“A non-linear thread moving into a queer time and space” – this sentence is uttered in the performative activation of Ian Kaler’s video installation You are song, to me. It becomes palpable in the room right from the beginning of the event what Kaler and Romeo Roxman Gatt, with whom Kaler has collaborated on the video installation, mean by activation.
Kaler invites the audience to do a body scan – a mindfulness exercise where attention is focused on one’s own body while lying or sitting down. The activation starts by focusing on one’s breathing. Then, the release of breath is deliberately drawn out. Guided by Kaler, the body scan is not intended for viewing or as a demonstration but becomes a shared experience that connects the people present in the room. Each person focuses their attention on their body and their breath – sitting or lying down next to one another. This is followed by jointly making the vocal cords vibrate. The articulation of vowels creates a collective resonating body in the room and at the same time a resonating space in one’s own body. This way, the titular You are song, to me can be experienced firsthand.
Then, the two performers sit back to back and set each other’s body vibrating by using their voice. Over the course of the performance, a variety of connections between the activation and the video installation emerge. Breathing and mindfulness exercises such as the body scan, which soothe the nervous system, are also used as relaxation techniques in preparation of free diving, to be able to hold one’s breath longer.
Music, free diving, swimming and water are the audio-visual motifs running through the video installation, which consists of three screens. Two screens face each other, symbolizing dialogue and exchange between the two artists. The third screen is suspended from the ceiling, above the two standing ones. It displays abstract water formations and serves as a metaphorical connection between the other screens. The dialogue between the two artists takes place not only on a visual level – for example, when they seem to be facing each other in a free-diving experiment – but also in an extended email exchange about the joint artistic project, literary and musical references, family and human-animal relationships, and their everyday lives. It’s about conceptions of life and utopias as well as everyday challenges that trans(male) people may experience, such as the difficulties involved in going for a relaxed swim.
I also consider the collaboration between Kaler and Gatt to be a practice of t4t. T4t stands for trans-for-trans and describes, among other things, a practice of care within trans communities, for example in the form of mutual aid and emotional support.[1] I am particularly interested in the idea of t4t as a principle and a structuring practice for artistic production, as represented by researchers in trans(gender) studies, including Cameron Awkward-Rich, Hil Malatino, micha cárdenas, Jed Samer and Cáel M. Keegan.[2] On the one hand, these approaches emphasize the importance of trans art and text production for various forms of trans self-becoming and self-positing. On the other hand, they discuss t4t critically – especially with regard to various and intersectional social power relations that are at work even within trans communities.
Formally speaking, t4t manifests itself not only in how Kaler and Gatt refer back to each other, but also in how they take up similarly dialogic artistic or literary practices, like the exchange between Kathy Acker and McKenzie Wark in I’m Very into You: Correspondence 1995–1996 or Gatt’s archive project Rosa Kwir, which was initiated in Malta.
Another important aspect is an exchange of artistic practices and positions that have shaped the work of both artists, such as those of Eileen Myles and Andrea Gibson, or poems by Mary Oliver. In the performative activation, the aspect of care inherent in t4t expands into a mindfully choreographed transmedial artistic practice, thereby creating multifarious points of contact for trans and queer space-time continuums – and beyond.
Jul Tirler conducts research at the intersections of visual culture, film and media studies, and trans studies. They have co-edited the anthology Trans* und Inter* Studien. Machtkritische Perspektiven auf Repräsentation, Medizin und Wissen (2025) and are currently a postdoc in the research project Queer Cinema Austria 1906–2026 (qca.univie.ac.at).
[1] Cf. Cameron Awkward-Rich, Hil Malatino, “Meanwhile, t4t”, in: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, vol. 9, no. 1, 2022, p. 1–8 (specifically p. 2).
[2] Cf. ibid.; micha cárdenas, “General Editor’s Introduction: The Love Praxis of Trans Speculation”, in: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, 2025, p. 1–3 (specifically p. 2); Jed Samer, Cáel M. Keegan, “Introduction: Trans Speculation in the WTF”, in: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 1, 2025, p. 4–11.
