While the surgical procedures institutionalize the genital modification for FtM transition, I have set my focus to dissect and demystify the phallus as a male symbol, as a challenge to phallocentric authority. Trans is not a thing or being, it is rather the process through which thingness and beingness are constituted. In its proffered state, Trans is a proposition – ally oriented, marking the: with, through, of in, and across that make life possible – Trans troubles ontological states.

Kombucha coq plays with the scoby transformed as vessel for consumption of the Kombucha tea, which it had previously fermented whilst itself growing. The scoby darkens and hardens into a leathery texture as it matures - using symbiosis itself as the material and the performance - the tea being a product of the scoby and the scoby the product of its own regeneration.

The fact that the vessel is a huge penis refers to le coq ‘s original enquiry to ‘fabricate a functioning, non-reproductive organ, simply for pissing and pleasure”. It alludes to the exhilaration of Trans masculine transition, increased libido, sex toys and StP devices. It is also representative of the experimental and unchartered - the breaking free of disidentification.

“To place oneself, to live outside an epistemic and political regime, when a new cognitive framework, a new map of what it means to live, has not yet been collectively agreed is extremely difficult in the process of transition...It is a vast collective task. But however insignificant a single life might seem, no-one would dare say the effort was not worthwhile.” - Paul B Preciado( 2020), Can the Monster Speak?

 

Svar Simpson 12th August 2024