Perverters of Culture— Homocult, Queercore and Public Space (Abstract)
This is part 1 of the dissertation I wrote for my Masters in art history with the Open University, which I completed in October 2022. It’s also the basis of the PhD I’ll be starting at the end of 2023. This is pretty much exactly as it was when I submitted it, at some point I hope to do some posts/videos talking about the issues it explores in a less academic/more accessible style. I’ve uploaded the bibliography, but unfortunately the Medium formatting doesn’t allow footnotes. If you’d like to see a version with footnotes intact please do get in touch.
The question the dissertation is answering is: “In What Ways Were Homocult’s Interventions Into Public Space A Response To Queer Marginalisation?”
Chapter links:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Visibility and Invisibility
- Chapter 2: Queercore and Anti-assimilationism
- Chapter 3: Public Space and Queer Perspectives
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
Abstract
This dissertation examines the work created by the provocative Manchester-based art collective Homocult in the early 1990s as a response to the erasure of queer perspectives from public space. Taking a social art history approach, it uses Michael Warner’s analyses of publics and assimilationism to explore Homocult’s use of DIY tactics to achieve visibility outside institutions through anti-commercial queer counterpublics. It examines the use of xerography in queer counterpublics and how it enabled Homocult to occupy public space and reveal erased perspectives. The first chapter explores the complexities of visibility and erasure and the ways Homocult have navigated them. It examines the effect of Homocult’s anti-assimilationist approach on their work’s visibility, using Gregory Sholette’s theory of creative dark matter to explore approaches to art outside institutions. Chapter two explores Homocult as a response to the assimilationist politics and commodification its members experienced in the dominant gay culture using Rosemary Hennessy’s Marxist analysis of queer identity and their place within the Queercore subculture. The third chapter analyses the work’s position in public space. It explores how Homocult reveal erased queer perspectives and deconstruct divisions between queer and supposedly neutral public space through the recontextualisation of images appropriated from mainstream media.
