Heidi Holmes

Ciao!

Just received my copy of this book that begins with an introduction framed around my artwork, I am woman, hear me roar as I push out this Science Baby. The book is titled, To do away with the family. From abortion to post-human relations, written by Angela Balzano and published by Meltemi Publishing. Mmmnnhh, now if only all those years working in an Italian restaurant actually resulted in some Italian language skills!

From the Meltemi website:

The binomial “biology and capitalism” has conditioned the reproduction of life on the planet in a devastating way. The damage that the reproduction of the rich and white sapiens causes to ecosystems has resulted in the extinction of too many forms of life. Instead of treating and reproducing the Western population alone, it would be necessary to generate posthuman and decolonial kinships with racialized people, transgenus ties that go beyond the male / female dichotomy, but also transpecies kinship with non-human animals, with plants, with the forms of life created. in the laboratories of global techno-capitalism: from cloned cows to immortalized cells. By resorting to feminist science fiction analyzes and utopias, we will free ourselves from the “measure of all things”, Man, and his incubator, the heterosexual family.

Angela Balzano is a precarious eco / cyborg / feminist researcher, coordinator and teacher of the Sciences module of the Master in Gender Studies and Policies of the University of Roma Tre. She is currently a lecturer at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna and tutor in Women and Law for the GEMMA Master. He edited the translations: Il posthuman (2014) and Radical Materialism (2019) by Rosi Braidotti; Global Biolavoro (2015) by Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby; Promises of Monsters (2019) by Donna Haraway. With Carlo Flamigni he wrote Sexuality and reproduction (2015).

Since reading Legacy Russell’s, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto I’ve been positing that Menopause is a glitch. Russell states that “…a glitch is an error, a mistake, a failure to function” which really struck me in the same way Menopause (1) does – my body is unable to produce a child due to the infertility that Menopause draws and no longer functions in the way it once did, its glitch-ing. However, in re-reading the text and further considering my claim, perhaps the distinction to make is that the symptoms of menopause are glitches and that Menopause itself as a function is not a glitch – as every menstruating body evolves into the Menopausal space. It is generally not an anomaly to become Menopausal (2).

The symptoms of Menopause are varied from case to case but amongst other symptoms can include hot flushes, emotional instability, hair loss and hair growth in unusual locations, changes to the shape of the body and vaginal dryness. These symptoms are usually treated with hormones, ensuring that the Menopausal body remains as manageable and as readable as possible in its original female form. Russell explains, “…when the body is determined as a male or female…the body performs gender as its score, guided by a set of rules and requirements that validate and verify the humanity of that individual. A body that…remains indecipherable within binary assignment is a body that refuses to perform the score…this glitch is a form of refusal.” Guided by this mode of thinking, to refuse hormones for the symptoms of Menopause is to refuse the systems and conventions of being female in a western patriarchal society (3).

In my current body of work, the symptoms of Menopause take the form of material, essentially re-making the conditions of Menopause in a gallery context. In formalizing these symptoms into material and shifting them to the gallery, they become body-less, also unbecoming gender and in turn, becoming glitches that exist in the in-between. Through this removal, the materials of Menopause become mystical, sensory, grotesque, though they remain familiar to the body and to the senses, these materials summon a response that is just slightly ungraspable.

“We use “body” to give material form to an idea that has no form, an assemblage that is abstract” – in unbecoming a body these materials (symptoms) refuse the systems in which a body is expected to exist, reforming a space unencumbered by conventions and resulting in a space where broadened and evolved interpretations, relationships and experiences can take place.

—

1. The use of the word ‘Menopause’ in this text also acknowledges the symptoms of Peri-Menopause.

2. Acceptations to this generalization might include cases of early menopause due to hysterectomies or excessive use of hormones and other medical conditions. 

3. There is also an argument here that in refusing hormones one also resists the capitalist systems of corrupt pharmaceutical and government corporations.

Glitch Feminism, A Manifesto, Legacy Russell, Verso, London, 2020

Barbara possesses a deep awareness of her potential authority within society and within her own body. Harnessing that power, unlocks some of the universe’s greatest mysteries – yes Barbara can fly – but what else could be achieved up there at the top of an orgasm?

Barbara

Sometimes Barbara knows something will happen before it happens. She doesn’t have psychic abilities – as far as she understands – it is just that she has known or experienced most moments before and can foresee the possibilities, trajectories and likelihoods. When Barbara expresses concern for potential disaster or elation at potential success, she is ignored or tutted at. What would she know?

So far, Barbara has lived for 76 years, 364 days and 11 hours. At midnight Seven will arrive. Seven is Barbara’s lucky number; it has been proven over and over.

–

Barb does not get caught up in Seven’s body – it is there to perform its action. She touches her own body. Her skin is softer now, made velvety by downy hairs and layers of folded and crinkled, tissue-y flesh. She takes some time, her hand mo…ving……ev…er……so……slow…ly…… around her neck, over her breasts, down to her stomach, her hips, her touch rousing an urging pang beneath her clitoris. On command, Seven’s hand moves there, at first circling then settling with a gentle press. Seven’s other hand moves around her body, but it is her own hand that continues to excite her – it’s knowing sourced from well worn, muscle memory. Barbara’s fingers tug at her pubes, the hair is thinner now, wiry, each tug pulling at the skin and revealing her clitoris to new angles of Seven’s press.

Barb, turns over and up onto her hands and knees. Lubricant is spread over the phallus and with wet fingers, her vagina is opened and the phallus inserted. Muscles now clenching, every part of it reaches her; the edge, the curve, its expanse. She pushes back on it, willing it to venture further, deeper, fast, faster, faster and slow, slower, slow…er. Wet fingers continue around to her ass, gripping onto and spreading her cheeks, searching inside, the probe carefully slips in and settles, then gently dances alongside the phallus, matching and working alongside its energy. Wet fingers remain on her clitoris, pushing, pressing and tickling.

With momentum gathering, her skin pulses and reddens, blood pumping, huffing, pausing, breath breathing, everything suddenly moving in and out all at once——–Barb’s throaty exhale starts to tap——–and a light-ness begins to occur——–Barb’s weight is unlocked and with every exhale she rises another breath-edge from the bed. It is from above, squinting, she sees the back of her head, her own soft body, glossy, glinting, pumping and rolling with pleasure. She rests here for a moment, marvelling at herself and musing, “What if this energy could be harnessed? What could it animate, energize, fuel? Surely the emissions would be safer than those we currently use for this purpose?” Then swiftly and intensely, her breath acutely rises into an airy gasp and she is plopped onto the sheets.

Barb lays on her side for a moment, sexy and sated. Looking down at her body, glistening with lube and sweat she acknowledges her knees, red and humming. She reaches down to remove the buzzing vibrator – already mostly pushed from her vagina, tossing it on the bed and then reaches around to remove the slick dildo from her ass, placing it on a tissue to rinse in the morning.