The military uniform, in its traditional context, imposes discipline, hierarchy, and submission. By queering it—merging camouflage with rainbow hues, turning a weapon into a harmless spectacle—I disrupted its meaning, subverting the power it historically represents. Rather than enforcing control, my uniform invited curiosity. Rather than intimidating, it encouraged a kind of joyful rebellion. It was no longer a tool of order but an emblem of fluidity and play.

This transformation aligns with José Esteban Muñoz’s concept of queer utopia, where artistic interventions create glimpses of an alternative reality—not fully realized but already felt. The happening itself became an instance of this potential, not by overtly challenging power structures, but by making space for a different kind of interaction, one that was more liberated, self-aware, and absurd in the best sense of the word.

Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait (1986), in which his face is covered by colorful camouflage, offers a striking parallel. Camouflage, designed to obscure and assimilate, instead becomes hyper-visible, transforming the individual into a spectacle. Similarly, my happening turned the act of blending in into an act of standing out. The uniform, rather than suppressing individuality, became a medium for exaggerated presence, theatricality, and play.

Simone Weil and the Dehumanization of Soldiers and Workers

In reconfiguring the military uniform as an object of play rather than obedience, my happening also intersects with Simone Weil’s critique of militarism and labor. Weil argued that both soldiers and workers are dehumanized, reduced to mechanical instruments serving a system that neither values nor acknowledges their individuality.

For Weil, the military uniform is not a symbol of power but of erasure, stripping its wearer of agency. The same is true of the industrial worker, whose labor is absorbed into the machinery of capitalism, rendering them indistinguishable from the system they serve. My rainbow uniform, in contrast, reclaims and queers this erasure, turning a mechanism of discipline into an emblem of excess and absurdity. The uniform no longer enforces obedience; instead, it invites laughter, curiosity, and disruption.

Simmel and the Tension Between Differentiation and Equalization

The dual nature of camouflage as both concealment and spectacle recalls Georg Simmel’s analysis of fashion in Philosophie der Mode (1905), where he describes the constant tension between differentiation (Differenzierung) and equalization (Egalisierung). According to Simmel, fashion simultaneously serves the desire to stand out as an individual while also conforming to a collective aesthetic norm. Uniform, in its original military use, aligns with equalization—creating a cohesive, anonymous collective, ensuring that no individual stands out. However, Warhol’s use of camouflage and my happening reverse this function, shifting camouflage toward differentiation, turning it into a means of radical self-expression. The rainbow uniform plays with this paradox—appropriating a tool meant for standardization and repurposing it as a declaration of queerness.

Conclusion: Drag as a Queer Utopian Narrative

Drag is not just an outfit—it is a political action that undermines structures of power through exaggeration, ornamentation, and excess. My happening does not simply deconstruct the history of uniforms and weapons; it creates an entirely new narrative—one that is queer, liberatory, and utopian.

In a world where military attire and weaponry signify discipline and control, my performance envisions a different order—one where queer visibility is not only undeniable but also powerful, joyous, and full of possibility.

The Legacy of Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony, a Christian monk from Egypt, is widely regarded as the father of monasticism. Born into a wealthy landowner family, he renounced his inheritance at 18, giving away all his possessions to live an ascetic life in the desert. According to legend, Anthony endured a series of supernatural temptations during this period, which have been immortalized in Christian art. In my interpretation of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, I reimagine this iconic narrative through the lens of Queer Theology.

Queer Theology: A Subversive Framework

Queer Theology, a framework that reclaims and reinterprets Christian texts through the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community, challenges the rigid binaries of gender and sexuality embedded in traditional theology. It is intentionally subversive, deconstructing the “natural” categories that have long dictated the structure of sexual and gender identities. Through this lens, Christianity is reclaimed for queer bodies and souls, offering a radical shift in understanding divinity, morality, and embodiment.

In classical portrayals, Saint Anthony is often depicted as a stoic figure, tempted by a woman or tormented by demons—forces representing sin and sensual desires—while he embodies virtue and spiritual resilience. This narrative perpetuates a binary opposition: the man symbolizes rationality, discipline, and spirituality, while the woman, associated with sexuality and sin, is reduced to representing the body’s primal, animalistic urges.

Embracing Queer Desires

In my work, I reject this binary division. Instead, I propose that the male body can be both a subject and an object of desire, collapsing the artificial separation between spirit and flesh. By doing so, I dismantle the hierarchy that places spirituality above the body, particularly as it relates to sexual desire. The body is not a source of shame or sin but a vessel of freedom and expression.

The demons surrounding Saint Anthony, traditionally seen as external threats to his virtue, in my interpretation, symbolize the societal and religious structures that oppress and regulate individual sexuality. Rather than representing otherworldly forces, these demons embody the symbolic order—a concept rooted in Lacanian psychoanalysis, referring to the network of cultural norms, laws, and language that shape human identity and experience. Here, the symbolic order is manifested through institutions like the idea of God, the Church, and society, which enforce heteronormative ideals and suppress queer desires.

This act resists the traditional Christian view, articulated by figures such as Saint Augustine, that confines sexual morality to procreative acts within the bounds of marriage. In this reading, virtue lies not in celibacy or repression, but in the radical reclamation of the body’s desires. Anal masturbation emerges as a heroic act of defiance against the reproductive, phallocentric discourse, embodying a powerful assertion of freedom.