Individuals who have experienced gender dysphoria have been brought here as “specimens” to be “helped” by allowing them to travel through a portal into another multiverse where their gender presentation is in line with their gender identity. A holographic “game facilitator”, in the tradition of live action role-playing (LARP), explains that these individuals are “unique and fascinating specimens”, and that the Institute is offering a change that they can “accept or refuse... in an informed way”. The implication of the language used in this scene recalls the relation and false choice inherent in user agreements developed between social platforms and their user base. In exchange for data created, the platform retains the right to use the information gleaned to ostensibly improve the user’s experience. The Institute is also situated as a part of the medical apparatus of the state that seeks to cure ills, calling into question what “help” actually means and to what ends it strives.

Text from The Place of Gender by Joel Kuennen, Prototypes, Commissioned by Edith Russ Haus for Media Art, Published by Sternberg Press 2018. 

Prototype II, Commissioned by Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane Gallery. Supported by The Arts Council of Ireland, Next Generation Award.