Author: Andrew

Well, here we are. This project stared in May on a whim and prayer thanks to this one show I saw in D.C., and now I am putting together an actual project that has my face and voice behind it! I want to start this by saying a big thank you to everyone who inspired this project, funded this project, and took time to help me throughout the process of writing and filming.

The statistics are here! A whole script is here with some reflection editing to follow in January, plus a special surprise that I will later talking about. Like the script, most of the filming is done, except for that surprise I am going to mention in January. I will attach everything at the bottom of this post.

I was extremely lucky enough to interview three lovely people throughout this journey. I forgot to take pictures of these lovely people because I was so nervous, but I am so excited to share who these are with.

Lorelei d’Andriole is currently an assistant professor at Michigan State University who went to grad school at the University of Iowa, a hotspot for fluxus work. Lorelei and I spoke for way too long, and she will be heavily featured in this video essay.

Victoria Scrimer is an assistant professor at Millikin University, and probably the whole catalyst for this whole project. She worked with me through a different version of this project which was a fifteen page paper. I am so excited to show her knowledge about this subject in video form.

TG, who I want to protect for her privacy right now, is a Chicago-based part time performance artist that I met in 2022. Our interview is not the sit down typical interview, but us playing a video game where we are talking about how it feels to be alive and trans in 2024. I wanted to include someone in my life who knows my work and I know their work. TG is one of my best friends, and I cannot understate how happy I am to include them in this project.

The main film I need to get is B-roll. I need something else to be in this essay without the faces of people I know in the frame. The second thing I need to film is going to be the performance part of this piece. I feel like it would be incomplete without me doing a little performance piece based off of a fluxus score. I won’t reveal the fluxus score now, but yes, there is a performance art piece to this.

Happy 2024 wrapped.

Over the shuffle of my birthday, Thanksgiving, and the whole world, I forgot to update with one important post. The State of the Video will be the next post directly after this. Thanks!

I just did an interview with the DKC podcast about my inspiration coming into this project, what made me nervous about this project, and what I want people to learn out of this project. I talk a lot about the past, the vanishing act of documentation about queer art, and if we should eat candy if the candy represents someone else’s lover. I have a horrible memory, so I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I do when I relisten to my voice.

In the past few weeks, a lot of recording has happened. My script is full and my camera’s SD card might be full, so soon I will start editing. My computer setup in the corner of my apartment is full of fun little audio gadgets and editing software, so I am excited about the prospect of sitting at my desk for multiple hours and getting into this zen-like mode after classes.

I will pause for finals and other stuff. Even though I love the work of editing, the work/life balance of it all does apply to work I love.

Sadly, I do have to start this post differently than the other ones. 

This project is an inherently political project. This project stems from both love and hatred for the theatre community that built me up since age eight to ultimately reject me for who I was at twenty-three. There was a rejection for who I was in the context of politics.

Donald Trump ran a campaign based on policies to get rid of trans* people in the public eye (banning trans women from sports, stripping our history from school curriculums and libraries across the United States) and getting rid of the care we need starting from denying those under eighteen access to reversible puberty blockers and in those who are old enough to start hormone replacement therapy (or HRT), hormones. About 1.1% of Americans identify as transgender, and another 1.5% did not identify as either male or female, leading to the assumption that these individuals are nonbinary. This is the creation of a trans hysteria. 

I do not have the time to doom over the policies of our president-elect– I spent the weekend doing that already. What I do have time for is how to make this into art. The election threw in another chapter into this video essay. I am speaking with friends and former interviewees about the recent election, and that impact on their art. I will be talking to more people about how art from other times of oppression lead to the creation of today’s art.

For now, I will be rewriting bits, choosing a new center to focus on, and going through with that plan.

The creative block is here.

I really talk about “blocks” in creativity when it comes to reading or writing. I cannot finish a book or I cannot finish writing a piece. Those feelings are valid and true even when you are the only one stopping yourself. The new frontier, for me, is combining both the feelings of art and research. Well, I have hit the researcher’s block.

There is a little site on the internet called the Internet Archive. I highly encourage everyone to at least see the library of what they offer. Earlier in the month, someone launched a DDOS attack on the site, making the public lose access to tons of data only found on the Internet Archive. This for me was a pinnacle moment. Libraries do not keep access to weird art, they keep access to what is most circulated and what will be most circulated. A “dead” art movement might be the first thing gone. When I saw the Internet Archive was down, I sat down with my advisors on this project and asked what I could do.

The answer? Wait.

After the month of October, I can finally log in. This was impossible yesterday when I checked on the site. The writing and recording of artists all around the globe are now back. I still wonder if I am in that creative block still. I only found out about the log in a minute ago. I still cannot explain the pouring of emotion over me. My job is back, but do I dive back in or wade in the waters?

It has genuinely been a while since I talked about this project and where I am at with this project. A note to any students reading this: October is one of the hardest months to exist as a senior. Even though I took a week off from posting anything, I still have updates about my project.

I took a trip to DC the other weekend with my friend– and a huge feature on the video essay– Billie. We met in Theatre History and ended up bonding over performance art, so of course I asked her to see a weird stage play with me. We ended up seeing Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors at the Workhouse Arts Center. I was not allowed to take any photos of the show or inside of the theatre, so trust me when I say it was like nothing I have seen before. Turns out the night we came, we ran into two of our former classmates who were in the audience, and two UMW alums were involved in the production.

Billie and I walked around DC and talked about theatre all day and how we’ve seen each other grow inside and outside of theatre. We ended up having to shut up about that because it was a good topic to talk about in this video essay. Our conversation really tied the vision I had of the project together, and we will record the rest whenever we both have free time. We both have plans to see more art in general with the Hirshhorn releasing a new exhibit entitled Basquiat x Bansky.

My next post will only be a week away! That post will focus more on research and how I put my thoughts together in the form of a script. Look forward to that when you have the chance.

Okay, I have to go back in time to talk about this moment.

It’s April 2024. I am feeling generally horrible. Five months before this, I was told I would never be able to do something I am getting my degree in. Instead of creating art, I start writing a senior proposal with the basic in a published paper titled “Nightmares and Dreams on Progesterone: Trans* Embodiment and Intermedia.” The published paper was essentially an autobiography/instruction guide for art from a creative named Lorelei d’Andriole, and her work in performance art. I fell in love with this particular paper, and emailed the author immediately. Once I figured out that I was heading in this direction with my video essay, I emailed Lorelei again, and we set up a Zoom meeting from her home in Lansing, Michigan.

Lorelei was an absolute joy to talk with. She gave me honest, thoughtful answers about the work I am going to produce, and she even gave me advice about the future in an interview about her work. We talked about the struggles of practicing art as transsexuals, what the transition period looks like for artists, and some of the topics mentioned in her work. I won’t spoil the whole interview– because some of it is for the video essay– but meeting and talking to Lorelei was the first step I needed in order to take this project from point A to point B.

This project was stagnant the past few weeks. There is not much to do when you are working with nothing, but I do see the vision of this project getting clearer, which is something I could not say two weeks ago. Now, time for more research and scripting.

Hi all. Writing blog posts on the internet is a new experience for me, so I will try my best to make this a cool and casual experience for both the reader and myself.

First off, my name is Andrew Lee. I am a senior here at UMW studying geography. I know everyone was expecting communications or theatre from my topic, but really, I am just a theory-ridden senior spending most of his time somewhere between the HCC and Jepson (RIP Monroe). I do, however, have my foot in the door in Theatre, as I was a theatre major for most of my time at UMW and I am on Studio 115’s committee. We’re a fun, student run theatre on the first floor of duPont. 

I am so proud of my accomplishments here at UMW that I wanted to expand my work, and dive into this passion project of mine. All theatre students are required to take Theatre History, and in that class is where I learned my passion was still in research and theory. I was introduced to so many cool artforms that I ended up reading tons of books and articles about avant-garde theatre. This is where the project stems from.

Another cool thing about me is I am trans. I started my transition at UMW, and during the time I learned about cool theatre history, I was finally wrapping my head around my own gender, and seeing my gender performed live in front of me. I sadly did not see any trans artists performing in front of me, and it felt lonely for a bit. I searched on academic sites and my own personal social media, and I started to surround myself with trans performing artists.

I am creating and featuring the work of people I adore in the most professional way. In this video essay, with a working title of Funky Men, I tell the story of trans performing artists, how they got to the position they are in, and what their work means to them.

I hope you all enjoy the more technical posts later on, as I am in the rough draft section of my project now.