Queering Camouflage: Visibility as Subversion
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.
