LAdyboy

is a conceptual work in which everything has its significance, meaning that everything to be seen or heard is meant to express something. In the following, we offer a brief analytical overview limiting our remarks to a structural description that should suffice to convey an understanding of the work.

The colors

The visual impression of Thai temple colors dominates the entire cycle. As the dominant colors, we have assigned gold to the Masculine M, white (or silver) to the Feminine F (Weiblich W, in German language) and red to the Transsexual (Ladyboy) LB. As sub-dominant colors we have green for the Masculine and blue for the Feminine.

The music

The first and the eighth panel triptych correspond to one another.

That which is expressed in the first triptych through circles and their color alterations is represented in the last triptych through the note scales.

We have a masculine twelve-tone set in 4/4 time and a feminine twelve-tone set in 3/4 time. Initially unseparated in the (vertical) 'beam of creation', they then run through their shapes, from the basic scale to mirror, retrograde (crab) and inversion (mirror-crab) shapes. In this sequence, they are broken through by successive enlargements of the corresponding opposite scale. This symbolic integration of opposite sexuality is also expressed by the gradual increase of rhythm interchanges:
M 4/4 becomes 3/4 and F 3/4/ becomes 4/4. The Transsexual begins with the Masculine and then proceeds to the Feminine and attains, through the recognition (mirror) of its own dual sexuality, the quality of an interface, from which any one of the scales or rhythms can be used.The final chord consists of double stops: a fourth for the Masculine, a third for the Feminine and a fifth for the Transsexual. The last rhythm in 5/4 time symbolizes the shared continuum, the quintessence as quincunx (center of four points): the 'turning disc' of transsexual possibility.

The second panel triptych is devoted to Malee 1. She is 'entirely woman'. Therefore, the musical rhythm is in 3/4 time and the melodic line is parallel to the Feminine, with the masculine line in counterpoint. Prior to this, 'the call of the frogs', an acoustic Thai-impression.

Malee 2 (third triptych) is half woman, half man, therefore transsexual in the stricter sense.  A masculine scale of 6 tones and a feminine scale of 6 tones, which complementary form a 12-tone serie, is assigned to her. Both 6-tone series are parallel to each other (same interval on the same level), are symmetrical to each other (the center as the transsexual interface) and are also symmetrical within themselves. Each sum of the intervals, which are parallel to one other, forms a fourth (the Pythagorean symbol of humanity). The figure of the 'box lid', relates to the rhythm.

On the fourth triptych, after the alto clef (staffs), we find the tone A flat, the tone with which the masculine base series begins in the entire cycle: Nung is a transvestite. The same applies to Sherry (fifth triptych): The two are connected to each other by the cantilena of the viola. The musical section for Sherry has a masculine and a feminine scale, each consisting of 4 tones sym- metrical to each other from the common center-tone. They are supplemented by 5 tones which here symbolize the Transsexual. The resulting 'transsexual' scale is also symmetrical within itself and the corresponding intervals are complementary to the masculine-feminine series. The horizontal 69 at the top of the panel refers to the tempo instruction.

After the sixth triptych, which is devoted to Djness and parody two hit songs, we proceed to the seventh.

This experience with Doen and Rainer has something motorically inexorable about it, a dynamic of time, place and people.

Mirrors, Crabs and Butterflies

The mirrors on the panels symbolize recognition: the Masculine and the Feminine become aware of themselves. This process of becoming aware also entails the recognition of the power directed at one's own sex: homoeroticism. The situation is different with the process of becoming aware of transsexuality. In this case, the issue is not so much the recognition of the power directed at one's own sex but rather the act of transcending to the opposite sex.

The crabs symbolize the process of development. The Masculine and the Feminine increasingly experience their homo-sexual capacity and integrate it into their hetero- sexual action.
This process gives rise to a holistic sexuality, because no one is either 100% heterosexual or 100% homosexual; Once again, the process with the Trans- sexual is a different one: It does not manifest as a process in time, but as an immediate upheaval. At a certain point in time, the own-sex shell is discarded and that of the opposite sex is taken on. The Transsexual as the third sex is then achieved if outwardly the opposite sex is manifested. As in the case of the Heterosexual, this process is perfected when a dual sexual capacity can be developed and experienced. However, the difference between the transsexual
and the heterosexual, who can also act in both ways (both hetero and homo) liesin the fact that the Transsexual contains a type of interface from which opposite-sex action can be taken, whether with the man or the woman. Thus, it is not correct to relegate the Transsexual to the realm of homosexuality, because the transsexual can approach the man in a femine way and the woman in a masculine way.
The heterosexual can approach the same sex only in a homosexual way.

in our opinion, the terms 'hetero' and 'homo' should therefore be struck from the vocabulary of transsexuality because they are meaningless, they coincide, are identical, mutually negate each other and are defined simply from the standpoint of the observer, but not intrinsically from within.

The butterflies indicate the type of transsexual transformation. The Thai word 'Katoi' or Ladyboy encompasses all transformations to the opposite sex:
the surgical transformation to the woman, the hormonal transformation to the transsexual and the social transformation to the transvestite. We believe that this definition of transsexuality is correct and corresponds to reality. Nonetheless, we distinguish, through the coloration of the butterflies, among the three possibilities of transformation. This feature is to be seen more as an informative illustration than a sign of qualitative differences in transsexuality.

The staffs (numerical symbology) 

number one, the first staff, is red, containing both sexes.  One as the indivisible whole: the 'all-in-one'.
The very fact that the number series begins with one and can be continued infinitely bears witness to the correlation between one and infinity. Thus, the number one has a dual nature insofar as it quantitatively represents the unit of counting but qualitatively encompasses the entire series of numbers.

The number two opens the class of numbers that can be multiplied or divided by each other. It is also the only number to yield the same result when multiplied or added (latent character of four). In the square root of two, Pythagoras found proof of the irrational as well as the infinite.

The perception of duality implies the ability to discern sameness or otherness. The number two is therefore the symmetry and pole aspect, as well as the dual of one.C.G. Jung: "Every tension of opposites, however, sets in motion a process giving rise to the Third. The third resolves the tension by bringing forth the lost One. The absolute One is uncountable, indeterminable and ungraspable...
Three is the One become discernible..."; the harmony, the Trinity as the Whole.”An alchemical formula for four is: "From one comes two, from two comes three and from three the one is the fourth".
This means that the number three, seen as a whole, is the fourth. No wonder, therefore, that the fourth interval (tetracord) was so important to the Greeks, governing the diatonic scale, the chromatic scale and the enharmonic scale. The sum of one, two, three and four is ten:the Tetraktis. 

Throughout the whole artwork we played the game with the numbers in a visual and musical aspect.

Besides the challenge to create this artwork, the two winters we spent in Thailand were for us a very sensuous experience and an interesting development in our relationship.We would like to give our thanks to the Ladyboys who inspired us and to the hospitality of the Thai people.