SYSTEM FAILURE: Long Live the New Flesh
The trans body in the world is violently gendered and degendered, hypersexualized and desexualized, feared and fetishized. Trans bodies in “trans art” are valued by the neoliberal institution insofar as trans bodies allow themselves to be violently made spectacle for cis audiences. As trans people, we build our selves. As trans artists, we reject the notion that trans art has no value when it is made by our selves and for our selves. The trans body is in process, a whole that is greater than the sum of its stolen and stitched-together parts. The trans body removes itself from violent and oppressive systems of power by celebrating its Frankenstein self. I live in my trans body. I live in the world. My trans body is the world.
SYSTEM FAILURE is a selection of experimental digital media works from eleven trans artists that reckon with depictions of the trans body outside of cultural hegemony. Formal experimentation allows for the most honest communication of complex trans experiences, while simultaneously rejecting assimilation into dominant industries and modes. These are all works that the neoliberal institution considers too weird, too difficult, too long, too cheaply made to be worth sharing—and that’s exactly why we need to share them. Long live the new flesh!
SYSTEM FAILURE premiered digitally on July 7, 2020 via the Spectacle Theater Twitch channel. Many thanks to Caroline Golum and the team at Spectacle Theater for their support.
Total runtime: 1 hour 5 mins
Programmed by Bev Yockelson
Project Background and Artist Statement
TO TIP THE ARTISTS, PLEASE VENMO @bevyockelson
Any and all proceeds will be split equally amongst the artists! Support trans people while we're still living!
SYSTEM FAILURE is a selection of experimental digital media works from eleven trans artists that reckon with depictions of the trans body outside of cultural hegemony. Formal experimentation allows for the most honest communication of complex trans experiences, while simultaneously rejecting assimilation into dominant industries and modes. These are all works that the neoliberal institution considers too weird, too difficult, too long, too cheaply made to be worth sharing—and that’s exactly why we need to share them. Long live the new flesh!
SYSTEM FAILURE premiered digitally on July 7, 2020 via the Spectacle Theater Twitch channel. Many thanks to Caroline Golum and the team at Spectacle Theater for their support.
Total runtime: 1 hour 5 mins
Programmed by Bev Yockelson
Project Background and Artist Statement
TO TIP THE ARTISTS, PLEASE VENMO @bevyockelson
Any and all proceeds will be split equally amongst the artists! Support trans people while we're still living!
untitled, Ava Hoffman
Rituals on the Road, Rat Porridge
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caliginousLAVENDER, jayy dodd
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Featured Works and Artists (in order of appearance):
untitled by Ava Hoffman
A visual poem turned into a video loop.
Ava Hoffman is a writer currently living and working as an MFA candidate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her current project, […], is a transgenre work which concerns itself with trans/queer history, medieval magic, and the frustrated desire inherent to encounters with the literary archive. She acts as SPORAZINE’s stewardtrix. Her twitter is @st_somatic and her website is nothnx.com.
Hold My Hand Tell Me That You Love Me by bev yockelson
Monologue from a transgender computer named Tom Cruise.
beverly “bev” yockelson is a nonbinary gay trans artist and poet who currently uses it/he pronouns. it has a particular interest in the relationship between body horror and trans identity. bev holds a BA in creative writing with a minor in film studies from the university of san francisco and an MFA in multidisciplinary art from maryland institute college of art.
How to Take the Perfect Selfie by Bea Wijshijer
A video where I learn to take the perfect selfie.
Bea Wijshijer is a research-based artist working within digital media and video installation. Wijshijer utilizes online trends and subcultures to deconstruct mediated intimacies and personas on digital platforms. Informed by acceleration aesthetics, their work plays with excess and artifice to interrogate the ways late capitalism affects our digital lives.
Cats (2019) Director's Commentary by Mitch Mitchell
An excerpt from Tom Hooper’s director’s commentary for Cats (2019).
Mitch Mitchell is a video artist, bassist, talk show host and cult leader. Light in the loafers, heavy in the subwoofers. He lives in Chicago and he loves you.
mercer box and dystopia v2 by Thiago Castillo
Two short films about Catholicism and the surveillance state.
Thiago Castillo is a trans non-binary Xicanx artist from South LA. They use many mediums, preferring to make collections of their own works. Thematically, they focus on the transcendence of feelings using images from mythology and Catholicism.
Painting in Tokyo by Dawnia Carney/Letsglitchit
Bad style transfer pseudo-datamoshing.
Dawnia Carney, aka "Letsglitchit", has been making glitch art for the past 8 years and has had her fingers in nearly every associated sub-discipline. Her work has been exhibited in London, Paris, Zagreb, as well as several cities in the USA and Vice's Creator's Project. She also helps administrate Glitch Artists Collective and associated groups on Facebook.
mahal na ninuno by nico cabanayan
An expanded response to Pinay Liminality’s 2019 project Love Letters to Heaven, a call for trans filipinos to reflect and write to their chosen ancestors.
nico cabanayan is a Pilipino and Native artist from san jose, ca, now living on lenape territory. he frequently makes work around ideas of post-colonial healing, nonbinary identities, and finding strength in community. see some of his other projects at @bambooshoot_ on instagram or at kbnyn.cargo.site.
Rituals on the Road by Rat Porridge
The artist travels across the American West Coast communing with higher powers through the use of ancient ritual.
Rat Porridge is a trans multidisciplinary artist from Queens, NY currently living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Her work explores themes of fractured identities, pushing the limitations of capitalist society manifesting magic at its edges.
My Home by Dawnia Carney/Letsglitchit
The hometown of Letsglitchit.
caliginousLAVENDER by jayy dodd
An excerpt from a longer visual poetry project.
jayy dodd is a blxk trans femme writer & artist. she talks shit on the internet & her words are award-nominated & generally controversial. find her at jayydodd.net.
Alienation by Devin Utah
Hand-processed mess.
Devin Utah is a Brooklyn-based artist and recent Pratt MFA graduate.
untitled by Ava Hoffman
A visual poem turned into a video loop.
Ava Hoffman is a writer currently living and working as an MFA candidate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Her current project, […], is a transgenre work which concerns itself with trans/queer history, medieval magic, and the frustrated desire inherent to encounters with the literary archive. She acts as SPORAZINE’s stewardtrix. Her twitter is @st_somatic and her website is nothnx.com.
Hold My Hand Tell Me That You Love Me by bev yockelson
Monologue from a transgender computer named Tom Cruise.
beverly “bev” yockelson is a nonbinary gay trans artist and poet who currently uses it/he pronouns. it has a particular interest in the relationship between body horror and trans identity. bev holds a BA in creative writing with a minor in film studies from the university of san francisco and an MFA in multidisciplinary art from maryland institute college of art.
How to Take the Perfect Selfie by Bea Wijshijer
A video where I learn to take the perfect selfie.
Bea Wijshijer is a research-based artist working within digital media and video installation. Wijshijer utilizes online trends and subcultures to deconstruct mediated intimacies and personas on digital platforms. Informed by acceleration aesthetics, their work plays with excess and artifice to interrogate the ways late capitalism affects our digital lives.
Cats (2019) Director's Commentary by Mitch Mitchell
An excerpt from Tom Hooper’s director’s commentary for Cats (2019).
Mitch Mitchell is a video artist, bassist, talk show host and cult leader. Light in the loafers, heavy in the subwoofers. He lives in Chicago and he loves you.
mercer box and dystopia v2 by Thiago Castillo
Two short films about Catholicism and the surveillance state.
Thiago Castillo is a trans non-binary Xicanx artist from South LA. They use many mediums, preferring to make collections of their own works. Thematically, they focus on the transcendence of feelings using images from mythology and Catholicism.
Painting in Tokyo by Dawnia Carney/Letsglitchit
Bad style transfer pseudo-datamoshing.
Dawnia Carney, aka "Letsglitchit", has been making glitch art for the past 8 years and has had her fingers in nearly every associated sub-discipline. Her work has been exhibited in London, Paris, Zagreb, as well as several cities in the USA and Vice's Creator's Project. She also helps administrate Glitch Artists Collective and associated groups on Facebook.
mahal na ninuno by nico cabanayan
An expanded response to Pinay Liminality’s 2019 project Love Letters to Heaven, a call for trans filipinos to reflect and write to their chosen ancestors.
nico cabanayan is a Pilipino and Native artist from san jose, ca, now living on lenape territory. he frequently makes work around ideas of post-colonial healing, nonbinary identities, and finding strength in community. see some of his other projects at @bambooshoot_ on instagram or at kbnyn.cargo.site.
Rituals on the Road by Rat Porridge
The artist travels across the American West Coast communing with higher powers through the use of ancient ritual.
Rat Porridge is a trans multidisciplinary artist from Queens, NY currently living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Her work explores themes of fractured identities, pushing the limitations of capitalist society manifesting magic at its edges.
My Home by Dawnia Carney/Letsglitchit
The hometown of Letsglitchit.
caliginousLAVENDER by jayy dodd
An excerpt from a longer visual poetry project.
jayy dodd is a blxk trans femme writer & artist. she talks shit on the internet & her words are award-nominated & generally controversial. find her at jayydodd.net.
Alienation by Devin Utah
Hand-processed mess.
Devin Utah is a Brooklyn-based artist and recent Pratt MFA graduate.
