My favorite picture is Billy with a hat, in 1946. It's a man's hat with a hat brim and Billy wears two tone shoes, a really sexy double-breasted suit. Kneeling down on a path with a cigarette in his mouth he just looks the image of a 1940's glamorous show-biz person. This was the photograph that Betty Billy's wife carried around in her billfold. "This is my husband," she'd say. This is Billy at the peak of his career. You can see that he's very satisfied with himself. This is the magician in Billy: you only see a man. A rather short man with a rather high voice, but you didn't wonder whether he was a man or not.
(Diane Wood Middlebrook)

The key to establishing a new identity is a birth certificate. The birth certificate is the foundation upon which all other forms of identification are based. Without a birth certificate it is impossible to get an ID card in the United States. Birth certificates are easy to forge because until the late 1980's most were printed in black and white on plain paper. With regard to birth certificates done by computer choose a plain font or the one that most closely matches the original from which you are copying. When the time comes to fill in the blanks I suggest using a typewriter because they were more commonly used for birth certificates issued prior to the late 1980's.
(James Doolin)

I used to change my identity every three months. I changed slightly, let grow long hair, or short hair, shaved or with beard, wore a pair of glasses. But nothing heavy, no plastic surgery.
(Howard Marks)

For most of my life I did not understand that I needed to identify my racial identity publicly and that if I did not I would be inevitably mistaken for white. I often experienced the shocked and/or hostile reactions of whites who discovered it after the fact. I always knew when it had happened, even when the person declined to confront me directly: the searching stare looking for the telltale 'negroid' features said everything.
(Adrian Piper)

Realization: Julian Doepp/Katarina Agathos

Katarina Agathos
editor at the BR / Radio Play and Media Art Department, program planning for intermedium 1

BR/intermedium 2 2002