Timeline of Defiance is a 2.5 hour live performance which is a queer body’s re-imagining of the small gestures and positions of defiance experienced in and as protest. The isolated dissenting actions leave simple marks that united form a (broken and incomplete) timeline of histories of deviance and disruption. Inkless tattooing is used to create lines on a body. The body is distorted while being tattooed and afterwards as it struggles to transfer the thin line of blood that forms on the skin’s surface onto a sheet of paper laying on the floor. It’s all a bit impossible, messy, a struggle, a failure to adequately position, mark and connect but an archive non the less that points to powerful actions of daring people. Timeline of Defiance is part of a larger artistic research project evolving around the histories of queer activism and related political protests. Questions are asked such as: How can resistance be formulated from a queer or marginalized position in consideration of/with power, privilege, categorization and normalization? What are the tactics, props and gestures used in the history of queer activism related political protests? How can they be archived and activated and re-performed? Mary Coble, the performer, had a line inklessly tattooed onto their body. Coble then moved to a long sheet of paper that was rolled out in order to get into a position where the fresh blood seeping out from the tattoo could be pressed onto it’s surface. This posture that Coble ended up in highlighted a ‘gesture of defiance’ used in past and contemporary protest. Coble tried to create a line of blood to reference a timeline. The result was a queer temporality-a timeline that was broken, overlapping, misaligned and slanted. Lecture, Glittivism and Fistivism: Gestures of Defiance at the //BUZZCUT// Sideburns Symposium at the Pearce Institute, Glasgow, Scotland was a 1 day symposium bringing together academics, activist and artists through “provocations on solidarity, queer resistance strategies and alternative ways of organizing. Mary Coble presented a lecture on Glittivism and Fistivism: Gestures of Defiance which addressed current artistic work and research evolves around tactics, props and gestures used in the history of queer activism and related political protests; specifically focusing on the raised fist and the practice of glitter bombing. The symposium was organized by Phoebe Patey-Furguson with support by Stephen Greer and Deirdre Heddon (University of Glasgow). //BUZZCUT// “is a collective of artists in Glasgow who are dedicated to creating welcoming, community focused environments for sharing and experimenting with radical performance practice. We run multiple events throughout the year but our favourite thing is our festival as it’s a time for real durational gathering and communal action. We normally programme between 50-60 artists or companies, with half of the work always being from people based in Scotland. We programme artists from a range of backgrounds including visual art, dance, activism and theatre whose work experiments with the possibilities of live performance and does not sit comfortably within traditional forms (such as plays).”