In May of 2001, I was brought to lecture and perform in Belgium by Constant, an organization employing critical works, interventions, texts, and new media to promote awareness around such issues as feminism, gender and author rights. It was there that I first met the director of Constant, Laurence Rassel - one of Belgiums first and most prominent Cyberfeminists. Oh, don't bother Googling her name - you won't find anything. You see, Laurence spent the bulk of her career operating anonymously whenever possible, as a critical rejection of systems of authorship, which socially - and legally - are inseparable from the troubles of patriarchy. At the same time, Laurence is skeptical of notions of "active invisibility," knowing that there's a fine line between those invisibilities we choose and those which are imposed upon us.

In September 2004, we met again in Spain, where we were both giving discussions about gender issues at Arteleku Art Center. It was then and there we began planning a collaboration that would combine our various approaches toward identity construction... and murder.

Between the death of her invisibility, a feminist assassination of the patriarchal Author figure, and that same Author figure's repeated attempts at suicide through modern philosophy since the 1960's, "The Laurence Rassel Show" is guaranteed to be an action packed program of gender, sex and violence.

Marie-Françoise Stewart as Joan Smith

The appropriation was carried out legally, through a series of acts of parliament.... But the effect on the rural working class was catastrophic. Families who had depended on access to common ground became landless trespassers.... New boundaries - ditches, hedges and walls - not only created a more ordered vision of the countryside, but acted as a visual reminder of the power of landlords to exclude outsiders.... What is less frequently remarked upon is the way in which a comparable process of enclosure was acted out in the 18th century on bodies, primarily on women's bodies. The effect was to divide women into two classes: wives who were indubitably the property of their husbands, and unmarried or abandoned women who, not belonging to one master, ran the risk of being regarded as the collective property of all.

You know, we had this meeting with artists and choreographers and so on, and they are all friends, and they all agree, "Yeah, you can borrow my work." But at one point one of them said, "Okay, but I can sue you if you use this." So, if you're not friends anymore the relationship could really be bitter. I would not sue you, but I can imagine that someone can use this power relationship of being the author of something to sue someone who was once a friend. And this is what really bothers me, because even if you are making bullshit out of what I said...

Tina Horne as Peggy Phelan

Arguing that communities of the hitherto under-represented will be made stronger if representational economies reflect and see them, progressive cultural activists have staked a huge amount on increasing and expanding the visibility of racial, ethnic, and sexual "others". It is assumed that disenfranchised communities who see their members within the representational field will feel greater pride in being part of such a community , and those who are not in such a community will increase their understanding of the diversity and strength of such communities. Implicit within this argument are several presumptions which bear further scrutiny:

1. Identities are visibly marked so the resemblance between the African-American on the television and the African-American on the street helps the observer see they are members of the same community. Reading physical resemblance is a way of identifying community.
2. The relationship between representation and identity is linear and smoothly mimetic. What one sees is who one is.
3. If one's mimetic likeness is not represented, one is not addressed.
4. Increased visibility equals increased power.

Each presumption reflects the ideology of the visible, an ideology which erases the power of the unmarked, unspoken, and unseen.

It's about 3am on July 27th, 2005, and we're here at my home in Japan, just outside the door to my bedroom, where our star Laurence and her partner Nicolas are sleeping. Maybe you can hear the snoring inside. They've had a long day. (Laughs)

With this program's emphasis on issues of authorship, and particularly a kind of feminist approach toward the way in which authorship relates to a kind of patriarchal authoring of our bodies, Laurence and I have been struggling with how to really bring a notion of the body into this program. In particular, Laurence as a woman, and myself as a transgendered person - how do we invoke our bodies in a kind of physical but non-essentialist way?

I have an idea, but it involves sneaking into their room while they sleep. We'll have to be quiet. So come on with me. (Open door, quietly enter) Okay, the door's open. They seem to be well asleep. It's dark. Okay, I'm in. I thought that the snoring was coming from Nicolas, but it's actually coming from Laurence.

One of the main things Laurence and I have been talking about is the dynamic of how this program "The Laurence Rassel Show", as a process of "authoring" her work in relation to her individual name, is in a way an act of violence against her feminist resistance to notions of authorship, and how this reflects a kind of personal crisis she has been going through as a result of doing more work on her own, outside of the context of the collaborative group Constant. Simultaneously, by collaborating with me, as someone whose name is already "authored" and in some way known, Laurence is interested in critically engaging this notion of "notoriety" or "fame" and the desire to be visible. So our collaborative relationship incorporates a kind of fetishism on her part of myself as someone who she insists is "known" or "famous."

We wanted to counter this notion of fetishizing the recognized or "authored" body with a story about the corresponding way in which the patriarchal notions of authorship also extend to the fetishization of the invisible, or the non-author, because Laurence and I are both skeptical of the ways in which everyone in left-wing circles are talking about "active invisibility" and the power of the unseen. Anyone who has followed my work also knows that my interest in transgenderism is also influenced by this notion of being between visible or easily recognized identities, including spaces between conventional transgendered identities such as Drag Queen or Drag King, etc. Hold on, I've got to be quiet for a second....

Okay. So I thought Laurence's exploitation of my character as someone "famous" should be paralleled by my fetishization of her character as an "unknown". But when we factor in a notion of the body, in this case the fetishization of Laurence as an unknown female body, it becomes difficult to come up with imaginative ways to carry out such fetishism in a physical manner without falling into the traps of conventional sexualizations of the female body, which would be boring or possibly sexist, or both.

So, that's why I've brought you into their room tonight. I've been slowly working my way across the room, at the foot of their futon, toward their luggage. My idea is to find their dirty laundry, and sniff it in a fetishistic way. I have to tell you, I'm not into this kind of thing at all, but I am committed to this broadcast and will do what it takes to illustrate this notion that fetishism can be a means of authoring the "invisible" as well as the "visible."

Okay, I've found the bag, I think. Hold on, it's kind of inside their luggage. Both Laurence and Nicolas' laundry is in a shared bag. (Moving plastic bag makes noise) Oh shit, this isn't good, the plastic's making too much noise. If they wake up I don't know how I'm going to explain this. Okay, so both of their laundry is here in this bag... (Moving plastic bag makes noise) Shit.

It's kind of damp. You should know it's been well above 30 degrees every day here, with terrible humidity, so everything is sweaty. (Moving plastic bag makes noise) I've just got to get it over with. Okay. Okay, so I've pulled out a handful of things. I haven't made any attempt to distinguish between what is Laurence's and what might be Nicolas' - that seems to be the best way for me to avoid problematics of having this action fixate on the female body. We've got a body mix of laundry between hers and Nicolas'.

Okay. This is it - I'm going to breath in deep... (Sniffs and coughs)

The other day I was watching a documentary on Japanese television about a Male-to-Female transsexual who was in the process of transitioning. And of course, almost any representation you see in the mass media is going to be about a Male-to-Female who is aspiring to be the perfect woman, the standard woman, the marriage minded woman and these sorts of things - because that's what's safest. It's safer to progress [transition] from the symbolically empowered to the disempowered, right? I think that it's set up to deny the Female-to-Male transgendered community visibility at any cost, because that is a community that presents a challenge to the status quo in terms of power dynamics. If you are giving up power dynamics, like if you are giving up the Male World to enter the Feminine World and this sort of bullshit, then in a way it's seen as a luxury, you know what I mean? It's almost like a monk who is giving up things of worldly possession in order to enter a Zen state of transgendered realization. But if you think about the history of the Female-to-Male, then instantly it becomes a challenge because you are introducing a new breed of masculinity into the male workplace, into the male social structure. It then becomes a threat on this very simplistic, biological-minded level.

But for me, I think in the end transitioning is always co-opted by industry. As an idea, conceptually you can try to imagine it's something empowering, but in the end you are not free to change your body how you like. You are free to change your body how you can afford, or how the technology is directed to change it. But you're not really free. You mentioned Orlan - I think this is the kind of thing Orlan brings out. You can just imagine the kinds of legal contracts that she must sign with these medical professionals before they do these surgeries that are not conventionally beautifying.

Aiko Tsuji as Terre Thaemlitz

Between the births of my older brother and myself, my mother, who lives but has died in many ways through her life, gave birth to a dead body - a miscarriage she believed to be female. She sometimes said to me after I was born, "God took away my little girl, but gave me you instead." I was born into my dead sister's name, Terre, spelled in the feminine Spanish T-E-R-R-E. This was my first death - my boyhood body being murdered by a name that was neuter at least, if not outright feminine. The interpretation of the neuter falls toward the feminine as non-male, in the same sense interraciality falls toward the black as non-white. Like Tiger Woods being named the world famous black golfer, but only through the quiet murders of his asianness and whiteness. So I suffered a quiet murder of my maleness. I did not understand why, but that death seems important to my birth as transgendered.

The image of the transgendered murderer is engrained in Western culture - the transvestite of "Silence of the Lambs." I am predestined to kill, there has never been any doubt about that in my parents' mind. Serial suicide is my greatest crime. Reinvention of my body, my identity is my greatest crime. As a serial murderer, I am my greatest victim. But to be sure, there are other victims I have killed or am killing. One of them is Laurence, but she can tell that story. I wish to tell my story, which is not the story of myself, but a story of myself.

My parents, who are still alive but have both died in many ways through their lives, are Catholics. my father was a Dominican brother for almost 20 years prior to marrying my mother, who spent her impoverished childhood being cared for by nuns. My father was murdered endlessly by the male clergy of the Church. not only philosophically, but physically, through abuses and mutilations. My mother, on the other hand, was revived endlessly by the female clergy of the church from the literally murderous abuses of her father. Perhaps this is why they both agreed and were complicit in murdering the male in me. But that would not explain my male brothers, who were not murdered, but have both died in many ways through their lives in any case.

My dead sister - the one killed by birth - is the focus of my story. Although I should mention I have another younger sister who was adopted and not born at all, with no exact birthday or age or time of birth and therefore no precise age or time of death when she is finally murdered for the last time. As you can see, women are not born into the Thaemlitz family, unless they are born into murder like my first sister, who was indeed born, but dead.

I thought I was born into murder - born into the murder of my maleness - but in the spring of 2002 I found out that I also was not born. Thinking of my sisters, this makes sense, because my transgenderism in a way makes my birth neuter, which, as I said before, falls toward the female, and women are not born into the Thaemlitz family. But no, I was not born. In the spring of 2002, while visiting my parents house which smells like decaying bodies, I came across a box I was not supposed to find. A box my parents had thought they murdered, but I had exhumed. This box contained the secret of my unbirth - that I was in fact born of tissues regenerated from my older sister's dead fetal tissue. No, you are right to be surprised. It made no sense to me either, and it has been hard for me to understand as well, because the records are exhumed and fragmented, like my mother and father themselves, incomplete and decayed. I do not mean I am a clone, but I am not exactly unlike a clone. We know there was not today's genetic engineering technology, but there were the roots of it. and I grew from that root. my sister's root. She was my father, the tissue from which I was modified and conjoined with a newly impregnated egg of my mother. That was my first murder - the killing of that impregnated egg - and I was born.