Making Acquaintance with a Tranny

Video 2 mins 18 Secs. With many thanks to Bertrand Russell.

DVD available upon request.

© Kate Pelling 2009

Making Acquaintance with a Tranny explores the juxtaposition of the high cultural status of philosophy and the low cultural status of drag performance using an argument from Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy to position the tranny’s existence as available only through knowledge gained by sense-data. However as the tranny is presented through film the existence of the tranny is in question. The artist plays both the voice-over, the voice of authority, and the tranny; occupying a dual position that is can’t exist in cultural terms.