AI: Allenina Intelligence
A Super-Tranny Lasts All Summer Long
written in August 2001
The past is now! The future is here! What’s nature? What’s culture? What’s real? We are natural components merged with cultural artifacts. Haven’t we always been hybrids? This is the era of compressed time and space. We live extraordinarily under the principle of information superhighway. We are neurotransmitting organisms merged with the Matrix of communication networks. We are hybrid entities, like Human-Computers, Man-Machines and Cyborgs. Such fractured identity deconstructs the traditional binary oppositions between self / other, mind / body, man / machine, individual / society, nature / culture, original / copy, primitive / civilized, made / maker and male / female. Transgenderism connotes the same hybrid principle as cyborg, thus echoes the synergy of fractured identity.
Allenina Helen Wong
“Welcome, my name is Allenina. I am your neuroguide. Would you like to start with some olestra horsd’oeuvre cookies?”
I abstract graphical data daily from books, films, architecture, art, pornography, Canon, Sony, Internet, celebrities and all surroundings in the maze of cybernetic universe. Analogous to a cyborg, I merge with external artifacts and thus am a hybrid entity. While there’s more than one way in linking components within a hybrid entity, I will demonstrate such science and synthetic patterns by simply speaking my own mind, by deciphering to you all the megabytes in my RAM and ROM, my artificial intelligence.
Transgender
Technically, I am a M2F [1] transsexual. Injecting synthetic Estradiol is my biweekly routine. It’s been almost a year now. I am a hormonally modified person and have merged with external artifacts. Well, like my sister who was on birth control, she too was a HM person. Like GM food. Like an athlete in the state of adrenaline rush induced by extreme sport. Like my friend who has had breast implants, she is a cosmetically modified/enhanced human. Like Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of Prozac Nation, she too was a modified human through psychiatric medication. Like my neighbor who’s taking vitamins. Like manicuring my nails, I am aesthetically altered. Like wearing a wig. Like partners in the state of sexual excitement. Like the constant changes of Madonna’s image, she’s the most worshiped ‘transgender’, so to speak. Like, well, you know, I am, like, such, you know, like, a valley girl!
My personal style is multi-dimensional, multi-facade. When it registers on me, I call it NuDrag. One of its dimensions is in link with Generation X and Y’s new wave representation of self – sprightly, technicolored, club kiddish, ultra-synthetic, cyberreal, hyperreal, kitschy, campy and pretty. It’s fun for both boys and girls. Thanks to club kids, Drag Queens, contemporary clothing stores, the photography of Mariko Mori, Pierre et Gilles and David Lachapelle and the booming of cyberculture, such aesthetics is conspicuous even in the pluralistic dialect of the 90s.
I welcome the advent of Generation Baby @!
Porn
I am best known for my persona in adult films. The porn industry is one of the bellwethers in exploiting the transsexual, whose body manifests itself prominently in a naked state. Pornography glamorizes the body; body as celebrity. It focuses on the performance of the body. Every inch of my body is a site for spectacle, especially in hardcore. My body is rapt when my mind streams, glorified by an industry that contradicts the Cartesian split between mind and body. Now as a director, I star in my work. I make conceptual self-portraits. This gesture allows me to cross over from a performer to an observer. I am no longer just the directed but also the director. I exist on both sides of the screen.
Furthermore, I am the nano-rover [2] launched by my generation into the porn industry. I send back pixel images from the surface of hardcore sexual landscape via my Canon GL1 3ccd Digital Video Camcorder. Like video artists Bill Viola, Tony Oursler and many others, I am here to create a modern collection for the 21st century picture gallery. Have you ever studied any of my pixel images?
So, do cyborgs dream of electronic sex? Yes. Have you ever surfed the Internet for pornographic materials? Have you ever experienced the consensual hallucination that teledildonics can simulate?
Art
I was 24 and a student at USC when I first started doing porn. I’ve since graduated with a Bachelors’ Degree in Fine Art. My studies have allowed me to explore the concept of art and to question the definitions of trivial art (Low Art) and modern art (High Art).
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still series created mostly in the 70s and 80s are works that artists quote extensively. These conceptual self-portraits deconstruct the social image of feminine identity. She is the helm in creating a generation of multi-dimensional personas through the manipulation of preceding media images and cultural artifacts.
80s’ art star Jeff Koons displays a sophisticated mix of kitsch and modernity. He has made ‘obscenity’ banal and turned the mundane into the most desirable. His works, some involving his former wife and Italian porn star Cicciolina, obscure the traditional concept of art and presents the aesthetic of consumerism.
I am reinterpreting these legacies into a reality of my own. The myth of mankind in the idyllic time of wholeness and unity is in demand of a new interface. Michelangelo’s Adam in The Creation of Adams, on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512, should be attached with a computer mouse, turned into a cyborg and adorned with feminine and contemporary touches.
Psychology
In Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, there are three agencies working in our psycho-dynamics: ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. Id is the pleasure principle. Ego is the reality principal, which regulates Id. Superego enters from the external social context. These components are consisted in each of our psychological entities.
Jacques Lacan, a post-structuralist psychologist, replaces the Freudian model with the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic. His analysis is more conscious of the ever-shifting culture.
Despite the patriarchal language used in their works, these psychological paradigms define an intricate network between oneself and his/her surroundings.
Culture
Hong Kong is a highly commercialized metropolis bathed in modern technology and industrialized skyscrapers. Growing up there, I was aware of transgenders especially those in close-by Thailand. Transgenderism is nothing new nor is it a mere foreign introduction or modern creation. Transsexualism might be a new phenomenon technically but never one conceptually.
In Buddhist myths, we have ‘Avalokitesvara’ or Quan Yin – the transgender deity who benefits in the disguise of an elegant, ethereal feminine figure. There were transvestite temple priests in ancient Babylon and Hittite cultures. They were the mascots in the ritualistic worships of female goddesses. And what about the many eunuchs who lived sumptuously with their opulent sultans and powerful harems? Although eunuchs were more about emasculation and protecting the purity of sultans’ bloodline rather than transgenderism, becoming one involved the process that incubated opposite gender’s physical traits. In addition, Berdaches, who are found in the American Indian culture, are transgender roles framed by a different yet parallel social context. Transgenderism is cross-culturally and historically charged. It is human nature.
Clocking [3]
I now live full-time as a woman. Sometimes when I get clocked, I share the same feeling with David, the robotic boy in the Brian Aldiss’s graceful and melancholic sci-fi vignette “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” when he says “I hate that old psychiatrist – he makes me feel I’m not real.” I feel I am not ‘them.’ I feel I am being alienated, excluded, dislocated like the Other. It is smothering because I don’t think I am anything different from them. We are all hybrid entities. The experience is gratuitous.
However, the condition of Otherness can proclaim advantages. Postmodern feminism has turned the “Other”, originally phrased as The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, empowered by spinning all pent-up positions of women in patriarchal society into conscious displays. The postmodern attitude has enabled women to criticize the social values. The “Other” observes from both inside and outside and has helped to make aware of the line of boundary, thus destroy dichotomy and open up for diversity. This critical position is inspiring.
“C’mon girls, Townsville’s in trouble!” [4]
Sexuality: Tranny chasers [5]
I think it is ignorant to label tranny chasers gay. It’s parochial of such claim. As an advocate for sexuality to be seen as a continuum, I veto any cop-out interpretation. I am trying to defend human sexuality.
Tranny chasers have slight homosexual inclinations and favor sexual relationships that reinforce the aesthetics of straight couples. Aesthetics, essential, in human experience thus affects sexuality. Being gay connotes a lifestyle and an aesthetics that do not apply to tranny chasers.
While some simply appreciate feminine gender in all forms, others are attracted to hyper-femininity, a look that transgender masters. Their lust for feminine aesthetics allows them to transcend their sexual boundaries. This kind of transcendence also occurs when spiritual connection is made. Some are modelizers and have fixation on height. While anal sex is appealing enough to many top men, it also attracts the bottoms. I don’t quite believe that men who receive are necessarily non-heterosexuals. Because of conventional labeling and the stigma on homosexual practices, it is almost ignominious for a heterosexual male to explore his body fully. I also read into the ideas of fetish, kink and alternative sex. S&M is popular among transgender community because transgenderism is considered a form of role-play, which is an essential part of S&M practice. Of course, homophobia does emerge in some cases. Machismo often resists the ignition of any homosexual desire. ‘Tranny chaser’ could just be a role of cover-up.
Ultimately, we are all travelers on the continuum of sexuality and rest at the point where each of our psychosexual tendencies finds its own lost piece of external puzzle.
Friends
A lot of my girlfriends (genetic girls) are more drag queens than drag queens, more gay men than gay men and more men than men. They are pretty girls with multi-dimensional behavior patterns. These are the female warriors and frontiers. Therefore, when I need to draw inspiration for being a woman, I end up impersonating a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman impersonating another woman impersonating…
Film
I got into porn because I wanted to take female impersonation a step further to impersonating female sexuality. The experience has become a memory. I am ready to dive into a new hybrid identity, linking new components with me.
I will create independent film projects in the stylish visual pyrotechnics of Daren Aronofsky, copy the F/X in Matrix, research Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, admire the beautiful appearance of Peter Greenaway’s films, challenge Dogma 95 manifestation, the Postmodern visions of Blade Runner and Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, read Neuromancer, create journalistic cinema, focus on documentary and docudrama, borrow the autobiographical style of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, study the dark humor in Friends and Neighbors, Happiness, contemplate the homoerotic symbolism in Kenneth Anger’s films, learn from David Mamet on directing and Hollywood’s self-hatred, reinforce that movies such as Romance, Crash means porn should get out more, approach adaptation, experiment with Hitchcockian psychodrama, examine all the generous and insightful dialogues in You Can Count On Me, and etc.
Merging has not completed, but I’ve established many linkages and encountered parallel universes. Thanks for joining my odyssey! This is the science of me, the biochemistry of myself and the autopsy of Allenina. Remember that I am the little talking, walking and writing artificial intelligence that could.
“I hope you enjoy surfing with me on this neuroride!”
(c) Allenina Helen Wong
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Footnotes
[1] M2F or MTF – male-to-female. Used to specify the direction of a change in sex or gender role. Also, F2M or FTM – female-to-male.
[2] Small robotic that sends back pixel images from the surface of Mars.
[3] Being read as a transgender.
[4] Verbatim: spoken words of the Powerpuff Girls doll.
[5] Although this paragraph focuses mainly on the sexual attraction of heterosexual-identified men towards MTFs, there are many other specific kinds of sexual dynamics within the human social pool (e.g. woman who tranny-chases MTF/FTM, etc.). However, the degrees of sexual preference and its social aesthetic fall under the principle as discussed in this paragraph.
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A personal note from Jon. I’m a big fan of Allenina’s and it really flattered me when she asked if I’d like to post her thoughtful, articulate and thought provoking article on URNotAlone. Allenina is listed under People… Models. You can learn more about Allenina by visiting her site: http://www.allenina.com.