A shift,
A crack in the surface.
Not here,
Not there.
Edges blur,
Shapes dissolve. And rebuild.
Belonging,
Unsettled.
Queerness lingers,
Never still.
Queerness grows,
Breaks the surface,
Rebuilds the frame.
It questions,
Then becomes,
Adapts, evolves.
A force in motion,
Carrying change,
Always unfolding.
“But what is this queer experience?” [1]
It is queer that a person can suffer like that. [2]
Is William queer, too? [3]
Well, she IS queer! [3]
Being out is being queer. [4]
Being queer is being there. [4]
To shake an ethics out of this strange animal is, at the least, a rather queer undertaking. [5]
According to what people say, marriage is a very queer business. [1]
Which is of more value than your own friendship with yourself—a rather queer conception, but quite valid. [7]
I simply cannot describe how queer this feeling is. [8]
One of the rallying cries of the groups is to "fuck shit up," a queer objective that is also reflected in Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure. [9]
But there is nothing astonishing, nothing queer, about what happens. [1]
In older uses of queer—queer to describe anything that is noticeable because it is odd—queer and fragility were often companions. [11]
That is a queer hat you are wearing. [12]
Feeble, frail, invalid, incapacitate, falter, weak, tearful, worn; tear; wear; queer too, queer is there, too. [11]
Feelings and Objectives
DISRUPTION
QUEERNESS
ALIENATION
MISALIGNMENT
about
Freakdom and Absurdity of Predictions
[1] Deleuze Guattari, What Is Philosophy [2] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus [3] Hofstadter, Godel Escher Bach [4] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home [5] Burrows, Fictioning
MONOLOGUE one
"Ah, you want to know me—or perhaps, a version of me that fits in this time, this strange world, where labels flutter like old flags and yet we are still struggling to escape their weight.
Let me tell you, I have always been more than one thing, and more than anyone ever expected.
I am a creature of change, constantly shifting, as much in body as in mind.
I am becoming ubiquitous; it no longer matters where I am. [11]
I am no simple thing, no one thing.
I’ve been man and woman and everything in between.
What does that mean? Well, it means I am ever in flux, never fixed.
There are those who say I am a phantom, a ghost of contradictions. And I suppose, in a way, they are right.
I’ve been claimed by history, by culture, by every identity that the world has thrown at me—sometimes I wear them well, sometimes not.
But here’s the thing: I am all of it. I am all the Orlandos you could ever know—those who wear their identities with pride and those who hide in the cracks of their own making."
- Orlando
Everything now, my dearest, Accords with my desires.
Fluid Objects: Objects that resist fixed categorization and can shift between different states or meanings.
These embody the queer theory principle of fluidity and rejection of stable categories.
Performative Objects: Objects whose identity or function is not inherent but emerges through their use or interaction, reflecting Butler's concept of performativity.
Boundary-Blurring Objects: Objects that exist at the intersection of traditionally separate categories, challenging binary thinking and fixed taxonomies.
Subversive Objects: Objects that actively challenge or undermine normative assumptions about their purpose, form, or meaning.
Indeterminate Objects: Objects that resist clear definition or classification, embodying the queer theoretical concept of indeterminacy.
Transformative Objects: Objects capable of changing form or function, representing the queer emphasis on transformation and becoming.
Non-Binary Objects: Objects that exist outside of traditional binary classifications, reflecting queer theory's critique of binary thinking.
Contextually Queer Objects: Ordinary objects placed in contexts that queer their traditional meanings or uses.
Intersectional Objects: Objects that embody multiple, intersecting identities or functions, reflecting queer theory's intersectional approach.
Deconstructive Objects: Objects that, through their design or use, deconstruct normative assumptions about objects and their roles.
Anti-Essentialist Objects: Objects that challenge the idea of having a fixed, inherent essence or nature.
Disruptive Objects: Objects that interrupt or disrupt normative patterns of thought or behavior.
Liminal Objects: Objects that exist in between established categories or states, embodying the queer concept of liminality.
Reclaimed Objects: Objects that have been repurposed or reclaimed in ways that subvert their original meanings, similar to how queer theory reclaims language.
Hyperreal Objects: Objects that blur the line between reality and simulation, reflecting queer theory's engagement with concepts of hyperreality.
And this brings us back to the begged question: what is normal? When does regular sex become kinky? Orlando is both a conceptual and a narrative persona embodying the materiality and fluidity of gender. In order to make it possible to think through and live [sexual] difference, we must reconsider the whole problematic of space and time. The transition to a new age requires a change in our perception and conception of space time, the inhabiting of places and of containers, or envelopes of identity.
Fluid dynamics defines a body not by its achieved forms and functions (identity) but by its processes of composition and transformation that exhibit the metamorphosis of fluids able to acquire any shape. By contrast, it is when language appears as dead, when the body is no longer given expressive passage to the word, that there is a break with the line of time; something like the perception of ‘time in its pure state’ emerges.
Sometimes conversation becomes “queer” when anger interrupts the social surface of conversation.
MONOLOGUE two
The Fabric of Desire
"What do I desire? That’s where things get interesting. Desire is not a thing for me to own, no—it’s the very fabric of my being.
The bridge becomes my back as I feign belonging, and I become that vehicle for others, which I desire for myself. [1]
I desire transformation, the possibility of becoming something else with every breath, every moment.
I am not tied to what you think I am, and that is the most intoxicating thing of all.
What is it like, you ask? To never be fixed?
To be both the mirror and the reflection? It’s exhilarating.
You see, I have no problem with a bit of elusiveness, a little bit of mystery.
I flirt with myself, constantly reshaping, remaking, until even I cannot catch up.
I know very well that this cannot be, but I desire this all the same. [2]
Precisely because this cannot be, I desire it all the more. [2]
- Orlando
From man to woman,
a journey that defies boundaries,
prompting inquiries into the essence of being, what constitutes normality in a shifting landscape?
With keen perception,
it observes,
the line between reality and illusion blurs,
in the complexities of identity, a nuanced understanding emerges.
Myriad
Let us not forget the aesthetic.
Beauty is not just for the eyes—no, it’s for the soul. I have spent centuries surrounded by art, poetry, music, all of which speak to something deep inside me.
Desire is not simply a physical act, but an experience—one that transcends the senses, one that resides in the intangible, the divine. A lover’s gaze, a poet’s voice, the brushstroke of a painter—these are what stir me.
Not just the body, but the world that comes alive in the touch of an artist’s hand or the cadence of a lover’s breath.
Beauty is something to possess without ever owning, don’t you think?
- Orlando
MONOLOGUE four
The Burden of Definition
Bodies Beyond Boundaries
Bodies do not define me. Not any more than my name, my gender, or my flesh.
It’s the space where none of it makes sense. The messy edges where I am neither but also both. Strange, peculiar, weird—but not shocking or shaking. [4]
People think I’m just Mickey Mouse and roller coasters. And how delightful it is to sit there, at the edge of everything, where nothing is clear, but everything is open.
I desire the untold, the unbecome.
But then again, bodies, what is life without them? Sometimes, I wish for the thrill of unmarked bodies, bodies untouched by the expectations of society.
Give me someone whose gender is an enigma, a mystery, a puzzle to be unraveled. But I, like other queer people, am (more than) two in one body, both male and female. [3]
- Orlando
MONOLOGUE three
I adore a body that refuses to conform, that plays with the space between “man” and “woman,” between “masculine” and “feminine.” Bodies should be more than vessels—they should be expressions. It’s not normal, but it’s not weird anymore. [6]
I desire a body that cannot be defined, that refuses to conform, just as I do. Something in between—where the idea of gender becomes a plaything, a game, and where desire itself becomes the space between bodies.
Even a marmalade cat deserves a little bit of magic.
- Orlando
Beauty
MONOLOGUE five
The Game of Identity x
And let’s be honest, my deepest indulgence lies in breaking the rules. Everything is a game.
Answering male or female blocks the player from entering the game, the correct answer being neither. [7]
Never allow the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Identity, language, labels are all parts of the game, and we need to learn how to play and turn the game on itself. [1]
But the subject-object game, for example, structured ordinary perception and science alike, while the most dominant and tragic game of all was the ego game. [8]
The Freedom of Unbeing
It is not just about desire; it’s about the disruption of the expected.
The playfulness of an encounter that is neither here nor there, but everywhere.
My fetish? To see the world bend.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a place to visit, not somewhere to build a life.
To laugh in the face of what they call identity, and to step freely into whatever form suits my mood that day.
I, the queer, ugly weakling, am the ruler of the Galaxy.[5]
I can also be a little bit outrageous.
I can be a lot of things. I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie.[12]
By what norms am I constrained as I begin to ask what I may become? [9] There is no fixed point for me. And isn’t that the most delicious truth of all?"
- Orlando
Desire and disruption
At the end of it all, my most profound desire is the freedom to exist outside of everything.
To be the impossibility that shapes your world without being shaped by it.
To remain a fluid enigma, a constant question, and to find satisfaction not in answering it, but in letting it linger.
The freedom to never belong to one single form, to one single idea, to one single place.
Freedom to be unnameable, to be all things and nothing at once.
- Orlando
My truth x
[1] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations [2] Hugo, Les Miserables [3] Woolf, Night and Day [4] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home [5] Braidotti Hlavajova, Posthuman Glossary [7] Rand, The Fountainhead [8] Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology [9] Bussey Chamberlain, Queer Troublemakers [11] Ahmed, What s the Use [12] Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Queerness moves through the cracks of what seems solid.
It lingers in the unspoken and unsettles the known.
Queerness takes shape only to dissolve it again.
It thrives in the tension of what cannot be resolved.
Queerness bends the rules, sometimes to the breaking point.
It reveals what is hidden, but not without distortion.
Queerness creates spaces that feel both freeing and uncertain.
It holds contradictions, resisting the comfort of resolution.
Queerness becomes, shifts, and questions without end.
It is both a path and an untraceable departure.
How do you describe a human life?
Boy, girl, child, grown up, in love, alone, very lost, fulfilled, suicidal, at the same time full of life, incredibly intelligent and very, very naive.
What am I actually doing here on this planet Earth and how do I deal with all these problems?
Who am I? What am I? Why do I look like this?
Am I a man? Am I a woman? Everything in between?
Possibly, there is another way to express my odd conflation of apparent normality and completely nonconforming, bizarre, and “unnatural” freakdom.[4]
First, a random collaging of materials: avatars, images and narratives are spliced together and, indeed, opposites are forced to coexist (in this sense, ‘nothing is true, everything is permitted’).[5]
There is the manner in which the predictions of the managers of our futures have been stretched or twisted, proliferated and pushed to a certain absurdity.[5]
Here is a very strange type of persona who wants to think, and who thinks for himself, by the “natural light.” [1] We must judge whether what we see is an adaptation of an old semiotic, a new variety of a particular mixed semiotic, or the process of creation of an as yet unknown (regime)." [2]
This is the case even though it may sometimes believe it is one or other of these, as a result of the capacity of every discipline to produce its own illusions and to hide behind its own peculiar smokescreen.[1] Besides, the drive to eliminate paradoxes at any cost, especially when it requires the creation of highly artificial formalisms, puts too much stress on bland consistency, and too little on the quirky and bizarre, which make life and mathematics interesting.[3]
The Thinking Persona
[1] Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home [2] Butler, Bodies That Matter [3] Anzaldua, Borderlands La Frontera [4] Zajko, Laughing with Medusa [5] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [6] Lindsay, Aerotropolis The Way Well Live Next [7] Burrows, Fictioning [8] Davis, High Weirdness [9] Colebrook, Sex After Life [10] Braidotti Hlavajova, Posthuman Glossary [11] Connor, Dumbstruck A Cultural History of Ventriloquism [12] Orlando Bloom,
Living My Best Life.
I slip through time like water
finding cracks in the stone,
a shape that cannot be held.
Once a man, once a woman,
once a name
and now,
an echo in the mirror.
What does it mean to love
if the self is a river,
its banks always shifting,
its depths unspoken?
I have touched bodies,
felt their weight,
but it is the air between us
that calls me home.
There is no final form
no completion in sight,
only the quiet pleasure
of becoming,
and un-becoming,
again.
I search for connection
not in what stays,
but in what dissolves
like salt in water,
fading into a horizon
that never quite arrives.
I love the spaces,
the pauses,
the silence between breaths,
where nothing is clear
but everything is possible.
"Aporia" explores the concept of queerness as a state of becoming, one that resists clear definition or resolution. Through the figure of Orlando—a being embodying all genders, times, and identities—the project delves into the fluid transitions between structure and dissolution, form and transformation. At its core lies the question of how spaces and identities not only exist but are continuously renegotiated.
The project draws on the symbolic and physical power of the number seven—from the Seven Sisters in Moscow to seven thresholds that represent stages such as birth, conflict, death, and rebirth. "Aporia" is a quest to imagine ways of existing outside of norms—a world where boundaries blur, and the impossible finds its place.
The Seven Sisters of Moscow are iconic skyscrapers built between 1947 and 1953 under the direction of Joseph Stalin. Designed by prominent Soviet architects including Lev Rudnev, Dmitry Chechulin, and Alexey Shchusev, these monumental buildings embody the Stalinist Gothic architectural style—a dramatic fusion of Soviet neoclassicism and American Art Deco. Their design was intended to assert Soviet power and dominance, both domestically and on the world stage, during the post-war era.
These skyscrapers are not just architectural marvels but also cultural and ideological symbols of their time. Designed to rival Western skyscrapers and reflect Soviet ideals, they stand as enduring reminders of the ambition and contradictions of Stalin’s post-war vision for Moscow.
"I am all of it. I am all the Orlandos you could ever know—those who wear their identities with pride and those who hide in the cracks of their own making."
What is queer?
A word that slips through fingers,
Like water running uphill.
It’s the crack in the mirror,
The edge of a frame
That forgets its shape.
It’s not this or that,
Not the answer,
But the pause
Before it’s asked again.
They arrive in Moscow without papers, without history, without permission. They slip into the city not as an intruder, but as something that was always there—unnoticed, yet inevitable. Orlando does not own space. They occupy it. Not in the way of conquest, but in the way of mold, in the way of whispers, in the way of something that spreads without being seen.
Their existence rewrites the rules. They find a room that does not exist. They use a staircase that was never built. They carry objects that belong to no one, that speak languages long erased. Their presence is not a protest, but an infection—soft, slow, irreversible.
UNCOMPUTABILITY
APORIA
An apple that is both the first temptation and a piece of ordinary fruit.
A money bill that changes value depending on who holds it.
A computer that does not compute, processing something other than numbers.
A skateboard that refuses to be still, an object made for movement, never fully grounded.
A mirror that does not reflect the present, but only the things that have been erased.
A camera that captures what should not be seen.
catalogue
ORLANDO
Orlando is not one person. Orlando is a figure, a movement, a phenomenon. Orlando is a body that does not settle, does not resolve. They shift across time, across gender, across definitions. They are here and not here. Orlando is the thing that should not be there, and yet refuses to leave.
CHAPTER I: DEATH
Moscow State
University.