This text focuses on the relationship between my thesis exhibition and a manifesto I have written, both of which are titled "the future is flaccid." The manifesto proposes “flaccidity” as a radical embodiment and tool to queer and undermine what I call “phallic masculinity,” an ideology and identity that mandates the pursuit of being continually erect, potent, and strong. I employ flaccidity as a critical and political tactic through an exploration of embodiment and gesture. I am interested in gestures as carriers of queer ephemera and as performative expressions that can perpetuate or undermine gender normativity. By analyzing the film Grease, I make evident how hyperbolic gender performances contain the material for their own undoing. Lastly, I explore the political nature of my work and its relation to other artists’ practices, protest media, feminist manifestos, and queer theoretical texts.
