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Hello this is the pad where we take notes for the monday !

All pads here ( http://transmarcations.constantvzw.org/etherdump/ will be trans ferred to http://transmarcations.constantvzw.org after the worksession
For who-is-who see also: http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/transmarcations.participants

NOTES AFTERNOON

Trans passport (Alexander Antonopoulos + Pascale Barret + Elias Jenkins)

What could a 'trans passport ' be like ? 

Alexander : 
Borders between human and non-human, relevant medical practices

how are borders created through different types of language
biographical is also iscribed by the medical

you are read as something other then you were before
if your papers do not represent who you 'are' there is disruption of identity

passing is risk
passing is discovery

materiality of bodily inscriptions

modification

disrupting the system by using its signs, but how far can you go. 
systems getting systemized - hormonal changes [changing materiality of the body, wasn't meant to be unchangeable] might be enough for being read differently
but the control is more in papers now.

control vs liberation
the medical and the legal
the medical is attached to the .. and the corporeal
i don't see biology as a tabula raza
the inscription is part of the body itself
there is a communication between the body and language that you cannot separate
hence the semiotic bodily inscriptions
we think of geographical boundaries
but geographical is mediated by legalities which are relatively invisible to us when we look at a map
how these inscriptions and borders are created through language
the biographical is also inscribed by the medical
looking at medical transition
the way in which medical practice has provided the tools
you take hormones that trigger some changes
and then you pass
when that happens, if your papers do not reflect how you are seen and perceived
the present a disconnect
and legally you are at risk
passing is risk
you are read in a manner that puts you at risk if you are discovered
using the signs to be read as something different
and how far you can go in manipulating the system is the question
the system gets systematized
more and more regions do not require surgical modifications to the body
because the hormonal can suffice in how you are read
if you sign an affidavid, you can get a gender reassignment
this is not liberating, now all of your papers have to change
gender enters into th ebody by dictating all the legal aspects of your body
and you are not free
i want to use my passing to craft papers that will allow me to cross some borders and not others
we have a disruption of the system on our own terms
with the risks involved
the medical transition, the hormones transform the materiality of the body
which is not supposed to be untransformable to begin with

using a passing to craft papers

montrer le monstre
we are all a monstrosity

creating our own fictions

Using technologies or not. what legal documents are used/needed to pass

Pascale brings documents from Genres pluriel http://www.genrespluriels.be on changed laws in Belgium

"Last May 2017, Belgium adopted the "law reforming transgender regimes regarding the mention of a modification of the registration of sex in the acts of the civil law and its effects". This is the result of a hard work from a group of associations and Lawyers "Equality Laws Clinic" ULB university (Immigration and asylum law, Reproductive justice and abortion rights, Transgender rights, Disability rights). In Belgium, before this new law, requests for gender change were governed by psychiatrists and surgeons (psychotic diagnostics & sterilizations mandatory)."
https://www.genrespluriels.be/Un-grand-progres-mais-d-immenses-chantiers?lang=fr

Legal, but still needs signature of the parents.

In Germany: neutral gender ("third gender") - not a solution. redefines the definition of an 'other'

gender neutrality ? 
nature contre nature , seif medicalisation? (ex. gynepunk manifesto)
natural ? male / female as a fiction ?  

Tomorrow: a lot more material to go through. 

anglo-normativity: how to speak about things that are hard to translate.

Pascale: I felt it was hard to talk about this subject, I felt unable -- but was good to rethink identity (white, cis female)
To resituate myself, Genres Pluriels helped, to locate myself through transfeminism.
It is a personal road I travelled.

Questions Alexander:
    Not sure what your need would be - where should we go? A would like to prepare
    - details on how passport beca m e gender iden t ity, how passport s was created in post-ww era / The history of passports
    - gender and how it is attributed, how do we decide whether someone is male or female? it is all poliitical
    - we're in the era of trans, but do we know what it is?
    - how do you transition
    - how do we talk/write about trans people? ' right speak', trans is /as a new language . Glossary - American influence , colonisation by English language?
    
Alexander wil give talk on Thursday based on his own biographical situation
offer of A to use his specific situation to unravel the conditions of being in transition, how it transforms to norms, documents
prepare together in session tomorrow

Biography: Eu born, migrated to canada when he was 7, disrupted when he transitioned later in life
Borders and passports -- many crossings. It is a layered relationship to borders

'transmonstre'
bodies as human and non human, always in motion
reorienting all the time
rethink gender in 3Dm not only 2D as a map
4D, to include time too.
another way to get out of antropocentrism

green booklet / bibliography here: http://transmarcations.constantvzw.org/images/bibliography.pdf
updates here: texts.diff.html

Lexicon of exile (Florence Aigner - who worked with Molenbeek Formation -, An Mertens, Peggy Pierrot)

Working with a group of migrants
All of them are learning French together
wanted to meet 

how to share something from them to us?

for them, all the time making stories that can make the moving possible. 
have their own narrative, and specific way to look at 'us'. 

the lexicon was a way to insist on them being the experts of exile. There are a lot of structures we look away from (colonialism, for example and the government does not do that work either).

result is a lexicon. words related to transition.

wtc -- constant has a studio on the 25th -- overview over brussels. back door = vreemdelingenzaken/migrant affairs. entering through a different door (to get to the studio, not to the foreign affairs office)

asking to describe a point in the landscape, viewable from the 25th floor.

[descriptions in the pdf/papers in FR + EN]

creation of categories, interesting that most categories are described by two words.
photography serie on the memory of body
the body reappeared in different catgories

first space: think + make gesture, memory of where he/she/they came from
second space: gesture during transition 'on the move'
last/third space: a movement, position when in Belgium

For tomorrow: to see what words from their expertise touch us. How to relate to these experiences, relate it to your own practice. To start by incorporating vocabulary.
Questions of language are overlapping
Discovering they are sharing a vocabulary -- language as an idiom, becoming aware of it. Working at the differences it imposes.
"My cat is my companion, is my brother, is my mother. It is my dream life"

Many more stories! [ok to use their/these pictures inside the workshop, not publicly]

Question: Why this specific school?
A: We know the people that are trainers in the school, important.
Q: Wondering what the lexicon would look like with other types of immigrants/refugees?
Interest in idea of belonging. How a new place is viewed. 

Group representative for immigration in Brussels. Demographics of Brussels. 
This group seems relevant for Brussels.

[back upstairs from Tanukis]
Geo-body maps (Pierre Huyghebaert + Peter Westenberg)

Pierre: This one is less clear!
How to exchange data between geography and (digital) bodies; Pierre Marchand, Pacom ... 
many possible entrypoints.

meme: the earth is a patatoide !
What is the standard earth? What is the deviation from it?
projections in cartography uses "geodesie" - deviation from the standard globe.
what if we consider the earth as a queer body?
what are the boundaries of the possible deviations?
what is tangible? if there are no bones in the inside, what is there?
looking at maps that show layers: differentiating layers (a bit like segmenting organs)

"repere en pvc"
references for maps, physical markings in Brussels (dirt!)

from the very big to the very small

philippe: images of faces to demonstrate projection
alex: (how/when) does deviation become a new standard?
patate as a metaphor
patatification!

cheesy patatified standards :-) 
in geography, standards are already questions

new paradigms

science acknowledges that it's messy and difficult to translate 2D to 3D etc but common knowledge tries to translate this to standards

tools we will see tomorrow - used for putting buildings on a map, but in other cases it is used for trees with leaves that fall

thickness (of skin, earth, ...)
every country has their own way. knowledge is dispersed and they do not collaborate [but maybe this means different standards can co-exist? and resist?]

there is a standard defining the surface but not on the subterranean/geology

The institute we will visit tomorrow ... 
What would be the earth's skeleton?

The legends are standardised vocabulary/symbology (??) 
The graphic language that is being studied ... 
Jean-Luc Parmentier

It is not a museum! The institution has trouble imagining its own impact? 
A chance to see how standards are developed within an institution (and institutions are built from it?)

What questions could we bring to the institute.

http://printmaking.be
http://www.mil.be/fr/article/linstitut-geographique-national-revisite-le-passe

reverse egyptology

experimenting standard floss tools for cartographic aesthetics
cartographic etherpad ... yeah! 
map-log
ethermap?

"my own fantasy is quite graphical"
subjective cartography
richness of discussions, but so hard to do anything graphical, really. one day we will have tools!
showing other kinds of tensions. it is urgent.
"the symbology of maps" grapheme, semiology of things on maps