Volume 1
made them or with what intention. Now that they were mine, they became expressions of my desire, my obsessions, my imagination.”8 Identifying as queer means positioning oneself on a spectrum of marginalized sexual practices that are not restricted to lesbians and gays but, “rather, it describes a horizon of possibility whose precise extent and heterogeneous scope cannot in principle be delimited in advance.”9 A queer author brings to our attention the needs, desires, and visualization or physicality to the queer experience. Unlike the act of queering, identifying as queer means that the person partakes in expansive sexual or cultural practices that are opposed to normative heterosexuality.10 Where ‘queering’ would require the person to challenge normative behaviors, the community of ‘queer’ is constructed through individuals who identify as such. As Neilly self-identifies as queer, his work should be read as partaking in queer production. 2. Through the Looking Glass: The Construction of an Author Authorship traditionally constructs discourse: “in this sense, the function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society.”11 This can be seen in Neilly’s work as it is taken up as a tool of education in regards to the trans and queer community. The act of visualizing the community presents a history of identity politics, participating in the “queer semiotic discourse.”12 Here Neilly is positioned as a singular representative for a collective, metonymically signifying diverse, heterogeneous trans* identities. While he refuses to speak for the trans or queer community, he does believe his work should be used as a tool for education: “it is important to me that the viewer can walk away…feeling less ignorant, more educated, and can understand that this work is about MY trans experience, not all trans experiences.”13 Neilly is therefore partaking in queer discourse. An author’s name “group[s] together a number of texts and thus differentiates them from others. A name also establishes different forms of relationships among texts… a single name implies that relationships of homogeneity, filiation, reciprocal explanation, authentication, or of common utilization were established among them.”14 As a maker, Neilly produces, exhibits, and publishes his body of work under a name – confirming the traditional notion of the author as one linked to an identity vis-à-vis the author or artist’s signature. The challenge to ‘author’ however is quickly produced when we consider Neilly as auteur. For example, as part of Neilly’s transition he changed his name to the one that he currently uses. While a change in name traditionally breaks from the identification and association with the past, it is part of the remaking of the self that trans* individuals may undergo. This makes it difficult for the cult of the author to emerge, for a clear historical past cannot arise. The work produced by Neilly prior to transition under a different name does not, however, remain in the past. It is picked up, exhibited, and published under Neilly’s new name. Therefore, the author has not died – nor has a new author been born – the author simply is. Moreover, Neilly has broken from his original artist statement multiple times. This causes a challenge to the authority of his written work. Conventionally, once an artwork is produced and the artist statement is written it cannot be modified. It must remain the same, offering a stability through which the audience can enter the work. Neilly’s work refuses this stability. No references to prior
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