Shell and Queer Theory
"Is queer theory a reflection on being queer or does queerness change how we theorize?", asks Chrysanthi Nigianni, and suggests to break away from representational thought—only what exists can be known—towards ways of knowing the Virtual, i.e. "open futurity". This kind of queer thinking, "expressive of non/extra-linguistic forces", expands notions of body and reality beyond the referential: nature, matter and embodiment don't need to mean anything.
Chrysanthi Nigianni's queer epistemics politicise the Imaginaries and grant matter its own agency in order to theorize richer desires and intensities. As the subject is decentered (no longer origin, but matter among matter), so tangible becomes the materiality of the surface on which desires emerge: qualities of Shell.
I took her quotes here from an amazing book on the beautiful mutual impulses between movements that are conventionally known (in the U.S.A.) as Queer Theory (Butler) and as French Theory (Deleuze). I'll bring the book to the workshop on Saturday.