From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 11:11:51 1998 Received: from [194.134.18.57] (A47.waag.org [194.134.18.57]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22709; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:11:49 +0200 Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:11:49 +0200 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tabody@waag.org From: shu lea cheang Subject: on forum programming/data and live audio transmission Cc: "Oldenziel, Ruth" <101340.1021@compuserve.com>, Jennifer Gonzalez Shu Lea reporting on the programming end- Here at DeWaag, Society for Old and New Media, i work with a design and programming team for the forum interface. There are two componants for this interface/intervention. (1) certain topics are designated, i.e.: textual violence (thanks to Sandy) these appear in big font and crawl up and down on the interface. We expect the panelists to convey some thoughts on these selected topics. Your thoughts should be in quotes- i.e. A story which culture tells itself, the transsexual body is a tactile politics of reproduction constituted through textual violence. The clinic is a technology of inscription. Given this circumstance in which a minority discourse comes to ground in the physical, a counterdiscourse is critical. --sandy stone Your quotes will be data-ed and displayed along the topics. (They will be in smaller fonts and scroll left to right, one follow the other) The netusers can also participate and click on the topics to enter their own comments on this topics. Thier signed comments will also become data and part of the discussion. We hope during the next 3 weeks, we can generate some topics and present some of your thoughts/in quotes (50-80 words). Lisa's statement has started out with these topics- textual violence avatar attack technosocial body cross-section slice artifact the real body genitalia dissect viscera knife glove tissue Intersex organs But I am afraid they are all too general... maybe we can join force to come out with 10 more specific topics??? (2) On the day of the forum (9/20), we're planning on webcam and Audio upload, but not like the usual real audio/video transmission. Rather the audio design would clearly indicate who's speaking at a giving time and we hope to conduct this cross-forum with you respond trans-nation-wise.... For this Live forum, I had a meeting with Suzanne Oxenaar (curator, Theatrum Anatomicum) and Jose van Dijck of Amsterdam end.. we have talked about a presentation with performative nature.. Jose has suggested, for one thing, you all in doctor's white coat. We also think maybe Sandy Stone and Susan Stryker would like to bring in some performance elements at the end of the panel discussion?? We would like to open some discussion on how the live forum should be conducted and how to focus?? note that the data forum will be read as the live forum audio getting transmitted at the same time. okay? am I makign sense? hard to describe a programming and design that're still in progress.... bear with me... Lisa, would you lead the topics' discussion? soon sl From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 11:12:03 1998 Received: from [194.134.18.57] (A47.waag.org [194.134.18.57]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA22721; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:12:02 +0200 Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 11:12:02 +0200 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tabody@waag.org From: shu lea cheang Subject: from Matthew Drutt on the focus statement Cc: "Oldenziel, Ruth" <101340.1021@compuserve.com>, Jennifer Gonzalez I am posting this note from Mathew which was written before the listserve established, but I think it may get us started on the forum dialogue. Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 10:31:46 -0400 From: "Mathew Drutt" To: lcartwright@earthlink.net Cc: shulea@earthlink.net Subject: Re: final revision Mime-Version: 1.0 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by egret.prod.itd.earthlink.net id NAA04669 Status: U lisa, Congratulations. I think the text has become much clearer and compelling. I still worry that it might be a bit long, but if this version is only to begin the dialogue with other panelists, it is fine. We will have to greatly refine this for a broader audience, however. In that realm, it not so much too long as it is too sophisticated for general consumption. Some of the terminology would have to be softened or simplified. I hope I don't sound like a philistine. I just know what happens when we deploy theoretical texts to general audiences. One thing that is maybe assumed within the text but not explicitly stated is the idealization of identity that is performed through digital technology. While you refer to the ability of technology to recode the body according to "cultural norms", it seems to me that its specific relationship to ideal beauty or the subversion of the aging process is worth specific attention. The realm of the digital is a fountain of youth, offering a potentially infinite existence in a realm where re-signification can be digitally encrypted ad infinitum. Perhaps this is something to get into on the listserv and not the statement? Towards that end, I would add beauty, the ideal, and age or longevity to the databse. matthew From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 15:12:00 1998 Received: from snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.62]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA24603 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 15:11:58 +0200 Received: from [153.37.114.185] (1Cust185.tnt4.nyc3.da.uu.net [153.37.114.185]) by snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA01994 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 06:11:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: lcartwright@mail.earthlink.net Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 08:19:25 -0400 To: tabody@waag.org From: Lisa Cartwright Subject: my bio revision Hi everyone, I'm not sure what my bio reads here but here's a version for introduction: I am currently a fellow in the Society for the Humanities at Cornell, where I am working on a project and course with Brian Goldfarb on technology and disability. The class is based in a computer lab and we are bringing together activist and cultural studies writings on disability with writing and projects on technology access and body-technology interface. I am an associate professor of Visual and Cultural Studies and of English at the University of Rochester, where I teach courses in media studies, health and society, and women's studies. I wrote Screening the Body: Tracing Medicine's Visual Culture and edited, with Paula Treichler and Constance Penley, The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science. I'm finishing up a book of essays titled Gender Artifacts: Health, Technology, and Media at the End of the Millennium. I've curated art and film exhibitions on the intersections of technology, the body, and health. =+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+= Lisa Cartwright, Associate Professor English/Visual and Cultural Studies Department of English Morey Hall University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 Phone:716-464-9318 Fax: 716-442-5769 Email: lcartwright@earthlink.net =+/-+=\+-+=+-+=/+-+=+-+\=+-+=+/-+=+-+\=+-+=/+-+=+-\+= From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 15:58:49 1998 Received: from snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.62]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA25114 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 15:58:47 +0200 Received: from [153.37.114.185] (1Cust76.tnt4.nyc3.da.uu.net [153.37.114.76]) by snipe.prod.itd.earthlink.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA21894 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 06:58:36 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: lcartwright@mail.earthlink.net Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 09:06:14 -0400 To: tabody@waag.org From: Lisa Cartwright Subject: material I had a dream last night that Shu Lea and I went shopping at the old Diamond Fabric Store on First Avenue for material for the Brandon project. In the 80s they had megabolts of wild old fabrics in a fallingdown mildew-encrusted space, a relic from the industrial era. The fabric was useful to everyone in the East Village who wanted to appropriate old materials to forge newly imagined looks. I think the dream links to thoughts about the fetishization of technology in the narrow sense, and wonderings about how can we acknowledge the tactile and the low-tech, the mundane and the smelly materials we construct out of. In response to Matthew/Shu Lea's The realm of the digital is a fountain of youth, offering a potentially infinite existence in a realm where re-signification can be digitally encrypted ad infinitum. Has anyone seen the movie The Leach Woman? (Vivian Sobchack shows it when she gives her talk on aging and plastic surgery.) A doctor tried to preserve his wife's youthful beauty by taking her to an unspecified African location to be treated with leeches that have a fountain-of-youth effect (or create monstrosities or kill, if used wrong). The movie raises all sorts of interesting issues about gender race and aging but to get back to Matthew's point, it seems like a lot of new technologies from the fantasy of leech therapy to surgical innovations to the digital have been billed as potential sources of youth- or monstrosity-making. What is different about the digital? =+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+= Lisa Cartwright, Associate Professor English/Visual and Cultural Studies Department of English Morey Hall University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 Phone:716-464-9318 Fax: 716-442-5769 Email: lcartwright@earthlink.net =+/-+=\+-+=+-+=/+-+=+-+\=+-+=+/-+=+-+\=+-+=/+-+=+-\+= From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 17:36:10 1998 Received: from [194.134.18.57] (A47.waag.org [194.134.18.57]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA25780 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 17:36:09 +0200 Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1998 17:36:09 +0200 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tabody@waag.org From: shu lea cheang Subject: sugar coated theory pills >Diamond Fabric Store-- >of the tactile and the low-tech, the mundane and the smelly materials we construct out of. a visualization of Lisa's dream to be found as sugar coated theory pills- http://brandon.guggenheim.org/gifts continue chasing my china dream- think fortune cookie when unscrew the pills... to be manufactured-- my other coin outlet. sl From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 20:35:00 1998 Received: from guggenheim.org (smtpgate.guggenheim.org [205.232.24.31]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id UAA26448 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 20:34:59 +0200 Received: from SOHO-Message_Server by guggenheim.org with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 03 Sep 1998 14:32:25 -0400 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.2 Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 14:31:56 -0400 From: "Matthew Drutt" To: tabody@waag.org Subject: Re: material Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by A01.waag.org id UAA26449 I think what's different about the digital is its capacity to make the imaginary into something tangible, or at least appear to be so. It's like when people go for plastic surgery these days, a doctor shows them their new nose/cheeks/lips/hips/breasts in a computer simulation so that they can actually "see" what they will look like. Moreover, the capacity of a database to store a nearly infinite array of possible body part modifications, so that one can pick and choose as if going through a JCrew catalogue, is significantly different than the potions and lotions that are peddled on television that show someone who is already "beautiful" using goop to stay that way. The digital demistifies. In fact, it does so to such a degree that the prospects of youth/beauty/longevity almost become banal. Might not the same be said for transgendered identity? Does the digital represent such an easy conduit from one identity to another that it eventually deflates the "risk" involved in analog transformations? >>> Lisa Cartwright 09/03/98 09:06AM >>> I had a dream last night that Shu Lea and I went shopping at the old Diamond Fabric Store on First Avenue for material for the Brandon project. In the 80s they had megabolts of wild old fabrics in a fallingdown mildew-encrusted space, a relic from the industrial era. The fabric was useful to everyone in the East Village who wanted to appropriate old materials to forge newly imagined looks. I think the dream links to thoughts about the fetishization of technology in the narrow sense, and wonderings about how can we acknowledge the tactile and the low-tech, the mundane and the smelly materials we construct out of. In response to Matthew/Shu Lea's The realm of the digital is a fountain of youth, offering a potentially infinite existence in a realm where re-signification can be digitally encrypted ad infinitum. Has anyone seen the movie The Leach Woman? (Vivian Sobchack shows it when she gives her talk on aging and plastic surgery.) A doctor tried to preserve his wife's youthful beauty by taking her to an unspecified African location to be treated with leeches that have a fountain-of-youth effect (or create monstrosities or kill, if used wrong). The movie raises all sorts of interesting issues about gender race and aging but to get back to Matthew's point, it seems like a lot of new technologies from the fantasy of leech therapy to surgical innovations to the digital have been billed as potential sources of youth- or monstrosity-making. What is different about the digital? =+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+=+-+= Lisa Cartwright, Associate Professor English/Visual and Cultural Studies Department of English Morey Hall University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 Phone:716-464-9318 Fax: 716-442-5769 Email: lcartwright@earthlink.net =+/-+=\+-+=+-+=/+-+=+-+\=+-+=+/-+=+-+\=+-+=/+-+=+-\+= From shulea@waag.org Thu Sep 3 22:24:21 1998 Received: from rgate.ricochet.net (rgate1.ricochet.net [204.179.143.6]) by A01.waag.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id WAA26766 for ; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 22:24:20 +0200 Received: from 204.179.135.2 (mg-20425418-149.ricochet.net [204.254.18.149]) by rgate.ricochet.net (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id PAA19639; Thu, 3 Sep 1998 15:23:48 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <35EEB48A.248C@ricochet.net> Date: Thu, 03 Sep 1998 13:23:54 -0200 From: Susan Stryker Reply-To: mulebaby@ricochet.net, [also@ricochet.net, mulebabyxx@aol.com] X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.02 (Macintosh; U; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matthew Drutt CC: tabody@waag.org Subject: Re: material References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To redact Matthew Drutt's comment: > I think what's different about the digital is its capacity to make the >imaginary into something tangible [. . . .] Might not the same be said >for transgendered identity? Does the digital represent such an easy >conduit from one identity to another that it eventually deflates the >"risk" involved in analog transformations? Transsexual procedures can, I think, be consided a transformation of the imaginary into something tangible. To steal a line from Jacques Lacan, they are an ecstatic leap into the real through the paper hoop of fantasy. I think the same can be said of much cosmetic surgery--a subjective image of self that demands actualization in the physical plane. I don't think any non-somatic representation of identity, however sophisticated, will ever supplant the need or desire for what Lisa Cartwright, in her discussion of Elizabeth Grosz, called the "social completion" of the body through transformative acts that effectively produce the significance of material embodiment. If there is any such thing as human nature, it is the task of perpetually (re)iterating ourselves as embodied subjects in language, and our concommitant ability to grasp the potential in that situation for sometimes speaking ourselves into Being differently. Because phenomenologically, experientially, we are never outside of embodiment (because our senses are always part of the interface, however the communicational network is technologized) I don't think there will every be a time when we will leave behind the "risk" of somatic/"analog" transformations. Changing embodiment *means differently* than changing non-somatic representation, and the embodied situation seems likely to always be with us. Shu Lea: I dunno--I kind of like the key words Lisa chose, broad as they are. They give us lots of wiggle room, lots of material to work with, in fashioning theory pills. One that seemed apropos of my comments above was the real body: is not synomymous with the human biological organism, but rather with the one which most persuasively asserts its demand for representation, which may or may not be the material body. On the topic of aging/youth, I recently joined a new listserv called the "Transgender Aging Network," which is populated mostly by people working in the field of gerontology who have developed a professional interest in older transgendered people, and by aging trannies themselves. One of the initial discussion threads was about how the transition from one gender to another created the perception of a change of age, and how this effect was different for MTFs and FTMs. A doctor on this list made the followning observations about this phenomenon, which I offer to this group, FY collective I. I found it a very pointed reminder that the biological organism is not infinitely plastic, its material substance not entirely amenable to symbolic transformation. (Like any other medium, it has its limits.) Here 'tis (From Dr. A. Evan Eyler, U. Michigan): 1) The principal reason that FTMs tend to look younger than their M counterparts is because of the effects of estrogen on the skin, which they (the FTMs) experienced until they transitioned, and (other than a brief period around puberty, during which estrogens also surge, giving 13 year old boys breast buds temporarily) the M's did not. Also, in our culture, being shorter tends to be equated with being younger. (Weird, eh?) 2) This "fountain of youth" fades with time and lack of estrogen exposure. Most of the middle aged and older FTMs whom I have known actually look ***older*** than their chronological ages. In many (though certainly not all) cases, this is due to testosterone overuse. The skin of folks who are overusing testosterone, whether they be FTM or, say, a steroid-using M athlete, tends to be oilier than normal for age, and have more of a "ruddy" complexion tone, especially if they are of European descent. Larger than normal facial pores and persistent acne in middle age are also signs. (Some people look like this anyhow, so son't assume.) Many FTMs don't have access to lab services, and therefore have no idea what their serum testosterone levels are. This is a **big** problem. 3) Either estrogens or androgens will protect the body's bone mass and prevent ostroporosis. Estrogens also offer some cardiovascular protection, which androgens do not. The two main health problems about which FTMs should be worried, are (in my opinion) cardiovascular disease and gynecologic/breast cancers (among FTMs who are non-op). Estrogen increases HDL ("good" cholesterol) and lowers LDL ("bad" cholesterol. Testosterone does the reverse. This is one of the reasons why women tend not to develop heart disease until after menopause, whereas men commonly have heart attacks in their 40s and even 30s. This is also thought to be one of the reasons why, on average, women live longer than men. These changes will not show up on a standard cholesterol screen (such as is done at health fairs), because that looks only at *total* cholesterol, not the HDL and LDL fractions. ****Everyone**** (FTM, menopausal F, older M) who is going to take testosterone, should have a fasting lipid panel obtained before they start, after 6-12 months or so, and periodically thereafter. Obviously, if the person is FTM and the lipids (cholesterol and other blood fats) are being negatively affected by the testosterone, the solution isn't to stop the testosterone but to treat the lipid problem, as one would in a non-trans M. However, if they are overusing testosterone, they may need to cut back. With regard to the cancer issue, FTMs over 40 who have not had top surgery need mammograms, and FTMs of any age who have not had bottom surgery need Pap tests. This is the case even if surgery is planned at a later date, since cancer may not wait. "Real men get Pap tests." 4) With regard to menopause symptoms among FTMs, as heretical as this sounds, very low doses of estrogen supplements sometimes do wonders. Hormonal effects are very dose-dependent. A tiny dose of estrogen won't cause feminization, but may still get rid of the symptoms. (Some non-trans M's take tiny doses of estrogen, too, for certain unusual medical conditions.) For someone who can't/won't take estrogen, even a teeny bit, there are sometimes other options, but that depends on what specific problems they are experiencing, and is a longer discussion. I hope that some of this helps. There are a lot of things that we don't know about FTM/MTF aging and health, but due to studies regarding hormone supplementation in menopause, sports, etc., there is a lot that *is* known. Best thoughts, A. Evan Eyler, M.D., M.P.H. Director of Primary Care Services Comprehensive Gender Services Program University of Michigan Health Systems -------------------- Susan Stryker