d33p cuts, t3nd3r not3s is a solo presentation by Moses Tan, an autotheoretical installation that envelops queer theory, allegories, horror, and disavowals. Allegories of queerness and corporeality are portrayed through drawings, sculptures, and video in an installation. Featuring an immersive space, Moses utilises world-building as an act of speculating disavowed and denied histories - both personal and communal. Growing up in a state such as Singapore, wherein queerness is mitigated on various levels - from legislative, to military, to education, to censorship, repression, codedness, and assimilation becomes a necessary strategy to exist in highly controlled, heteronormative situations and environments. 

 

Using the slang and visual of the ‘meat market’ as an allegory for deagentised queer bodies, d33p cuts, t3nd3r not3s proposes a re-reading of abstracted, controlled bodies and flesh. Using a Foucauldian lens to consider control, the works propose a disembodiment and fragmentation. Juxtaposed with visual aesthetics borrowed from horror films, the installation proffers a reparative reading of the body, devoid of agency. 

 

Tropical bodies sweat and melt, dragged digitally in a video, while little fortune cat arms, a symbol of east asian sex trade, are posited as come-hither invitations into this speculative world. d33p cuts, t3nd3r not3s proposes an obscure melody of slits between integumentary folds. Found objects lend semiotic meaning, while drawing and sculpture abstract the corporeal, and performance and video lend guttural tension for affect. d33p cuts, t3nd3r not3s cuts deep into worlds, as lacerations of speculation into a world of queer, chaotic enablement.

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Photos by Gabriele Abbruzzese