Mapping the hyperlocal body: queer interventions in the performances of Felipe Rivas San Martín

Abstract

ABSTRACT The performances of Chilean artist and scholar Felipe Rivas San Martín reveal the linguistic and political void that the word ‘queer’ embodies in Latin American contexts. Rivas San Martín focuses on dissident sexualities, rejecting the term ‘queer’ and staking a claim for visibility and intelligibility that does not depend upon an integrationist model of LGBT identity politics. In this article, I argue that through the reciprocal impact of the body in technology and technology on the body, Rivas San Martín reveals a space in which dissident actors can accomplish two things. First, through the body, they expose the narratives of heteronormativity and homonormativity that have worked diligently to erase any sexually dissident subject who disrupts the status quo. Secondly, this nebulous space challenges the divisions between self, other, and object and posits a new way of conceptualizing dissident and queer identity in the 21st century. The embodied experiences of the individual combined with an expansive network of virtual connectivity creates a contestatory discourse that undermines the permanence and primacy of logocentric language.