Spring 2020 studio work began on January 3rd. 19 days before returning to campus, my partner Cam, my ma, and myself began the rainy trek to Baltimore from podunk Southern Maryland. Today was the day: after 2 years of therapy for gender dysphoria, I was allowed a consultation for ‘top surgery’ (bilateral mastectomy, chest masculinization). Channeling the energy of an 80’s mall walker, I strode towards the office of Dr. Del Corral, my family huffing behind. Despite the enormity of this occasion, the doctor’s appointment took less time than parking. In 15 minutes, he assessed my chest, suggested incisions that reduced loose skin, and vetted pages of questions from my ma. Despite the fast-paced blur, I felt strangely reassured. Dr. Del Corral didn’t seem pressed: this was a fairly direct procedure, usually gets covered by insurance, and if I could lose some weight before going under, recovery looked smooth. Although my insurance covering the surgery was still on the table, this was the first time I didn’t take two steps backwards after this leap forward.
The nearing possibility of physical transition fed my practice. Working with my advisor in an advanced film class, I wanted to make another short experimental documentary about preparing for top surgery. What lengths could my body go to transform before surgical intervention? Would these changes be enough to satisfy me, before surgery and after? How was delving into gym culture an aspect of masculinization in itself? Sitting with these questions, I began making video work about the discomfort of gender dysphoria and the ‘under the microscope’ visibility of trans individuals.
And so began the shooting! Thinking about body as landscape, I was interested in the gesture of pouring and removing. Visualizing gender as something that is placed upon us through socialization, I gave form to that structure with goop. Mixing acrylic paint, Elmer’s glue, and a finely milled glitter, I created a material that dried fairly quickly and sat in a strange place between cake batter and period blood. Is it a sexy gesture of pouring and foodplay? Is it delicate yet gorey dissection? Sprawled on a table with fans pointed at my genitals, my partner and I chatted playfully while the material dried. Then began her sterile, delicate removal of material. I edited this video in Adobe Premiere, testing sound from the Pokemon Red & Blue Soundtrack and my own live bass guitar accompaniment. Stubborn as ever, I realized that I had learned last semester: Final Cut Pro generates my best film art. Taking the footage back into this software, the cut was stitched together.
OBJECT/TOO SUBJECT from Mitch E. Vicieux on Vimeo.
This video brought the house down. Airing to my advisor’s mix grad/undergrad class, I was gleeful to see cishet film bros covering their eyes as my partner peeled paint off my pubic mound. Finally this horror inspiration was starting to come into the formal language of my films. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I returned to my artists toolkit of layering, multiplicity, and organic audio. Unfortunately this video success was short lived.
Enter Theys Next Door:
Theys Next Door from Mitch E. Vicieux on Vimeo.
Teaching Moving Image Art this semester, I was inspired by a student who made a delightful comedy piece using Photoshop frame-by-frame puppet animation. Thinking about my love of reality television (and perhaps the intense subjectification my practice brings to my private life) I wanted to work with Girls Next Door. When my breasts began growing at age 12-13, I was convinced future career choice be Playboy model/Hugh Hefner girlfriend. Thinking about how that gender-entrenched goal was constructed by media, I used this content to consider my climb towards desirability. Transitioning (and developing an interest in bodybuilding in the process) is all about how I look, and the euphoria of presenting in a self-desirable fashion. How different is this from working out to be desired by others? The visibility of this transformation seemed linked to that of a Playboy centerfold. So I cut down a 23-minute reality TV episode and animated myself into scenes.
What resulted was an unmitigated disaster. It took 3 tries to animate the simple ‘talking head’ scene due to rookie errors ‘I been knew’ to avoid. I was running out of time to add myself into planned scenes. What resulted, I am embarrassed by. The situation worsened at critique. Girls Next Door does not agree with 3rd wave feminism. My peers thought I was punching down on the girls and commenting on unattainable body standards for women. I was confused by this. I ain’t a woman, so I’m unsure why people thought I could speak on women’s beauty standards. Horrified to think that people would see me as willing to ‘punch down’ in my work, I left feeling like hot garbage. I went into to working with this content thinking, “I’m so woke and liberated from gender, this is going to be so silly!” Instead, I fell in love with the show all over again. The show was surprisingly sapphic. There was no contrived reality conflict, just beautiful women supporting each other while doing community service work/personal development. These feelings unfortunately did not translate formally, at least to the group I screened it to. The above video is a shorter cut, but overall this had me in a video rut.
After recently completing/re-editing TAPES, an experimental documentary using my archival 1990’s home video mixed with my current home video, I was feeling burnt out on documenting myself. Combined with Theys Next Door, this didn’t seem to be the direction to take this semester. With the cancelling of The Arnold Sports Festival where I was planning to do some guerilla film making about bodybuilding culture, all signs were pointing away from video and towards object.
Where did those objects go? Read the next post, or you’ll never know!