From the distributed self to the expanded self: gay identity and shifting subject–object positions in online and offline performance

Abstract

This study investigates identity construction in online (virtual) and offline (visceral) spaces. Throughout the emphasis is on gay male identity construction. Specifically, the article explores how performance theory can be used to read persona construction in online webcam environments. The mediatory role of online technologies is considered in this regard. In turn, Rian Terblanche's installation-performance owner's MANual to conSEXtualisation is used to discuss how a performance located in a designated physical space demonstrates how such online persona constructions are indicative of constantly shifting subject–object positions, often culminating in what this study refers to as the pornstarification of the persona. This investigation is primarily informed by the work of Turkle and Benedetti, and establishes a link between Turkle's notion of the distributed self and Benedetti's notion of the expanded self as one way to allow online and offline spaces to conceptually speak to one another around gay male identity.

Keywords:

• expanded self
• gay masculinity
• installation-performance
• subject–object positions
• pornstarification
• virtual/visceral

Notes

1. ‘I’ as used in this article to indicate the director of owner's MANual to conSEXtualisation refers to Rian Terblanche specifically.

2. Specific reference to primarily Mand8, Cam4, Flirt4free, Gaydar, as well as Skype – a proprietary software application that allows users to make video calls over the Internet. Also, as this study focuses on the homosexual man, it only refers to the ‘gay male’. Any other taxonomies based on sexuality, gender or sex therefore fall outside the scope of this study. The cast of owner's MANaul were male and female and so s/he and /his/her will be used where appropriate.

3. Turkle's use of the personal pronoun.

4. It is important to note that Boal's context, use and purpose of this term differs from its application to this study. For the purpose of this study, although Boal's notion of the spect-actor does not focus on traditional theatre and acting, the notion of the spect-actor wants to liberate the ‘one who looks’ (the spectator) from ‘passive victim[hood]’ (2000, p. 155), it sheds light on the dialectic relationship between actor and spectator in terms of the constructions and meanings of the performance. In his Poetics of the Oppressed (2000, pp. 120–155), Boal strives toward equal power distribution amongst actor and audience. In owner's MANual to conSEXtualisation, this sharing of ‘power’ led to all spect-actors becoming part of the creative processes involved in making theatre and constructing performance(s). This negotiation of fiction–reality and the re-imagining as well as re-imaging of masculine sexual identity encompasses the body, performance of masculinities and subject–object relationships. By applying Boal's notions to the theatre inquiry space, it was possible to investigate the tension between traditional and alternative modes of looking and utilising subject-subject looking relations to examine how owner's MANual to conSEXtualisation positioned, constructed and performed gay (online) masculinities, as well as the cultural legibility of this, at the intersection of virtual and visceral environments.

5. Fictional refers to the actor creating/constructing a character in a physical offline space (e.g. the theatre) and virtual pertains to constructions within an online environment.

6. The given circumstances may be related to the expectations of the moment of the webcam performer's online engagement. Just as the given circumstances determine the actor's choices of behaviour/action available to character construction, the online engagement is governed by specific expectations determined by the rules and regulations of the chat site, as well as the expectations of the online collective. The collective refers to all the individuals participating in the immediate online engagement (users of the particular chat site). This engagement creates a certain virtual sexual togetherness, which may be seen as a type of cyber intercourse governed by the rules of participation. It speaks to performativity (Butler) and spect-actorship (Boal).

7. Interestingly, mainstream systems of representation, like Hollywood film, have a history of positioning the male body as fetish (Ward 1998, p. 1). Action films, for example, spectacularise male bodies as primary signifier of ‘masculine potency’ and a representation of ‘phallic power’ for consumption by a heterosexual audience (Ward 1998, p. 1).

8. This term is derived from Paasonen, S. et al., eds. (2007) Pornification: sex and sexuality in media culture. This implies that an individual has the power and control to be the centre of his own pornographic online creation and performance, and that this manner of narrative construction creates a type of ‘star system’ for, and gives ‘top billing’ to, the performer within the various webcam chat sites. Similar terms have been encountered in, especially, online writings, serving mainly as caption for images of celebrities; never used in the context of interactivity.

9. These positions are constantly shifting and embodied by all participants in the two discourses.