Okay, this is where I am going--
The last thing I said in class, about the culture of repetition and 7" extended dance remixes? Well, here is a way that even disco has been simultaneously embraced and contested: TRACY AND THE PLASTICS. Wynne Greenwood, who acted as all three members of T&TP, is a performance artist who considers herself a "lesbo for disco." She created electronic music all by herself, but would then make video acting as two members of an imaginary band and then would interact with the other members of the band on stage, with the pre-recorded and synchronized video of herself playing both characters. Her dance songs have incredibly challenging lyrics and champion feminist and radical queer causes.
Some of my favorites:
"Mass historian: you second-handed me. Holy roller: You've got a lot to see."
"Women! Women of! LOS ANGELES! You can't clean it up until you make a MMmmmmEEEESSSssssssss!!"
There's a lot more where that came from. Also: the Margaret Atwood poem I wrote about in my response to Biggs & Leach. My favorite artists are subversive; they are highly skilled at disturbing the narratives and forms that we are accustomed to relate to most easily. That is what makes their work powerful.
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