Gender flux is a frontier in gay and lesbian (and medical) circles, and, needless to say, it's a rather complicated subject. Such complexity comes across in Brandon, multimedia artist Shu Lea Cheang's cryptic, impressionistic Internet look at the continuum of sex roles. This Guggenheim Museum-commissioned site features byzantine interfaces, layered browser windows, heady chats, and some attractive graphics - images of strap-on penises, crotch-stuffing, pierced nipples, stylized pills - that add up to a head-scratching, RAM-munching look at what it means to radically alter one's prescribed identity.
The site's namesake is Brandon Teena, a transsexual poster child of sorts. This Nebraska teen is identified as male but has intimate knowledge of female desires, which has enabled him to charm a number of young women. One of these experiences, however, leads to his rape and murder by heartland thugs. Pieces of this compelling, tragic story bubble up in Cheang's evolving "narrative project," but this is no biosite (though a pop-up browser offers searches of Teena's background). Cheang, using a "multiauthored upload," layers and fragments transcripts from Teena's courtroom legacy with references to Foucault, quotes from the drag documentary Paris Is Burning, excerpts about famous 19th-century hermaphrodite Herculine Barbin, and input from visitors.
The result seems ripe with too many possibilities for the site to strike a distinct identity. One of the main interfaces in this hormonally imbalanced endeavor alludes to Teena's coming-of-age road trip through Nebraska and takes the form of a stylized highway. It's an apt metaphor, but it's difficult to keep driving when you're never quite sure whether you've reached your destination.
Brandon: on the Web at brandon.guggenheim.org/.
STREET CRED
Old-School Tool
Inside the Microsoft File
Sharper By Far
Plug-in Pickup
World of Risks
Finstervision
Geekspeak for the Masses
Fit for Your Ears
Brandon's World
Classic at Heart
Jargon Watch
Phone Home Page
The Mix Is in the Stick
Commercial Focus
ReadMe
When Your Computer Gets a Brain
Automanipulation
Generation X: Ready to Rule
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