Gesturing toward utopia: queer time and place in the performance Art of Cassils, boychild and Marval A Rex

Abstract

This thesis examines queer body/performance art concentrating on the concepts of time and space. Prioritizing the approach of queer theory to the perception of time and space, the performances of Cassils, boychild and Marval A Rex are explored. The primary purpose of this thesis is to reveal the queer politics and potentials regarding time and space in the performances of the selected artists. To achieve this goal, this thesis explores how the concepts of time and space are built depending on gender and sexuality and how heteronormativity excludes queers during this building process. Accordingly, seeking to find a way to suspend the formation of this normative spatiotemporality which renders queers invisible, this project approaches performance art as a world-making practice to explore alternative ways of existence. In this respect, this thesis argues that these artists entail their bodies and performative spaces into a neverending process as a queer strategy to build their own non-normative peculiar existence. Thus, the chosen artists gesture toward a utopian world which remains vital for queers by conceptually dismantling the domination of heteronormative body, identity, gender and sexuality.