Queer self-expression since the 1960s
a collaborative video-based methodology
Since the 1960s, queer people have appeared with increasing frequency on film and TV screens as characters, activists, celebrities and ordinary people.
From Andy Warhol’s 16mm silent head-shots of friends and celebrities (1963-1966) to TJ Cuthand’s first person video Lessons in Baby Dyke Theory (1995), queer people have contributed to the crystallisation of new modes of mediated self-performance and documentary genres of personal representation, such as the portrait film and the screen test.
“QUEER SELF-EXPRESSION SINCE THE 1960s” considers the dispersal of performance styles and genres of self-presentation now evident across an expanded field of reality-based media, from the coming out TikTok video to the hybrid drama-doc.
The project offers a prehistory of how mediated modes of queer performance and self-representation have become widespread and intelligible, and how they have sustained queer identities and relations across time, or generations.
methodOLOGY
I’ll be making videos with co-collaborators (film-makers, producers, researchers, activists, etc) using a process of back-and-forth exchange of original and archival film/video.
The methodology embodies its research aims and questions by de-centering the individual, privileging relationality and dialogue, and focusing on pragmatic engagements with and uses of reality-based film/video.