Fs59: An Otobiography

"To read [the narrative] as simply autobiography is to perpetuate the fiction that the working-class author can only tell [his or her] story, that is that s/he cannot craft anew but can only mechanically reproduce. If the apparent 'nakedness' of autobiography (its revelation of the facts) signifies to the reader 'working-class' and the layers of the imaginary in fiction that distance the real signify 'educated,' [the text's] fictional autobiography stymies yet another pair of categorical absolutes, neither embracing 'educated' to jettison 'working-class' nor allowing the reader to remain unchallenged in his or her assumptions of an uncreative working class." ~Jay Prosser on Leslie Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues (Prosser, Second Skins: The Body Narratives Of Transsexuality [New York: Columbia University Press, 1998], 199). To download a copy of the transgender bill of rights go to: http://www.transgender.org/tg/stlgf/gender.html FS59 was first presented on 250999 in the performance tranual labor for the crossing genre / crossing gender exhibition at steirischer herbst 99 in graz, austria. Voices materialized by Michele _ Music concretized by Pablo _ Social realized by Dont. All tracks written and produced by Ultra-red from location recordings made 080999, except track 9 reworked by Terre Thaemlitz. Design by Thaemlitz and photography by Ultra-red. Copyright & Publishing Ultra-red 2000. Ultra-red would like to thank the following for their participation and facilitation of this project: first and foremost thanks to Michele Kaemmerer who inspired this performance with her courage, intelligence, humor and creativity. thanks to the people at Steirischer Herbst: Christine Frisinghelli, Sabine Achleitner, Karin Perchthaler and Christoph Gurk as well as the members of the Berlin Group; Diedrich Diederichsen, Mattias Haase, Julianne Rebentlisch, Martin Saar and Ruth Sondregger. Thanks also to Terre Thaemlitz, Achim Szepanski and Bernd Lennartz at Mille Plateaux, Leather Hyman, the True Classical crew and Janis Walworth at the Center for Gender Sanity. Finally, thanks to Kipukai Kuali'i (Pride At Work) and Shirley Bushnell (Transgender Menace).