Arse Elektronika: Review of "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?" on The SF Site Very detailed review of our Arse Elektronika anthology "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?" featured on "The SF Site":
Like good science fiction, the material collected in Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep? leaves us with more questions than we arrived with; if you can stomach the subject matter (which shouldn't really appall anyone but the most prudish and conservative, to be honest, though my perceptions may be somewhat skewed), this is prime fuel for your imaginatory engines. The focal character of James Tiptree, Jr.'s story "And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side" suggests that, as humans, "we're built to dream outwards" [pp 239], to project our desire onto "the other", whoever or whatever it may happen to be. It's an insight that makes more sense each time you read it, and serves to underline the basic commonality between sex and science fiction, or indeed art in general -- they are both ways in which we try to subsume ourselves into (or control and dominate over) that which we are not.Link Posted by johannes,
Friday, February 05, 2010
Archives |
Arse Elektronika's Terabyte Gloryholes: Facebook: main group, events 2009 Twitter: 2009, 2010 (Hong Kong), 2010 (SF) Flickr pools: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 (Hong Kong) ASCII: discuss mailing list Arse Elektronika 2009 was supported by: Arse Elektronika 2010. September 30 thru October 3, 2010 in San Francisco, USA.
We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that's why our annual conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this year will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. Our world is already way more bizarre than our ancestors could have ever imagined. But it may not be bizarre enough. "Bizarre enough for what?" -- you might ask. Bizarre enough to subvert the heterosexist matrix that is underlying our world and that we should hack and overcome for some quite pressing reasons within the next century. Don't you think, replicants? |