UNBOUND DESIRE: Race Play and Performing Racism in Online Social-Sexual Spaces.

Chris Dennis ROSENBERG

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This thesis engages with the performance of racism through images and text in online socialsexual spaces during contemporaneity. Using race play as a point of departure, I explore the involvement of photography and language in the construction and performance of identities as well as the reappropriation/resignification of historically oppressive anti-Black language in search of sexual gratification. The thesis utilises a diverse body of theoretical, fictional and nonfictional literature that explores concepts such as blackness, queerness, roleplay, determinism of race and gender in the construction and performance of identity, the role of race in sexualisation and the role of sex and sexuality in racialisation. This literature forms a basis upon which all readings of artworks presented in this thesis are made; from Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play all the way to the infamous walls of Tumblr.

Abstract:

This thesis engages with the performance of racism through images and text in online socialsexual spaces during contemporaneity. Using race play as a point of departure, I explore the involvement of photography and language in the construction and performance of identities as well as the reappropriation/resignification of historically oppressive anti-Black language in search of sexual gratification. The thesis utilises a diverse body of theoretical, fictional and nonfictional literature that explores concepts such as blackness, queerness, roleplay, determinism of race and gender in the construction and performance of identity, the role of race in sexualisation and the role of sex and sexuality in racialisation. This literature forms a basis upon which all readings of artworks presented in this thesis are made; from Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play all the way to the infamous walls of Tumblr.

Keywords

race, identity, gender, sexuality, sex, racism, slavery, race play, black, blackness, white, whiteness, social-sexual spaces, slave play, role play, performance, photography, art

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 19. 5. 2023

Accessible from:: 31. 12. 2999

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Zdena Kolečková, Ph.D.

JAN EVANGELISTA PURKYNĚ UNIVERSITY IN ÚSTÍ NAD LABEM

Faculty of Art and Design

Master programme / field:
Fine Art / Fine Art - Photography