http://blog.art21.org/2009/05/07/the-power-of-now-adrian-pipers-indexical-present/

or Marina Abramovic’s Rhythm 0

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=37615&category=34030

as amazing pieces that do that. So in a way, by performing Dragon as my gender, I’m attempting to reveal the mythical/fictional/imaginary nature of male and female as genders. But at the same time, doing so in a space like Second Life, I think, shows how we can embrace mythopoesis not in the sense of making new myths for people to follow, but in the sense of the original greek meaning of story telling:

[From Greek mūthopoios, composer of fiction, from mūthopoiein, to relate a story : mūthos, story + poiein, to make; see kwei-2 in Indo-European roots.]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mythopoetic

i want to become mythopoetic in the sense that with virtual worlds, we are writing new stories, constructing new realities outside of the boundaries of the old limitations, in the way that scifi presages scientific developments but much faster, in that we are living in the stories as we’re telling them.

this response is already too long but i also think of becoming mythopoetic or becoming imaginary as a way of rejecting the real/unreal dichotomy that has plagued trans people for so long and is still used to undermine our agency and identities. to sidestep that whole binary and queer it and say that i’m not trying to be real, i’m transreal, between realities, between fiction and nonfiction.

thanks for the comment! interesting questions…

(and i didn’t even know there was a dragon story in silence of the lambs, thats awful, that film is such a clear example of how the media characterizes trans people as criminal and crazy)

..such a beautifully-rendered point, azdel. + i’m intrigued by the/ur notion of the _Mythopoetic_ in relation 2 synthetic ecosystems: how continual formation/construction/rewriting of process-centered input must effect myths + persona[l] ide[a]ntity narratives? previous 2 encountering ur work, i’d associated the phrase “Becoming Dragon” with the book/movie _Silence of the Lambs_: a destructive mythopoesis underlined by abortive/psychotic shape/gender states. thank_u 4 over/re:writing that with such a powerfully sensitive em_body_ment.

-mez