Chelsea Thompto

     Chelsea Thompto is a transdisciplinary artist that works in the lines of art, trans studies and technology. As a transgender herself, her explores within her gender identity inspired her work, and has encouraged her to experiment and articulate the "habitual ordering of peoples and behaviors" as she writes. Her artistic mediums, outside the digital, are incredibly vast, including printmaking, writing, and bookbinding. She currently works as an Digital Media Assistant Professor at San José State and is one of the Board of Directors and the Editorial Board of the Media-N: Journal of the New Media Caucus. 

     One example of her written works include her Transcode Manifesto, which was a means of her exploring how her body is always being "coded." What I believe she means is that through the digital interface, our identity is transcribed in order to fit within a new form of space. She explains that when she makes a telephone call, her body is being transcribed through sound waves, conveying her as masculine, despite how she is otherwise "feminine within every system" as she puts it. To which she feels that her body is constantly changing through both her perception and through the wave lengths conveyed to the other person. Thus she questions how not only is this "system" of coding and recoding changing herself, but how possibly she might be able to change it. In terms of how she defines "transcode," she acknowledges that it has no linear understanding but is rather broad and flowing in between definitions. In a sense, "transcode" means to discern the power of the separation between two things, in terms of how the "liner" is disrupted or divided. It also seeks to allow these two things to be interpreted as anything but linear, like "side to side, upward, downward, inward, and off the path" as she describes. With "trans," it means to go beyond or change what exists, and "code" refers to what is narratively traditional or set to begin with. Overall, it does sound like a very complex idea, as its application has no set idea, but I can understand how it means to discern what is separated, why this separation occurs, and what power this separation can uphold. It also can be utilized to better explore transgender issues and allows for other trans identities to be recognized, which would be another reason for its importance for understanding.

     Her Transcode series in 2015 takes inspiration from her Transcode Manifesto, as they utilize binary systems onto sculptures to express the various means of identity, transgender acceptance and liberation. Many of her works associated with the series are pieces of wood, sculptures (even the walls) that have binary text painted onto them. A translation for the symbols are provided to the viewer to help them articulate what the text reads. For instance, this one below reads "She, Her, Hers," while other sculptures and the walls follow suit. I believe this makes the work more interactive to the viewer, as they are not able to readily discern what the text reads until they explore and transcribe it for themselves, thereby "coding" what the text conveys.

     My question for Chelsea Thompto was "how does she feel her works reach out and inspire those in the transgender community?" She replied to this by saying:

     "I started my transition more than a decade ago, while I was still in my undergrad. And so there is, for me, a benefit of time. The way that I am able to engage with this work now ten years on is different than when I was engaging with it ten years ago, and it is different from when I was engaging with it five years ago. In some ways, I think the work itself is not necessarily for a trans audience or for a non-trans audience. I hope that in some way that it might give that language (or voice) or provide that moment of feeling of kinship (or resonance) with other trans folks. But I am also cognizant that some of the work that I make deals with violent imagery, and that's not something I think that every trans person is ready to process, nor should they have to. In some ways, the work isn't going to "land," or be totally accessible to every trans person, it wont be for every single person. That is to say, while I hope that people can find and recognize things about it that are resonant with their experience and maybe articulate some of their own struggles and frustrations, but there are also ways that I am working on that, particularly taking advantage of the amount of time I spent thinking with and engaging with the type of imagery that I witnessing."

Information Sources:

https://www.chelseathompto.com/about

https://www.chelseathompto.com/transcode-manifesto

https://www.chelseathompto.com/advancement-to-candidacy