Temporalities of Transition: Trans- temporal Femininity in a Human Musical Automaton

Abstract

This article takes as its point of departure the social media presence of a human musical automaton called Rabbit. As part of the US-based band Steam Powered Giraffe, Rabbit is performed by Bunny Bennett, who recently came out as a transgender woman. As a result of this shift, Rabbit is being transformed from a male automaton into a transgender female robot. The news of the transformation hit like a bomb in the emotionally invested fan base. The story of the transitioning robot is an intimate coming together of technologies, imagination, and transgender embodiment. It is a story that deserves scholarly attention for two reasons: This case offers ways of re-casting the discussion in transgender studies within a post-humanist framework of somatechnics. Secondly, it is a case which foregrounds an understanding of gender as a question of time. In focusing on transition as a continuous, open-ended process, gender is primarily understood as a temporal form which cuts or vibrates through the body in highly material, embodied ways. The domain of queer temporality is rather densely theorised, but what about trans- temporality? If queer temporality first and foremost deals with sexuality and time, what would it mean to shift the focus to gender? Drawing on Gilles Deleuze on time, this article is a contribution to the field of transgender studies on the question of trans- temporality in a technological vein.

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