To Build a World of Language (2023)

A mixed-media manananggal, a Filipinx monster who passes as a woman by day. By night its torso splits from its lower body and flies, seeking viscera to consume. This particular manananggal is full of language about how trans bodies and worlds are shaped through words and sexuality — the sensor-speaker in their forehead tells a t4t secret to an approaching confidant, and their guts contain gruesome metabolized comments from trans Internet erotica. A strange embodied encounter with a creature symbolizing duality.

Listen to the secret (mp3, not safe for work).

Face: white clay slip, glaze, ultrasonic sensor, Arduino Nano, speaker circuit, wire. Body: cardboard, papier mache, gel pen plotter drawings, gel pen, brush pen, tempera paint, gold foil. Lower body: polyester fabric, jeans, wire, polyester fiber fill, pantyhose, inkjet print, paper, white stoneware. Techniques: slipcasting, Arduino code and circuit, papier mache, sewing, handbuilding.