Who can hear the monster speak?

«Who can hear the monster speak?» finds its beginning in the body - or: the gaze on the body. This is a gaze that lays itself almost imperceptibly, but nevertheless determinedly over the skin, so as to subject the body to its constant judgment. The question of which bodies are observed by whose gaze, however, remains unanswered here. «Who can hear the monster speak?» engages its protagonists in a dialogue of looking, producing bodies that become both subject and object of observation. Bodies that look and are looked at are also bodies that desire and are desired. Actors find themselves - if only for a brief moment - in an intimate exchange that just as quickly turns into a sense of alienation. For the lack of understanding what the other person thinks or feels creates a distanced gaze. This is also a gaze that defines the other body as such - the other, the viewed, the desired. The body and the other body face each other: «Who can hear the monster speak?» finds its beginning in the other body - or: the monstrous body. The bodies that mark one, and only one, position within a supposedly binary system are opposed by the bodies that are located outside of heteronormative conception: 'The monster is one who lives in transition. One whose face, body and behaviours cannot yet be considered true in a predetermined regime of knowledge and power.' (Can the Monster Speak?, Paul B. Preciado, London 2021, p. 35) Thus, «Who can hear the monster speak?» also finds its beginning in the monstrous body - or its voice, which is tied to its physical manifestation in the body. But possessing voice presupposes hearing voice. In this translation - a collective act of hearing or not hearing - lies the establishment of the supposedly voiceless and indeterminate body. From the point of view of a silent, monstrous body, the Spanish philosopher and theorist Paul B. Preciado speaks to all non-monstrous bodies: ‘Why is it, my beloved binary friends, that you are convinced that only subalterns possess an identity? Why are you convinced that only Muslims, Jews, queers, lesbians, trans folk, people who live in the banlieues, migrants and Blacks have an identity? Do you therefore believe that you – the normal, the hegemonic, the bourgeois white psychoanalysts, the binary, the patriarchal-colonials have no identity?’ (Can the Monster Speak?, Paul B. Preciado, London 2021, p. 32) So, «Who can hear the monster speak?» finds its beginning in a body that catches a glimpse of its own image in the mirror – if only for a brief moment – unsure which gaze it is that is being reflected. And in the end, a body emerges that is grasped within a state of continuous transformation. This body is equally monstrous as it is non-monstrous.