In Girl Mode, players wander a surreal and desiccated VR landscape in search of memories. Combining confessional text, surreal visuals, and a walking simulator structure, Girl Mode is a poetic meditation on transness as absence.
Creator Kate McGee explains, “Girl Mode was born in a psychedelic flash of trans maternal rage. I imagined that VR technology could simulate a happy trans childhood and build empathy for trans kids in need of gender affirming care. Instead, I found myself meditating on absence as a central texture of my life as a trans woman. In Girl Mode, players explore a disjointed poetic landscape in search of the one thing a trans body makes nearly impossible: memories.”
Co-presented with The Bearded Ladies Cabaret in conjunction with John Jarboe: The Rose Garden.
Kate McGee is a trans lighting and scenic designer and new media artist. Off-Broadway projects include My Lingerie Play (Rattlestick), Masculinity Max, Ain’t No Mo’ (The Public Theater), The Infinite Love Party (Bushwick Starr), Notes on Killing … (Soho Rep/The Sol Project), I’m Revolting (Atlantic Theater), PTaylor Mac’s The Hang (HERE/PROTOTYPE), and Early Plays (New York City Players/The Wooster Group). International projects include protec/attac (Deutsches Schauspielhaus) and Emily’s D+ Evolution tours with Esperanza Spalding. She was a 2022/2023 Project Number One artist in residence at Soho Rep (Girl Mode, a VR experience), and has participated in other residencies with the New York Choreographic Institute and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. An MFA graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, McGee’s work has been written about in The New York Times and Forbes, among other publications.
