conflict resolution and therapy (Petkova, Khoshnevis and Ehrsson, 2011). BeAnotherLab is a design laboratory based in Barcelona, they strongly believe that empathic concern can contribute to a better society in which individuals care for each other, no matter their differences and backgrounds. BeAnotherLab’s goal is to co-create and apply technoscientific knowledge critically to foster human connection, mutual understanding and kindness.

Body Swap is an installation by BeAnotherLab last approximately 10 – 15 minutes and consists of a series of interaction protocols for two users to exchange their embodied perspectives in real-time. It is an EVR that credibly facilitates a body swap The Machine allows individuals to experience the world through the eyes and body of another person. By combining virtual reality, cognitive sciences, and performance

Figure 17, Body Swap

art, the system enables users to perceive themselves in a different body while moving and interacting with realistic tactile feedback from others in space.

Now the questions are: can people truly transcend empathy and understanding for others? Can this be applied in dealing with the queer issue mentioned above and resonate with queer people in some way? Can it possibly transcend our understanding of gender, identity, and queerness through this specific method?

Scene III: Take a Chance to Be Another

Inspired by Be Another Lab, Oliver started his experiment starting off with the idea that people are not swapping bodies to experience others in a binary (Petkova, Khoshnevis and Ehrsson, 2011), people are approaching it with whatever their sense of where they are and whether they even believe in a binary or a scale.

“Instead of the notion of A directly can feel like B, maybe people can get more sophisticated together about a liminal space in which we can have a healthy relationship between gender and queerness ”

The whole process of the experiment lasted for two days. The participants in the experiment were two queer and two straight people. Each time, Oliver set one queer person and one straight person as a pair and by using drawn goggles and Go Pro, he created a simplified version of the body swap experiment

There are four attempts he used to organize the experiment (The test subjects are two people, hereinafter referred to as No.1 and No.2 The experimental site is a 5Mx5M square): 1.

Look at Oneself from Different Angles

In this part, he asked subject No.1 to stand in the center of the field with a headset, and subject No.2 was in eight directions, three distances (0.5m, 1m, 1.5m) beside him, holding a GoPro look towards him. Exchange identities after 5 minutes.

Figure 17-18, look at oneself from different angles

2.

Movements with Voice Instructions

In this part, he asked subject No.1 to stand in the center of the field with a headset, and subject No.2 to hold a GoPro in front, left, and back to look at him, and issue action commands, such as “hold your head in both hands” and “point to the pillar in front of you” Exchange identities after 5 minutes.

3. Maze Walking

In this part, he asked Subject No. 1 to stand at the entrance of the maze with a headset, and subject No. 2 to fix the GoPro's field of vision in a position where Subject No. 1 and the entire maze could be placed, After Subject No. 1 reaching the end, exchange identities.

4. Body Swap

In this part, he asked Subject No.1 (queer) to be back-to-back with Subject No.2. Subject No.1 needs to place the GoPro on their forehead, autonomously performing body movements, and instruct Subject 2, who is wearing the headset, to change movements simultaneously (Changes in movements include touching one's own body parts, movements of hands and feet, body movements, etc.)

Figure

Figure 19-20, Movements with Voice Instructions

Figure 21-22, Maze Walking

23-24, Body Swap

What are the people’s initial thoughts after the experiment?

Participate A (queer):

“The feeling of being outside ourselves, feeling that I am not myself but in the game with insecurity.”

Participate B: “The authenticity of the experience depends on whether there is corresponding feedback.”

Participate C (queer):

“I think a new feeling/rule of space needs to be established. Unfamiliarity slows down the intuitive process of distance/direction judgments.”

Participate D:

“I have a feeling of being watched, I was exposing my insecurities.”

In addition to these intuitive feelings, after conducting a more in-depth one-on-one interview with the experimental subjects, Oliver also found that the four experimental subjects indeed all had a deeper understanding of the unfamiliar body of others after the experiment, that is also to say, for non-queer people, this experiment can probably allow them to enhance their knowledge of queerness, identity to a certain extent.

“What if there is an unconscious physical constraint, is it still possible to gain these feelings, as well as a sense of self-liberation?”

Act IV, Reprise: The Constraint and Liberation

Back to the main topic of constraint and liberation but switch perspectives to other wellknown interactive systems. In this chapter, Oliver attempts to dig into their measures of coping with the correlation between physical constraint and virtual/spiritual liberation.

Scene I: The Shibari Store as well as a sense of self-liberation?”

After a long period of psychological struggles, Oliver gathered up the courage to come to a Shibari experience store, his hands are sweaty out of nervousness or perhaps excitement.

…

“History of Shibari goes back to the old days of wars. In the beginning, it was a technique for tying up prisoners, and then it slowly evolved into an art form, and some people would associate it with sex. Now many professional shackles will do Shibari art performances and will also receive some experiences. Rope binding also often appears in stage installations and film and television works.”

Says the store owner while intentionally trying to build physical connection, trust and calm his nerves. “Don’t worry take a deep breath, people experience great healing from it normally…”

…

“There are few principles of Shibari” the owner then added in a serious voice, “Safety, sobriety, informed and consent. There are several other things you should know. The buckles are all slip knots, which means they can be opened at any time. Here’s a form you need to fill in order to keep you safe and comfortable.” Then he hands over a Consent Questionnaire form (Appendix 1)

…

“How does Shibari Comes to Everyday Life?” Oliver asked “It's not all always about bondage and constraint, but everyone’s own ideas and fantasies about constraints, possession, and intimacy and liberation ”

…

“Why Safe Word? What is it?”

he asked while browsing the empty unfamiliar form

“Safe word is a baseline, a balance.

Because it is impossible to confirm whether the bounded person can accept all the behaviours. No may mean no but also may mean pleasure. That’s why it’s vital to make a safe word agreement It can be as random as an item or place.”

The moment he was tied up, the thing that baffled him the most was that he didn't know where to look with his eyes. When he looked into the mirror, he felt unfamiliar; when he looked at the boss, he felt dazed; only when he closed his eyes, he felt himself and his inner peace.

During the process of releasing the rope, he cried out unconsciously. He didn't know why, but it seemed that both his body and mind were released.

The one-hour experience passed quickly. Shibari provides him with the feeling that the body is controlled and bound, when shrunk into one piece, it is very relaxed and stable. It reminds him of the feeling of diving - after entering the water, he can hear his own breathing, but can't interact with the world, and it’s even impossible to talk to anyone

“When you hand over your life and death to water and nature, what you gain is greater freedom. When you can't control your body subjectively, it’s the only moment that you can stay with yourself and talk to your deeper consciousness.”

Scene II: The Yoga Class

The second thing he could think of to explore and practice constraint and liberation was yoga, and he couldn't wait to experience it. Yoga is one of the six major philosophical genres in ancient India, aiming to explore the truth and method of "unity of Brahman and self" (Cowen, 1991).

In his first yoga class, the yoga instructor gently guided his mindset and said: "Modern yoga, including body-adjusting asanas, breath-adjusting methods, mind-adjusting meditation methods, is mainly a series of methods of self-cultivation, a system that helps human beings to fully develop their potential by raising awareness." After some time of

observation, practice and research, Oliver found that yoga postures often use ancient and easy-to-master techniques to improve people's physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual abilities (O’Connor, Stravynski and Hallam, 1997), and it is also a movement method that hopes to achieve harmony and unity of body, mind and spirit.

He was also told that based on Indian philosophy, yoga is mainly for the pursuit of spiritual liberation and its main purpose is not physical health, although yoga does have this effect (Zeikowitz, 2004). But as far as Indian tradition is concerned, the goal of yoga is not physical health, but absolute spiritual freedom (Nadal et al., 2015). The purpose of yoga is to bring your mind, as well as your body, under your own control even if your physical body is limited in a certain position. You are the master of your body and mind, don't let your mind control you.

Act V, Climax: Ovah

After gathering all these memories and information about queer subculture, ballroom, VR technology, constraint and liberation, the thorny problem hit him again: “can we transcend our understanding of gender identity and queerness by constraining movements of the physical body while immersed in a virtual environment?” He was lost in thought, why not try to create a whole new system to try to solve this problem? So, he started his experiment…

For Oliver and thousands of other queer people, knowing their queerness of themselves is not an instant but a slow process In that case, he thought perhaps it is not realistic to solve this problem through a simple form, it may also require a gradual process. The surprising part is, in ballroom and voguing performance, body movements are always based on a series of specific order and meaning (from duckwalk to catwalk to floor performance and eventually to spins and dips) (Morgan, no date). He wondered if he could start from this point and reinterpret the ballroom subculture in a dramatic and playful form, using voguing dance poses of different phases to gradually deconstruct the self-cognition process of queer people Based on this theory, inspired by underground ballroom culture and its use of hands as a vital element, Oliver tried to create an XR system to explore the correlation between liberation and constraint. He named it Ovah, Ovah, in ballroom terms, is a variation of "over" or "over the top". Usually used to describe excellence in a ball. Also in ballroom culture, Ovah is the ability to pass as a certain gender or sexuality in everyday society (Chatzipapatheodoridis, 2017) In order to reach this purpose, Oliver hopes to build a systematic physical installation as well as a virtual experience and somehow connect them by hand movement. Ovah is a system but also a play, a play in which the participants are both the audience and the performer; A play in which the participants can unconsciously feel physical constraints and virtual liberation at the same time; a play in which the participants can possibly develop new kinship through empathy and transcend the understanding of identity and queerness

The following is the original script and notes by Oliver.

Figure 25, The System of Ovah

Prelude: The Constraints

Figure 26, Ovah System Interpretation

Figure 30, Customed Installation’s Changes from Cat Walk to Floor Performance

Figure 32, Customed Installation’s Changes from Floor Performance to Spins and Dips

Act VI, Epilogue: The Perplexity

The environment is a tricky monster, Oliver always thought so, tricky in the way of growing up as a queer in east Asia, tricky in the way of not knowing his position or where to belong, tricky in the transition of mindset from the eastern to the western context. Or perhaps Oliver has been wrong in the first place, There is no such thing called the environment, Then who is Oliver?

“Oliver is a masculine given name of Old French and Medieval British origin.” says Turley (2016) “The name has been generally associated with the Latin term olivarius, meaning ‘olive tree planter’, or ‘olive branch bearer’ Other proposed origins include the Germanic names ‘wolf’ and ‘army’; Oliver is one of Charlemagne's retainers in the 11th-century Song of Roland. The name was introduced to England by the Normans, where its form was possibly influenced again by its Anglo-Saxon cognate Alfhere…”

As a person born in east Asia, it’s impossible to be named Oliver Yet it wasn’t based on a lie but a dream, a dream of being a masculine white male figure that fits in, a dream of becoming one of those main characters who will never be ignored or marginalized, there’s no Oliver, but Oliver is everyone, Oliver is me; Oliver is you, Oliver is whoever somehow feels trapped in the social or wherever they want to be.

Then again, can we transcend our understanding of gender, identity, and queerness through this immersive experience in VR while body has been physically limited? Perhaps the point of the realization of queerness and self-liberation may not be liberation nor queerness but self, technology is only a means, not a necessary condition

Constraints are always the theme, perhaps not so much from the outside, but from within People are often haunted by their own nature, and once you discover the fact that your nature is bewildering you, then just the fact of being enlightened is enough to break all these constraints and free yourself. Everyone wants to escape from constraints, pain and reality, and everything in the world is shouting "I want liberation!" But unless you achieve this so-called liberation, you cannot get this kind of peace and rest.

Perhaps optimistically, the whole world will eventually reach this supreme state. Of course, it takes time. Because the nature of life is what we called evolution, and evolution is a very slow process. Perhaps the growing technology and its association with empathy may be the revolution, and it will get us there very quickly.

After all, the understanding of the self is related to the understanding of the other.

More than individuals, we are part of a broader system called humanity.

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for the Bonded

Shibari is an activity with certain risks. In order to let you enjoy the fun of rope binding and ensure your personal safety, please fill in the questionnaire truthfully.

Basic Information:

Name (nickname): ______________ Height: _____________ Weight: __________

History:

Do you have experience with being roped: _______________________________________

History of bone/muscle injury: Do you have claustrophobia: Do you have a history of cardiovascular disease: __________________________________

Whether it is a scar constitution: _______________________________________________

Whether you have continued regular exercise or yoga in the past six months: ___________

Safety:

body no-touch zone: _________________________________________________________

Taboos on the Binders' Behavior: Whether to accept heterosexual bondage: ________________________________________

Whether to allow others to watch: ______________________________________________

Whether to allow the body to leave appropriate marks (usually, the rope marks are subcutaneous bleeding, which will disappear in about 3-5 days): ______________________

Safe words: _________________________________________________________________ other supplements: _______________________________

Please fill in the above information truthfully, there is risk in rope binding, and the experience should be cautious.

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