Satyricon Beta

door Fleur Pierets | mei 21, 2016 | Movies

Satyricon Beta

Text JF. Pierets Photos Lukas Beyeler

“I’ve promised you the story of my adventures for a long time. Today I’m finally going to keep my word. My unhealthy curiosity and my depraved imagination are the true product of Roman immorality, which is the basis of your education.” These opening sentences are the start of a new video by one of Et Alors? Magazine’s favourite artists Lukas Beyeler. Satyricon or The Book of Satyrlike Adventures, is based on the work of fiction believed to have been written by Petronius Arbiter and shows us a highlighted version of Beyeler’s favourite scenes.

The video is a bit like a painting; you observe very slowly.
Originally the book was huge, but they lost quite a lot over time. Basically there are about 300 pages left. Speculation as to the size of the original puts it somewhere on the order of a work of thousands of pages. In the video I wanted to show that there is something missing, like an unfinished puzzle. It goes from one chapter to another without a clear story line. There’s no plot, nor a narrative, nothing that resembles a story. We just observe the protagonist going slowly from one scene to another. The slow rhythm is accentuated by my use of 120 frames per second. The stationary camera makes you feel that there is no fixed time.

Tell me about your work method when it comes to story telling?
After I read the book I just took the scenes which spoke to me the most. A lot of them are the ones that wouldn’t interest a hetero filmmaker. In one of them the witch provides the narrator with a cure for something you don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s syphilis, maybe gonorrhea, or maybe he’s just impotent. It’s a scene I very much liked, maybe it’s because you wouldn’t expect such scenes in a book where the action is happening before Christ. I often have the feeling that everything before Christ was in a way easier because there was no taboo, no religion, no morale, and everybody was bisexual. What you see is in that book is the sex habit and the social behaviour of the old Roman Empire. Most of them have no objective in their lives, no jobs. They just eat and have sex all the time.

Both Fellini and Polidoro tackled Satyricon in 1968 and 1969.
If you watch Fellini’s movie, it’s only about twenty percent of the actual story. The minotaur, the labyrinth and many other characters are nowhere to be found within’ the book. Gian Luigi Polidoro is much closer to the original text but replaced the gay character by a woman.

A true Hollywood phenomenon.
Indeed. When Disney makes a movie about Hercules, he’s of course one hundred per cent straight. But Hercules was bi in the texts. So there’s this straight-washing going on all the time. Same when movies or media talk about Da Vinci or Lincoln, there’s a lot of heterosexualising, if you can call it like that. I also guess that what we read now is very different from the original book. From BC till now, people copied the texts. And those scribes were often religious so sometimes when there was a sex scene, they would just leave it out. Some of them would even re-write the story the way they wanted it to be. Nobody will ever know how close the current text is from the original. So you know, after all this text massacre, incorrect Latin translation and straight-washing corrections: I thought, now I’m going write my own version where Ascyltos is the Main Character. And I’m going to let him having an affaire with whoever I want.

‘My work is about my environment, and of course part of it is a certain gay scene. It’s my life so in a way I just project my surrounding.’

You’re very outspoken about the gay-factor in your work.
My work is about my environment, and of course part of it is a certain gay scene. It’s my life so in a way I just project my surrounding. My inspiration comes from the people I work with. When I meet the right person: it just happens. The idea for Satyricon Beta has been going through my head for about two years now but I didn’t act upon it until I met the right people to do it. As there’s no rush to execute a project, I do not believe in casting for this kind of artistic projects. But when I see the right actor or model that can match a certain project then there’s no way back. I think there’s a special actor for any project, you just have to cross paths. Unfortunately I cannot change my ideas after that. I get obsessed with that person and I can be a real pain in the ass until they agree to do the project. I’m a stalker without a budget, so I guess people just have to trust me, or not.

Why did you choose to make the video in Italian?
I’ve read the book in Italian, in French and in English, and I chose to go for Italian because it’s the closest to Latin. Since my actor, Rocco Schira, is Swiss-Italian and is a voice talent, we had to use all that in the video. I wrote it in French, my mother tongue, translated it to Italian and subtitled in English. For me it was good to mix up all these languages because you really feel how it changes the text. I like to work with language and translations. They all have their different culture and colour which highly influences the image. You’ll find some text from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, some poems of Robert Lee Frost and of course some original parts of Gaius Petronius Arbiter. We also shot the video in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. The nature is beautiful there, very Roman and completely cut of from the rest of the world. Not an easy place to live in but a great location to shoot.

Satyricon Beta will be shown at the Queer Biennial II in LA. What happens after that?
I’m very happy to premiere that video in Los Angeles at the Biennial, but ‘after that’ to tell you the truth:
I have no idea. Sometimes the work travels to other festivals or is screened in other gallery spaces but you never know if it’s gonna work or die there. My biggest problem in this creative process is that when I’m done, I’m done ! The showing of the work doesn’t interest me much, it’s not part of the work itself anymore. That’s why I’m not the best seller of my own work: I love to make it but I always feel way to vulnerable to take it on display. It shows too much of myself. When a project is finished, I’m just starting something else. My part is to create, to shoot, to edit and to spend time with people making it. You think I should get an agent?

www.queerbiennial.com
www.lukasbeyeler.com

Satyricon Beta
2016, Full HD, 16/9, 21min
Written and directed by Lukas Beyeler
Ascyltos Rocco Schira
Oenothea Nils Amadeus Lange
Camera operator Carlotta Holy
Voice over Rocco Schira & Ayana Glam
Subtitles Anja Draeger

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 18.

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Greg McGoon

door Fleur Pierets | mei 21, 2016 | Books

Greg McGoon

Text JF. Pierets Photos Courtesy of Greg McGoon

Author and theatre performer Greg McGoon challenges the norm of children’s literature. By choosing a transgender princess as main character of the fairytale The Royal Heart and teaching self-acceptance in The Tanglelows, McGoon tries to establish a healthy open-minded relationship between parent and child. A conversation about imagination, gay characters and overcoming obstacles.

You studied psychology and political science. How does one become an author of children’s books with this background?
There’s a theatre program in my hometown and that’s where I fell in love with both theatre and working with children. This background basically evolved into writing for – and learning to connect with – kids through theatre, an art form not only about acting but something that also strengthens your social skills and your engagement. I think dealing with kids, theatre and art, while keeping the psychology I studied in my mind, naturally developed into writing down stories. It just happened as I was trying to process my own growth and understanding of the people around me. I realized that my words would have a broader reach if I found ways to adapt them to reach out to children.

Your imagination immediately takes off running in your first book, Out Of The Box. A story about the limitless places our creativity can take us to.
I kind of wrote Out Of The Box for myself, when I was developing a project with children on creative arts. Rather than write some angsty melodrama of my own life, I wanted to rediscover the creativity and imagination that I felt I had lost long ago. I wanted to find some solutions to my own struggles and challenges in a more universal, but also playful way. This book is not only about the simplicity of children playing with a cardboard box. It’s about maintaining and owning your imagination in order to make honest connections with others, even though that can prove challenging. It was my response to the concept of imagination and allowing that magic out of the box once again.

It sounds like your personal pursuit became a tool to help others.
I did. I thought I’d rather live with the possible pain of expressing my feelings, than live with the pain of denial. My personal life story became so dark and I got so tired of living in that darkness, tired of denying things, that I had to take ownership of myself and of my self worth. Writing these children’s books and trying to work past this fear of speaking about your feelings was very important. Because once you’re an adult, it gets a lot harder to start opening up all of a sudden. But when you’re a child you get into that habit of not only talking about your feelings, but also learning how to do so. There are so many ways to express yourself, but some ways are more healthy and effective than others. If children start recognizing that and start being comfortable, it will help society as a whole.

Your second book, The Royal Heart, is a fairytale. The first fairytale ever with a transgender princess.
Like many kids I had a childhood fascination for Disney and the exploration of the origin stories. What fascinates me in fairytales is not just the lesson they can teach, but how they’ve been shared over time and what has been changed due to the time that they were written. They are evolving and are adapting to society’s influence in a lot of ways. Children are connecting and relating to that. When I grew up, all I was seeing and reading were all these beautiful men and women falling in love with each other. I could connect with the essence of the story, I could connect with the love, but the visibility of it was limiting. Fairytales are magical, grand and beautiful, so why should people be excluded from that?

Why use the transgender theme?
It just so happened that the idea of a transgender character fitted the essence of what I was trying to convey. Transformation is a common theme in fairytales; Ariel’s goes from fins to legs, the frog becomes a prince, a princess becomes a swan, and so on, and most of those transformations are due to an external force. I never intended the book to be about being transgender, because that’s not something I personally experienced, but it’s about the love for everyone around me. The acceptance of that as being a part of life. If somebody comes to me and says “this is who I truly am”, there’s no part in me that would ever ask “why?” That’s not a question that comes into my mind, I’d rather say “thank you for sharing.” A lot of people are still stuck on the “why?” Why are you a woman, why are you a man, why are you gay? However, there is no “why” to begin with. It’s a reality that needs no explanation. It’s just about love.

‘The book can be a message for parents to show their children that this character worked up the courage to express their true self. That no matter what that is, their child can feel that way too.’

Did you intentionally use a medieval setting to make it more timeless?
Yes, I wanted it to look like it’s been around for many years because transgenderism is not new. And history has a way of denying the voice and the human experience when it is not understood. The book is very minimal, yet I was very careful in choosing the words to take it a little bit further then just about gender. For me it’s also about taking on the responsibility of self and becoming a leader. I want people to look at it and wonder if hundreds of years ago there actually was a prince who could never fully realize himself. We’re talking about a whole spectrum of human life that has always been around. It’s not that all of a sudden people are being born who identify in a different way. It’s just that those voices are finally starting to be heard. We get so caught up with this idea of male-female that we lose sight of just living life. And there are so many ways to live life that I don’t think it has to be dictated how that should be. Let’s just try and live together instead of trying to impede on other people’s lifestyles. We don’t have to hold hands and get along, but we do need not to abuse each other. And that’s what The Royal Heart talks about; it’s about celebrating life.

A true idealist?
I don’t know how I became such an idealist all of a sudden since my mantra through my mid-twenties was “I’m gonna die alone!” I was this melodramatic person until I finally realized I was only going to die alone if I forced that upon myself. I had to believe that there was more to it, and since I can’t be the only one in the world with those feelings I started sharing my stories and my writing. Because why can’t the LGBT community have those unrealistic, magical, love at first sight, fairytale stories, if everybody else does?

I’ve said you’re working on a book about a gay prince. Are you looking for a fairytale character you can relate to?
Well, I still want to write this epic adventure I was looking for when I was a kid. Having stories that represent LGBT characters is adding to the positive visibility that hasn’t been around for children. You can only have so much fun looking at blog posts of genderbending Disney characters. We’ve all seen those, and it’s great, but where are our characters? I’m not trying to be groundbreaking or evolutionary, I just want to have a character that happens to love men.

How would you convince a parent to buy an LGBT themed book for their child?
Having an LGBT character doesn’t necessarily make a book LGBT themed. The Royal Heart is not LGBT themed, nor is the story of the prince I’m developing. The main theme is love. To establish a healthy relationship between parent and child, you have to be open to each other. The book can be a message for parents to show their children that this character worked up the courage to express their true self. That no matter what that is, their child can feel that way too. They can come to them, no matter what they have to say, and that they are going to be ok with it. So it’s an invitation to children to know that if their parents share this story, that they have their full support of their full existence.

You recently released your third children’s book, Traveling the Twisting Troubling Tanglelows’ Trail. What’s it about?
It’s a rhyming, poetic story that deals with creatures that live inside your mind and tangle everything up, making you feel that you are worthless. In this book I’m saying that life is full of challenges, and that you’re might feel useless, but you have the ability to start untangling that. With this book I hope to introduce some practical applications to an abstract thought. Children need to understand that feeling unhappy is sometimes part of the beauty of life. And while bad things can happen, good things can happen also. The characters are saying that pain exists, but that joy can be found. You’re going to face obstacles, but you’re only going to be able to overcome them once you start to realize that you have the strength to do so.

www.gregmcgoon.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 18.

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Ayakamay

door Fleur Pierets | mei 21, 2016 | Gender Art

Ayakamay

Text JF. Pierets Photos Courtesy of Ayakamay

Artist Ayakamay explores the interrelationship between photography and performance. She simultaneously appropriates traditional Japanese cultural aesthetics and creates a dialogue with contemporary American urbanity and femininity, through the whimsical lens of her personal experience as a Japanese-American woman. A conversation about interactive performances, pursuing your goal and fitting in.

Can you take me through the creative process of your last performance GENDERLESS?
Charles Leslie, founder of the Leslie – Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York City, asked me if I wanted to perform in their space because he liked my previous work, IDOL WORSHIP, and because he thinks I’m a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. I felt very liberated after he’d said that. The title GENDERLESS comes from the fact that Ayakamay believes that there is no gender. I’ve been with women, men, and at one point I even had a gay boyfriend. I was curious to explore what being without gender meant to me. I know that biologically I’m a woman, but when you talk about your feelings, your soul, or something that you cannot see, it doesn’t have any gender. So I shot hundreds of portraits of myself, trying to express my femininity and masculinity. If you look at your face you can see both your mother and your father, I was splitting it up to figure out which part comes from whom. I discovered that one side of my face looks like my mother and the other like my father so I made photo prints where I mirror those exact sides. Therefor giving myself a more masculine, feminine or neutral face.

People often judge someone’s gender by looking at the face, since that’s the most identifying part of your body. By shooting my own picture and using make-up and facial hair, I realized that it was only about changing things on the outside. Inside, I’m still a woman in a woman’s body. I kept searching on what being genderless meant to me and at one point I even got confused and depressed because I realized I could not escape from my gender. Through the portraits I started creating I searched for a way to become genderless, if that even exists. The most significant thing I kept changing in the portraits was my hairstyle. So a few days before the performance I decided I had to have my hair shaved by the audience.The creative process was basically me, thinking I was genderless – which I was not – and then wanting to become that. Kind of looking for a utopian state.

Did the audience willingly participate?
They did, the audience took turns in cutting my hair and they were more emotional than I was. My performance is all about the third person. The audience comes in and they complete my work. The fact that people wanted to take my strands of my hair home with them, became very touching to me. For me, it was a successful performance because nobody stabbed me with the scissors.

Is your work always so intense?
I think my performances are indeed quite intense but they have a double layer. By making things very fabulous and gay, I try to make eye candy to get people’s attention at first. Yet in the end my work is very dark and contains a spiky message. One of my performances is that I dress up in a kimono with a big red wig. I don’t talk but when people ask me what I do, I ask if I can clean their ear. Some people say yes, some of them say “hell no!”. I’m challenging what people think. Some of them think I’m just a weirdo who will poke their brain out with the bamboo stick that I use, but somehow most of the people trust me and lay down on my lap. The performance causes a possibility of danger, but it is mainly about trust.

‘By making things very fabulous and gay, I try to make eye candy to get people’s attention at first. Yet in the end my work is very dark and contains a spiky message.’

Is it you performing, or are you in character?
I never feel like it’s another persona. I’ve been moving between different countries because of my parents’ job and I’ve always had difficult times fitting in to each place. I always knew that if I made new friends, it would only last for 3 months because then we would move again and I had to be another person all over again. I know I could have just been myself, but I didn’t want to get hurt so I made it impersonal. So I tried to be someone who came and went, which is something I still do in my performance. It’s a way to express where I came from, a different line to communicate with people.

Is performing something you have to do in order to keep balanced?
I think so, yes, because I was always an outsider, never able to fit in anywhere. People were always asking if I was a man or a woman, if I was Japanese or American, and at one point I didn’t want to answer those questions anymore. They made me uncomfortable because I didn’t feel I had to choose either one. Going somewhere and creating a surreal and odd atmosphere through my work, makes people as uncomfortable as I am. Sometimes there’s a harmony and that’s when people enjoy what they are seeing and experiencing. So yes, I have to say that I do have to perform in order to fully be who I am. In fact I’ve been performing for as long as I can remember.

Is the world you’re creating a fantasy?
I think it’s the opposite. I live in that world but it doesn’t fit in real life. For me it’s a fantasy to have a lover, to go to a movie theatre, eat dinner, and to cuddle at night. Things that people do on a regular basis are things that I cannot relate to.

When looking at your CV, I read that you had a breakthrough in 2014. What happened?
Until 2014 I was doing my performances, but making money helping out in photo productions. I didn’t earn very much but even if I hardly made enough money to pay the month’s rent, I realized that when I was stuck in one place, I was unable to see my future. In May of that year I decided to quit everything – I didn’t even have any savings – and go to Europe. Previously in New York I had met people from the Licht Feld gallery in Basel, Switserland. I wanted to be part of the art world so I needed to see more, show more, so basically my plan was to go to Switzerland and tell the people from the gallery I wanted to work with them. When they took me in right away, it was the beginning of my work being part of art fairs and being put up for display.

How is it being a woman in the art world?
I have the feeling that as a woman, you get judged more by what you are and how you look. It’s unfortunate, but if you’re discriminated as a woman, it’s the same thing as being judged upon the color of your skin. It’s all about the first look, isn’t it? And it happens all the time so maybe that’s why I keep continuing to perform, because maybe one day I can show that anything is possible. Also for women. I struggled quite a lot in my life and I have the feeling that if someone had shown me another way to let myself free, it probably would’ve been easier. So if I can be that person for someone, it would be great. Whatever you do or say, it always affects people.

www.ayakamay.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 18.

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Bubi Canal

door Fleur Pierets | mrt 27, 2016 | Conceptual Art

Bubi Canal

Text JF. Pierets Artwork Bubi Canal

Surrealism meets objet trouvé, meets performance art and photography. The art of Bubi Canal includes many disciplines, yet its common thread is the ability to make you happy. His work is positive, colorful and carries you along into this magical world filled with vivid creatures in geometric shapes and powerful imagery. Here is a glimpse into the disarming universe of Bubi Canal.

You’re originally from Spain, but moved to New York?
I was born in Santander, Spain, and met my husband Paul—who is American—in 2010 when I was living in Madrid. I ended up moving to New York in 2011. I can’t say it’s been easy to start over. I didn’t know where to find a photo studio and didn’t have any friends. But, New York is an inspiring place to live as an artist. People are very open and it’s a comfortable place to share your work.

Your work hardly has any reference to current hypes or trends.
My work represents a fantasy world, a universe where magic happens and where the sun always shines. It’s about what I feel and love, so you could say it’s a projection of my emotions. I’m an optimist and want that to be reflected in my work. My work changes as I evolve. It reflects the changes that happen in my life, like my interest in new technologies. I love applying their capabilities into my work.

You work with the people and objects that surround you.
My ideas are simple, and I find the most practical way to execute them within my means. I use myself or my friends as models, I shoot mostly in my neighborhood and my sculptures are made of plastic toys and found items. My work is an extension of my life. I can be inspired by a person, location or garment, for example. I’m always checking second hand shops for pieces I can use.

What inspires you?
Being open to intuition, ideas for my work come quite easily to me. I wait and see what comes up. I feel a connection to Japanese culture; I used to watch a lot of Japanese TV shows while growing up in Spain. I’m also a huge fan of Michael Jackson—his work inspires me tremendously.

‘I enjoy myself and see where it goes from there.’

What’s your work method?
I don’t have an image in mind at the beginning. I start working with a blank slate, so the end result is usually surprising to me. I enjoy myself and see where it goes from there. At times, I’ll start working on something and don’t even know what shape it will take. The end result could be an object in itself, or become a prop for a photo. Sometimes the idea turns out to be about movement, and then I’ll take it into the realm of video.

You must have a lot of fun.
I do. I look for the easiest way to create my work, so the process remains enjoyable while being effective.

How did your first solo show in New York come to be?
My work was featured as part of a group show titled Psychopomp, which was curated by Alberto Cortés and showed at the Munch Gallery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Gallerist Lillan Munch, the owner of the venue, asked if I’d be interested in doing a solo show. That led to Special Moment, my first solo show in New York. I was looking forward to people’s reactions, which were positive. I’m currently working on a new exhibition for the Digitaliseum gallery in Malmo, Sweden, as well as a publication about my work, with text by Jorge Clar, for Pupa Press.

What’s your biggest dream?
To inspire in the same way I’ve been inspired by the work of others. Ideally, my creations could be a catalyst for positivity.

www.bubicanal.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 17.

Read the complete issue here.

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Unveiled

door Fleur Pierets | mrt 27, 2016 | Portrait Series

Unveiled

Text JF. Pierets Photos Belle Ancell

Belle Ancell is a queer community photographer living in Canada. Amongst her series there is “Unveiled”, portraits of the Vancouver Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. In-depth photographs and representations of people who are, just like Belle herself, looking for a way to give back to and to strengthen their community.

Why choose the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as a subject?
Because they are so beautiful. I used to see them around and at first I thought they were drag queens, or performers, clowns. I didn’t realize they were philanthropists who contribute a lot of their time and money to the community. As an order, they take their commitment very seriously and are actually taking vows for life. I just wanted to do something to honor them because I don’t think a lot of people understand who they are and the importance of what they are doing. At least I didn’t.

Are you a part of the order?
They made me an Angel. An Angel is someone who, in some way, has contributed to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It’s an honorary title and a way for them to thank me for the project and the portraits.

The project is your way of giving back to the community, can you elaborate?
It’s to give back, to highlight and to acknowledge certain aspects. I love my community and I truly think there’s not enough imagery out there that is positive and beautiful. I want to put that out into the world by documenting our lives. I didn’t know anything about queer history when I was younger. Not via schools, not anywhere. Now, as I’m getting older, I’m starting to learn more about the activists that paved the way for me to sit at my job and be completely ‘out’, to be queer and feel more or less safe. So yes, I think it’s important because there is still so much work to be done.

Talking in terms of ‘we’ is a very recent development since you didn’t come out until you were 32 years old?
And until then I had absolutely no idea. I was 32, living in a tiny town in Canada where there was nothing but stigma, negativity and homophobia. There was no queer content available in the late ‘80’s, nor were there any movies or TV-shows on the subject matter. I didn’t know where to find the reading material and the Internet wasn’t as evolved as it is now, so there was absolutely no way for me to find those queer artists. I slowly clued in via a same-sex couple that moved into my village. All of a sudden it just clicked. So I can say it took me a while to wake up. I wasn’t self aware and very, very much in denial.

‘I feel like it’s my purpose to use this gift of photography to make all the wonderful things that happen in our community common good. Yes, these personal projects are definitely the core of who I am.’

And all of a sudden you find yourself in a community.
I feel so fortunate; I wouldn’t change this for anything. We’re minorities, however you interpret it, so we look out for each other and support each other. We have our own culture, art, music, and it’s an amazing feeling to be part of that kind of queer movement.

You use the word queer. What’s your personal definition of the word?
I discovered the word queer about 15 years ago and it just clicked. To me it’s everything I am. I’m not lesbian or gay; I’m queer. Finding the exact language to describe your community is an ongoing discussion, but I feel confident with the word. That some older people feel uncomfortable with the term – because it was used violently against them – is something I try to respect in our conversations. But it’s evolving every day, everything is changing, language is changing and I’m open to everyone’s perspective. There are a lot of people who are working hard to make space for everyone and trying to find the right language and even working on their own prejudices. Because we’re all human and we all have misconceptions. It’s an evolution and we all need to be open to listening and caring.

What would you like to achieve with your work?
I’d like to be remembered for contributing to the community. Documenting it, showing the beauty of the community, the challenges. I’m currently working on a series called ‘Aging Out’ and it’s about LGBT elders and the unique challenges they face as they age. People are starting to realize the value of connecting with our past. We need that. Recently I was at a circle with LGBT people from all different ages, ranging from 20 to 70 years old, and we all told our coming out story. It was exciting to discover that although there were differences, there were also many commonalities. I feel like it’s my purpose to use this gift of photography to make all the wonderful things that happen in our community common good. Yes, these personal projects are definitely the core of who I am.

www.belleancell.com