On Monday, New York-based musical duo Sofi Tukker appeared on The Tonight Show in a type of jungle drag, performing their song “Best Friend.” Grooving to their funky track, the duo boogied next to a sculptural set-up of palm fronds, banana leaves, fake flowers and a series of cut-out animal silhouettes in what Billboard magazine … Continue reading
Underneath the 1980s nostalgia of Netflix’s drama Stranger Things, the sleepy Midwestern town of Hawkins, Indiana becomes a porous portal into an alternate dimension that the kids on the show call “The Upside Down.” Continue reading
What would happen if we looked back–past the contemporary Western civilization that we know? Past governments that try to regulate use of bathrooms depending on the biological sex written on birth certificates? Past governmental restrictions on who can be served at what establishment? Past rigidly constructed sexual and gender identities based on science, law and religion? Past, as Foucault described, biopower and biopolitics? What would happen if we looked back to cultures where there were no identities only acts? Continue reading
In his song “Lady Stardust” from his seminal album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie vividly describes an androgynous gender-bending singer, half-entertaining and half-terrifying a crowd with his decadent aesthetic and songs. Potentially written in honor of T. Rex’s frontman Marc Bolan, “Lady Stardust” also references Bowie’s own playful, visionary and even, utopian transgressions of traditional gender binaries, particularly when dressed as the glam rock savior Ziggy Stardust. Continue reading