Homo Extraneus
(june 2025)
Supervisor: Anne Rudanovski
English summary of the written part of the thesis:
"A large part of society, both past and present, has high expectations and strict social norms
that drive people to ostracize the marginalised groups that don’t neatly fit their
predetermined boxes. One such group that tends to fall into deep ‘othering’ is LGBTQ+
people (who I mainly refer to using the reclaimed term ‘queer’). Queer people for one
reason or another don’t neatly fit into any of the cis-, heteronormative boxes either due to
being attracted to the same sex, a lack of attraction entirely or simply a form of personal
gender expression that doesn’t correlate to their birth sex or accepted stereotypes. People
that don’t assimilate are treated equivalently to monsters, existing only to threaten the
nuclear family.
Growing up, my only exposure to queer people were stereotypes in American TV shows
and crude jokes by my classmates. I never realized it was a way of life as valid as any
other. In my teenage years however, to compensate for my lack of local friends, I began to
interact more in online English-speaking spaces. It was there that I saw queerness being
represented in art as genuine and positive for the first time. Slowly I gained a small
community that gave me a wider view of both the world around me and the person within
me.
At the age of 15-16, it was thanks to a character in Bryan Fuller’s TV show ‘Hannibal’
that I started to question my gender in addition to my sexuality. Instead of wanting to be
with the protagonist in a romantic manner, I found myself wanting to embody his whole
being, including his gender. That artistic depiction led me to do research about the
transgender experience — but it also led me to the toxic self-policing that was prevalent
among trans content creators at the time. Years of internalized criticism exacerbated the
already-present gender dysphoria and depression, but eventually I found myself and freed
myself again, once more through queer art and horror/sci-fi media. My gender journey
ended up at the same place it started in.
I’m far from being the only person that discovers themselves through art or fandom,
whether via speculative analysis, transformative fiction or merely feeling kinship with the
various characters. The fandoms of horror and science fiction are filled with queer fans of
flawed horror protagonists like Will Graham (Hannibal) or Ash Williams (The Evil Dead),
or monstrous mistreated antagonists like Frankenstein’s monster and David (Prometheus).
Noticing this trend myself, it got me curious about the archetype of ‘Frankenstein’s
monster’ that people have referenced countless times in discussions on the relationship of
queerness to the horror genre. During the research I learned how renowned author Mary
Shelley’s radical parents, tragic childbirths, scientific theories and a vivid nightmare
eventually led to the creation of her famous novel ‘Frankenstein’, which had such lasting
impact on literature and art as a whole that, not only is the author forever remembered as
‘the mother of modern horror’, the monster itself is still used as a baseline for a lot of
stories both within and outside the genres of horror and sci-fi. Even my modern example of
the trope, an android named David from two instalments of the Alien franchise, mentions
the names of Byron and Shelley. The synthetic David falls perfectly into the tropes of
creation/monster and Byronic hero.
To express what I’ve come to know of myself and of my journey through art, I chose the
medium of sculpture. This gave me the chance to test a familiar technique on a larger scale.
The process was to first mold the idea out of clay, then scan and 3D-print in actual size,
and finish it with layers of putty and paint. I greatly enjoyed playing with the realism and
unrealism of the method. The final form of my creation only became apparent through
countless changes and reworks.
It’d be impossible to describe myself without mentioning all the art I’ve built my
foundation on. I’m formed from the stitched-together pieces of all that I adore and all my
past experiences; stitched together like Frankenstein's monster was of various bodyparts. I
am a man-made, self-made man. So for me, this sculpture is a ‘religious’ idol to my
personal journey of self-discovery, a mark of my growth, and a protest against our strict
societal expectations. It is also a story, and as is the case for all stories, its true value can
only be seen through the thoughts and senses of its listeners, readers, and viewers."
Materjal: PLA-Filament, putty , gray primer spraypaint
I might fully paint it some day.
