The following presentation, titled Shimmering representation: The trans*mediation of Silver Femme was presented at the 32nd International Screen Studies Conference, held at the University of Glasgow, Scotland on June 30–July 2nd, 2023.
View Nico Reano’s website and the full film here.
The coded alt-text and the text displayed on this page are identical. Jump to the references by clicking here.
If you have any comments or feedback about this work, please email me at kit.chokly@mail.mcgill.ca.
Slide 1
A title slide for the presentation. It has a black background with a grainy, multi-colour film frame in the middle. There is no discernible image in the frame. The title reads, “Shimmering representations: The trans*mediation of Silver Femme.” The author information reads “Kit Chokly, PhD Student in Communication Studies, McGill University, July 2nd, Screen 2023, Glasgow University, kit.chokly@mail.mcgill.ca.” There is also a URL rotated 90 degrees and a QR code, both linking to this site (kitchokly.com/resources).
Slide 2
The text disappears and the frame turns into a loop of Silver Femme‘s title card sequence. This video can be accessed at https://www.nicoreano.com/silver-femme-2021#e-1. The bottom right-hand corner reads “Silver Femme (2021), dir. Nico Reano.” The rotated URL remains.
Slide 3
The still, indiscernible frame from the title card returns. Over it reads the text, “Are these aesthetics ‘real’?”
Slide 4
The question from the previous slide is crossed out and replaced with a new question, this one reading, “What do these aesthetics do for the film? Can we theorize them as an expression of transition?”
Slide 5
The previous text is replaced by another definition. This one reads “The cut, the production of difference. (Barad 2007; Deleuze 1989; Hayward 2008; Kember & Zylinska 2012; Stryker 2008 & in Feder 2020; Sullivan & Murray 2009).”
Slide 6
“Cutting words” is printed in white on a black background, offset to the left.
Slide 7
A new still from the film appears. It features the figure wrapped in red, looking over their shoulder. Their long dark hair fall down their back. On their head is an elaborate, orange diadem made of a series of straight bars. The yellow subtitles included in the still read “You never used a pronouns when talking about me.” The still shows that the image wraps around the frame slightly, with part of the diadem appearing below the subtitles and parts of the red outfit appearing at the top of the frame. Overlaying the still and the rest of the slide is white text reading “Cutting words”.
Slide 8
This slide is mostly black, with a very small frame of an overexposed moon on a pink sky with overhanding leaves in the foreground in the bottom left-hand corner. The yellow subtitles now read “I was a middle.” The white texting reading “Cutting words” remains in the same place as the previous slide.
Slide 9
The static frame from the title slide returns. A new definition is overlaid reading “The stitch, the process of making new concepts, (cárdenas 2016)”.
Slide 10
“Cutting words” is replaced by “Stitching time” on the black background.
Slide 11
The figure reappears in their red outfit, this time looking down at the camera. Shimmering, translucent fabric is tangled in their diadem. In the background appears to be a metal structure. Where “Cutting words” were before on slides 8 and 9 now reads “Stitching time”.
Slide 12
The figure now appears, still in their red outfit, in three separate frames, each with different aspect ratios. Two are equally washed out and over exposed as the previous stills; in both of these frames, the figure holds onto the structure behind then, still gazing at the camera. They do not wear their diadem here. The middle frame looks high-resolution, has a strong flash, and appears in a vertical orientation. They are posing for the camera but looking downwards. “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 13
The still is replaced by a large, full-screen image of the figure, now wearing an olive-coloured suit with thigh-high matching heels and big pink earrings. They pose holding one hand up, palm facing the camera, with the other hand on their thigh. The background appears to be a whitewashed parking garage. “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 14
Again the still is replace by a new one, this time featuring two overlapping frames. Both feature the figure in a white halter-top suit. The smaller frame overlaps with the larger one, and here the shot is taken from much further away. The figure poses here with their hands on their hips and their toes pointed. In the background is a construction site. “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 15
Again a new still, this time with only one frame. It is in high-resolution and again in a vertical aspect ration. The figure stands in a field wearing a gauzy purple dress which leaves their chest revealed, although their arms cover them in this moment. Their hair is pulled back. “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 16
This shot is made of three frames, the leftmost featuring the figure in the nude, standing in an Edenic garden. They gaze at the camera but cover their lower region with a vine. This shot is also high-resolution and in vertical. The second includes the figure again in the purple gauzy dress in the field from slide 15. And the rightmost frame features the figure in the parking garage again, wearing the olive suit and boots. “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 17
This still includes a similar shot of the figure nude in the garden as the shot featured on slide 16, but this time it is overexposed again. Within this frame is another, smaller frame of the figure in the same locale, now back in high-resolution. The yellow subtitles read “a blip in time.” “Stitching time” remains.
Slide 18
“Stitching time” is replaced by “Shimmering silver” on the black background.
Slide 19
The still includes three nearly identical shots of the figure as a portrait, who is painted entirely in silver. They are neatly stacked one on top of the other on the left-hand side of the shot. The rest of shot is a close-up on the figure’s lips, which are mouthing along to the subtitles. These subtitles are now in all capitals and read “THE MOON IS TRANS”. “Stitching time” is replaced with “Shimmering silver”.
Slide 20
This shot includes one, full-screen frame of the figure in silver. They are twirling in their silvery outfit, their hands in the air and blurred by motion. The yellow subtitles, back to all lowercase, read “she shines like a silver femme”. “Shimmering silver” remains.
Slide 21
The static shot from the title slide returns, this time with an equation. It reads “The cut + the stitch = The shimmer, the transformative aesthetic of the cut & stitch, (Steinbock 2019)”.
Slide 22
A still frame from the title card. This still includes a layering of three frames, each of which gets smaller. They’re edges highlighted by light leaks and film grain. They are mostly indiscernible, but in the centre, most visible frame appears to be an overexposed shot of the moon with a tree in the foreground.
Slide 23
The still frame from the title card returns. This time, the overlaid text reads “Trans*mediation, a form of representation that uses mediation as a performative enactment of transition”.
Slide 24
The silver-painted figure emerges from the right side of the frame, smiling. “Thank you” is written in white and offset, landing over their forehead.
References
Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
cárdenas, micha. 2016. “Trans of Color Poetics: Stitching Bodies, Concepts, and Algorithms.” The Scholar & Feminist Online, no. 13.3-14.1. https://sfonline.barnard.edu/traversing-technologies/micha-cardenas-trans-of-color-poetics-stitching-bodies-concepts-and-algorithms/.
Carter, Julian. 2013. “Embracing Transition, or Dancing in the Folds of Time.” In The Transgender Studies Reader 2, edited by Susan Stryker and Aren Z. Aizura, 130–41. New York: Routledge.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1983. L’image-Mouvement. Collection “Critique” 1. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Gordon, Marsha. 2013. “Lenticular Spectacles: Kodacolor’s Fit in the Amateur Arsenal.” Film History 25 (4): 36–62.
Hayward, Eva. 2008. “More Lessons from a Starfish: Prefixial Flesh and Transspeciated Selves.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 36 (3): 64–85. https://doi.org/10.1353/wsq.0.0099.
Horak, Laura. 2014. “Trans on YouTube: Intimacy, Visibility, Temporality.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1 (4): 572–85. https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-2815255.
Keegan, Cáel M. 2016. “Revisitation: A Trans Phenomenology of the Media Image.” MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research 32 (61). https://doi.org/10.7146/mediekultur.v32i61.22414.
Keegan, Cáel M. 2020. “Transgender Studies, or How to Do Things with Trans*.” In The Cambridge Companion to Queer Studies, edited by Siobhan B. Somerville, 1st ed., 66–78. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699396.006.
Nakamura, Lisa. 1995. “Race in/for Cyberspace: Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet.” Works and Days13 (1–2): 181–93.
Reano, Nico, dir. 2021. Silver Femme. https://www.nicoreano.com/silver-femme-2021#e-1.
Steinbock, Eliza. 2019. Shimmering Images: Trans Cinema, Embodiment, and the Aesthetics of Change. Durham: Duke University Press.
Stryker, Susan. 2008. “Dungeon Intimacies: The Poetics of Transsexual Sadomasochism.” Parallax 14 (1): 36–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534640701781362.
Sullivan, Nikki, and Samantha Murray. 2009. Somatechnics: Queering the Technologisation of Bodies. Queer Interventions. Farnham: Ashgate.