Trans-Aesthetics: The Art of Ming Wong between Nation and State

Through the mediation of queer visibility, the author wants to review these two problems of reception with the theory of standardisation and legibility proposed by James Scott. In his book Seeing Like a State, the author argues that state measures have been used to standardise individual entities so as to reduce political illegibility. One of these measures by the British Empire (and Singapore Republic) has been a state policy of racial division inculcated into the civil and corporate realms. Here it becomes appropriate that the protocol of the salespersons is being 'standardised' by perceptions of skin colour. Or, perhaps the most effective way to determine a British person on the street would be to identify them via their colour because the fact is that whites and South Asians respectively make up the majority and largest minority amongst Manchester residents. Implicit in contemporary state legislation in Europe and elsewhere, skin colour legitimises access, and accessibility opens up doors to eligibility and exclusivity.