Becoming Dragon, installation view. (photo by Elle Mehrman, 2009, https://www.flickr.com/photos/azdelslade/sets/72157610992544600/)
In this essay, I will explore the environment of mixed realities as experienced by Colombian-American trans-femme artist Micha Cárdenas in her performance Becoming Dragon (2008). The major part of this durational art piece was taking place in an online and freely accessible virtual world Second Life, where the artist was fully immersed for 365 hours during the time when she was undergoing hormone replacement therapy from male to female. In this context, digital worlds epitomize a sort of liminal space between the real world and the “artificially created” online one – it is placed on the edge of the two. Since online worlds are most often simulations based on certain aspects characteristic for the lived “world of corporeality”, it can never be entirely fantastic. Also, whether we talk about virtual, mixed or augmented reality, it always includes the word “reality” – it is just one of its possible types. Similarly, people who identify themselves as trans might feel constantly stuck on the edge of the two genders – the one assigned at birth and the other, “right” one. Furthermore, “other” realities allow people to free themselves from any limitations of gender as imposed by society or biology.