The monumental body: Hungry and the performative posthuman | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Posthuman Drag
  • ISSN: 2055-5695
  • E-ISSN: 2055-5709

Abstract

This article looks at Berlin-based drag performer Hungry, who employs ‘distorted’ drag, primarily through digital documentation and recordings of performances. The displacement of the body within her drag performances and the understanding of this body as a ‘body’ by an audience becomes the focus of analysis: whilst Hungry remains human in some aspects of appearance, the aesthetic of the performance is ostensibly non-human. Viewers of the performance are aware of Hungry’s human nature and the attempt to reconcile the human and non-human facets of Hungry’s body itself becomes part of the performance. That is, the performance relies on the multiplicities between the recognizable and unrecognizable human body. This, in turn, acts as a lens for the reconsideration of what one recognizes as human in the first place, and allows us to ask questions regarding the conceptual limits of the human body, particularly in relation to what are perceived as its defining characteristics.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Economic and Social Research Council (Award 2272455)
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2023-04-06
2024-04-28
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