#black performance

[slayercain]

Throughout much work in Black performance theory, the relational power of affect is invoked to point toward how performance—variously construed both as staged presentations and, more abstractly, as “doing things in the world”—creates “new worlds,” resisting and refusing modernity’s mandate of Black captivity. While this move is certainly understandable—after all, why should the entitlements of unfettered Being-in-the-World be the sole domain of whiteness and its aspirant “junior partners”?—in application it functions to downplay, at best, or to ignore outright the violence that saturates Blackness in the first instance, in favor of a relentless positivity. Therefore it is imperative to interrogate closely this tendency to invoke affect as central to an ongoing project of making new worlds—worlds that purport to “refuse” anti-Black violence for the allure of “otherwise possibilities.” Specifically, I am interested here in what subtends the tendency toward embracing feeling and sensation as modes of transcendence: what (perhaps unconscious) wish guides the gesture? The task one faces in answering these questions is to begin to name the desires and disavowals necessary for these critical moves, to pinpoint what is turned away from in the turn to affect, feeling, and sensation as pathways to the (always nebulously defined) otherwise. To put it more crudely, we must think the turn to “the otherwise” otherwise. We must trouble the notion that the field of sensation is open and equally available to all, and somehow outside the dictating terms of ontometaphysics, as well as the pervasive idea that sensation in itself is somehow an antidote to violence rather than a means of its diffusion. The “otherwise,” as it operates within contemporary Black critical thought, is often a further retrenchment of the obliterative logics of anti-Black modernity, a more palatable, perhaps even pleasurable, yet no less shattering form of terror. It is precisely this point that insistent turns to pleasure within Black critical theory seem to ignore, or at the very least suppress, in favor of an affirmative rendering of pleasure as an antidote to violence, an end in itself, or a surplus to violence rather than an extension of it. [Ashon] Crawley names “the otherwise” as “the always possible plentitude of alternative . . . modes of being [and] ways of life.” In other words, “otherwise” is the figuration of possibility as panacea, as remedy to the problem Blackness poses for Being. But what are the stakes and implications of a conception of Blackness as purely sensational—and a celebratory register of sensation at that? What must be foreclosed to come to a conception of Blackness as celebration? Mightn’t what Crawley and the many others who reproduce this logic of celebratory transcendence are so eager to escape be that which Blackness brings to bear on the World that so persistently seeks its obliteration? In other words, what if what is being refused, in and through the embrace of affect as relationality, is Blackness itself? If desire is what mobilizes every theoretical and philosophical gesture—if the very act of philosophizing is itself a product of the machinations of desire—then the desire inherent in critical moves toward embracing affect as a mode of relation within Black studies is a (paradoxical) desire for anti-Blackness that masquerades as its refusal.

Tyrone S. Palmer, Otherwise than Blackness: Feeling, World, Sublimation

[sheepgirlmaidtummy]

man. this whole thing pisses me off because like. even when people talk about staff having a history of hating trans women, that this isnt the first time, without fail black trans women are forgotten to be included again and again. im not surprised this caused such an uproar when the popular white woman gets deleted. nobody should be, its been that way like forever. some cunt in my inbox got annoyed i called rita a sex worker (lol? okay)

but i mentioned that in my post because so many black trans women have gotten removed from this site for their sex work alone, regardless of if it "broke community guidelines" or not, especially when tumblr live and the ads on this website are so fucking horny. idek what to say rn because like. this wont get as many notes as the posts talking about her will. the exploding car thing is gonna get more attention than the trans women on this site you dont actually care about listening to. ive been talking about how unfair it is to be a black tgirl on this site for years and nobody cares.

i love rita, we talked abit the other day and she's doing fine, dont get it twisted and think i hate her or some bs, she's a big fucking reason im not fucking homeless.

but part of why her deletion got to #1 trending on tumblr for multiple days in a row is that she's white

[bigfatbreak]

BLACKOUT : destroys all light

so have you all been keeping up with Scarlet Lady 👀

[diana-andraste]

Objectified Outline, Dóra Maurer, 1981

[katabay]

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A KNIGHT...

the visual inspiration for this was a combination of Frederic William Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs and also Bernardo Cavallino's The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin

this was supposed to be just a one off illustration to get the thoughts out of my system, but then I started thinking about medieval politics and warfare and plagues and a castle and home as both a place of refuge, a prison, and a tomb, so perhaps they will end up as ex voto characters as well.

you may say, hey! that rosary looks like it has too many beads! it's a fifteen decade rosary, probably. dominicans are really into marian devotions. it works out.

also. spiral style stair cases. oh boy. it was that unexpectedly more difficult than I originally thought it would be to draw. the more I think about it, the less I understand them, even though I had a million photos of the stairs in front of me while I was drawing it.

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[zegalba]

Masahisa Fukase: My Birthplace (1972)

[spacerockfloater]

Cersei Lannister & Rhaenyra Targaryen:

Are forced to marry someone they don’t love, so they find solace in the arms of a family member and commit incest

Seduce members of the Royal Guard

Have their husbands murdered because they didn’t like them

Have three bastard kids

Commit atrocities to claim the Iron Throne

Betray their allies when they feel threatened

Rule with fire and blood

Live in constant paranoia so they murder innocent servants whom they believe will betray them, even if said betrayal would be a direct consequence of the way they treat their subjects

Are hated by the people

and lets us not forget the -

But no, please go ahead and tell me all about how Rhaenyra is this feminist icon who has the divine right to rule over hundreds of thousands of people because her daddy said so, therefore if I don’t support her I’m a misogynist.

[disease]

“INVISIBLE ADVERSARIES” [109M.] VALIE EXPORT | @ AUSTRIA, 1977

[autizmotbh]

skinny guys are outdated

get yourself a fat fuck

AND I STAND BY THAT

and angel dust and carmilla redesign because i can

[cinemaocd]

Jack Rackham is my favorite character in Black Sails because Toby Schmitz is the only actor who realizes he is in a prequel for Muppet Treasure Island...

[messervixen]

Guys, you know the whole “James’ type is people who are mean to him” thing?

I think it’s because they make him feel like a real person.

I am forever pushing the “James struggles with feeling like a real person agenda” and I think that initially Lily/Regulus genuinely didn’t like him as a person and that is what made him initially attracted to them. James is one of those “everyone loves him, he’s a literal ball of sunshine” people. But James is nothing if not a people pleaser so he’s always trying to be someone that people like and sometimes he’s not sure that the person he is, is real or just an act.

But they don’t like the person that he shows everyone (because they can subconsciously feel that something is off with James). And no one (excluding Snape and people he doesn’t like because he’s not performing for them) has ever told James that they don’t like him.

So he tries to win both of them over but it doesn’t work because he’s trying to win them over with this not-real-person side of himself and he only wins them over once they see the real James. So by not liking this fake person and seeing through his mask they’re inadvertently helping him learn how to be himself and not be putting on a show all the time.

[blackadultcollection]

Ashlyn Peaks

[caemidraws]

The cat stared / «You are the wolf, indeed. But is he the snake?» «Am I wrong, then?» howled the wolf / «Am I wrong?»

The snake did not reply / The snake wasn't there «Am I wrong?» howled the wolf / «Wrong, again?»

[dirthenera]

Life got super busy so I’m behind on Veiltober, but I finally finished this one! Emmrich!

[valentinerosse]

"Psychopaths!" (2024)

Crossover idea we had (me and @ruilliet)

We just combined our current hyperfixations HEHEHEHEHHE.

[zegalba]

Marina Abramovic: Rest Energy (1980)