Confusion

Wellll, it didn’t look too good – woke at 4 AM, lay there turning & brooding till 7.30. Got up grumpily, armed for the day with nothing but a headache& a giant grudge against the world, its people, and myself.

Over a cup of tea I then miserably read a few pages of a revoltingly ugly post-modern text on art history – no, I don’t want my love of art history deconstructed! Art history is not just a plot of the ruling classes to fabricate a glorious past … it is about diving for beauty and meaning in the past. But granted, even this laboriously post-modern text yielded some nuggets of wisdom, such as, “the past framed as an object of historical desire”. I like that, “historical desire”!. And what about the “semantic carrying capacity” of art objects - endearing really, art objects as containers with a certain carrying capacity for meaning.

But still, not yet the kind of dazzling insights that would make my day. That was reserved for a fellow Flickr- member. Not only she faved & commented kindly upon some of my photos there, but also she was the first to not assign me straight away to the female-gender-box.

Let me explain: I had been delighted that Flickr allowed for not identifying one’s gender (or even opting for the delightful category “other”). And those remotely self-portraying photos I had posted, had been carefully selected for their gender-ambiguity. I had wanted my Flickr-persona to consist of nothing but fleeting, un-gendered shadows and reflections. But up till today the ambiguity seemed to exist in my mind only … fellow-Flickrites unfailingly referring to me as “sis”, “lady” etc….

Until Hurray! Hurray! , this morning’s reply that read “thank you good Sir”. Well, we ain’t there yet of course, because my aim after all was to be un- identifiable as either man or woman. But even so, this “Sir” after the “Sis” is just the kind of confusion I like!