Forced Into Femininity

Forced Into Femininity is Chicago-based multimedia performance artist Jill Lloyd Flanagan. Forced Into Femininity punctuates her unhinged vocal performances with screams and stentorian spoken word proclamations that sound out alongside fragments of melodic quasi-crooning. Her voice fuses the bark of post-punk or hardcore with the wailing catharsis of Diamanda Galás, while the composite sum of her vocals and productions reaches us as an alien breed of industrial noise performance at its most transfixing heights of confusion. Flanagan’s raucous compositions burst with peals of raw noise static and thick drum machine thuds that collide in seemingly random configurations of loping rhythm. Her live sets streak off into chaos with any number of performative touches : including but not limited to donning grotesque body-horror costumes, dousing the audience in insects, and climbing any available structure in venues and their surroundings.