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Start Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
Exploring gender identity on its own can be a wrestling match, and when sexuality is thrown into the mix, one can expect conflict. Navigating this intersection in a memoir experience the audience can identify with can also be troublesome. Enter the wrestling motif.
To get as close as possible to conveying this experience in an authentic way, this interactive new media experience will allow the audience to wrestle in the protagonist’s boots as the story of their gender and sexual identity shifts over the course of a single wrestling match. This will be done on a website utilizing visual art and text by the author in conjunction with one another in a choose-your-own adventure style battle. The audience’s choice of various wrestling moves will lead to the unwinding of the speculative nonfiction text, and finally, get us to the climax: the audience’s choice of finishing move.
The winner of the match, as with most professional wrestling, will be predetermined, based on the life of the creator. While limiting, the freedom lies in the methods with which the audience will choose to explore the snippets of the protagonist’s maneuvers, and in turn, the creator’s life. The match itself will flow along with the will of the audience.
The practical: this experience will take place on a website that will utilize images of acrylic paintings and collage by the creator, as well as branching paths of hybrid memoir. The hybrid memoir sections will be labelled with various clickable wrestling moves, allowing the audience to interact with the match in the order and pace that they see fit until they arrive at predetermined spots in the narrative determined by the creator.
In addition, it is important to acknowledge that this project is appropriating a traditionally misogynistic entertainment sport.
Again, this creative experience will focus on the intersections of gender and sexuality, specifically the creator’s shift from genderfluid to nonbinary identity and how both were and are at odds with their sexuality and expression of both in general. By playing through this experience, the audience will witness the protagonist’s reinvention along with the creator’s.
Lace Up Their Boots: An Interactive Wrestling Experience
Exploring gender identity on its own can be a wrestling match, and when sexuality is thrown into the mix, one can expect conflict. Navigating this intersection in a memoir experience the audience can identify with can also be troublesome. Enter the wrestling motif.
To get as close as possible to conveying this experience in an authentic way, this interactive new media experience will allow the audience to wrestle in the protagonist’s boots as the story of their gender and sexual identity shifts over the course of a single wrestling match. This will be done on a website utilizing visual art and text by the author in conjunction with one another in a choose-your-own adventure style battle. The audience’s choice of various wrestling moves will lead to the unwinding of the speculative nonfiction text, and finally, get us to the climax: the audience’s choice of finishing move.
The winner of the match, as with most professional wrestling, will be predetermined, based on the life of the creator. While limiting, the freedom lies in the methods with which the audience will choose to explore the snippets of the protagonist’s maneuvers, and in turn, the creator’s life. The match itself will flow along with the will of the audience.
The practical: this experience will take place on a website that will utilize images of acrylic paintings and collage by the creator, as well as branching paths of hybrid memoir. The hybrid memoir sections will be labelled with various clickable wrestling moves, allowing the audience to interact with the match in the order and pace that they see fit until they arrive at predetermined spots in the narrative determined by the creator.
In addition, it is important to acknowledge that this project is appropriating a traditionally misogynistic entertainment sport.
Again, this creative experience will focus on the intersections of gender and sexuality, specifically the creator’s shift from genderfluid to nonbinary identity and how both were and are at odds with their sexuality and expression of both in general. By playing through this experience, the audience will witness the protagonist’s reinvention along with the creator’s.
Bio
Tate N. Oquendo is a trans writer and visual artist that combines these elements to craft multimodal nonfiction, poetry, and fiction, as well as translations of these forms. Their work can be found in numerous literary journals, a poetry collection, a hybrid memoir, and six chapbooks, including their most recent works: The Antichrist and I and we, animals. They are also an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications, and their most recently curated anthology, Manticore: Hybrid Writing from Hybrid Identities, is available for free on the Sundress Publications website.