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.
Love makes us do strange things, after all.

Link

Panel discussion with Johannes Grenzfurthner (monochrom, Arse Elektronika), Rose White, Ella Saitta and Aaron "SFSlim" Muszalski @ C-Base Berlin, December 29, 2009; 9 PM.

If you ask mainstream pornographers what their vision of the future is, it involves cracking down on piracy making more money re-selling the same generic products in new formats. What about independent pornographers with an eye on longtail markets who are focused on creating "weird" products that most people don't want to buy? Or consumers who are seeking porn to cater to their special interests not covered in mainstream heteronormative porn? Or people who prefer porn and Real Dolls to sexual involvement with other humans? And, what of the future of computer-generated porn? While the major adult companies are still trying to figure out why people aren't buying as many $45 DVDs as they used to, more and more niche pornographers, artists, merchants, and performers are popping up to create offbeat erotic entertainment with a small, but enthusiastic fanbase. Join these nerdy perverts for a discussion on the many directions in which the future of porn is really headed.

Recording of Kyle's interview on Sex Toy Tech with FM4 Radio, Friday, November 20, 2009.
Intro is in German, interview in English language.
Link (MP3)

Arse Elektronika Vienna Special

Friday, November 20, 8 PM @ Raum D, Museumsquartier, Vienna

== What is the sex of the future, and why aren't we having it yet? ==

In this talk about the current state of sex toy technology, including computer controlled toys, teledildonics, and whatever weird stuff he had to bring through customs with him, Kyle Machulis (of Nonpolynomial Labs and http://slashdong.org) covers what's available to the consumer currently, why it sucks, and what's coming in the near and far future. Outlining the thoughts and strategies that go into designing the interface to a sex toy, he asks the question: What can the DIY and open source community do to help further everyone with a access to a computer getting laid?

About the speaker:
Kyle Machulis, aka qDot, is a researcher of alternate input mechanisms and haptics, which is really a fancy way of saying he breaks sex toys. Through his Slashdong webpage, he uses the topic of teledildonics (remotely actuated sexual experience) to teach the basic concepts of software, electrical and mechanical engineering. He also tracks the convergence of sex and technological advances in toys and interaction, building on the idea that paradigms for interfaces people would use for intimate encounters on computers can be extended to other usage experiences. He is one of monochrom's collaborators at Arse Elektronika in San Francisco.



== Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction ==

Johannes Grenzfurthner will introduce you to the brand new Arse Elektronika Anthology "Do Andoids Sleep With Electric Sheep?"
Taking up where the successful first part of the Arse Elektronika book series left off, this anthology stands under the motto "future" -- and the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and technology while also putting special emphasis on its social implementation, this anthology focuses on Science and Social Fiction. The genre of the "fantastic" is especially well suited to the investigation of the touchy area of sexuality and pornography: actual and assumed developments are frequently depicted positively and approvingly, but just as often with dystopian admonishment. Here the classic, and continuingly valid, themes of modernism represent a clear link between the two aspects: questions of science, research and technologization are of interest, as is the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality and control (or the loss of control). Depictions of the future, irregardless of the form they take, always address the present as well. Imaginations of the fantastic and the nightmarish give rise to a thematic overlapping of the exotic, the alienating and, of course, the pornographic/sexual as well.

Featuring essays and stories by Rudy Rucker, Richard Kadrey, James Tiptree, Jr., Allen Stein, Sharing is Sexy, Jason Brown, Cory Doctorow, Annalee Newitz, Tina Lorenz, Reesa Brown, Karin Harrasser, Isaac Leung, Rose White, Mela Mikes, Viviane, Susan Mernit, Chris Noessel, Kit O'Connell, Jens Ohlig, Bonni Rambatan, Thomas Roche, Bonnie Ruberg, Mae Saslaw, Violet Blue, Nathan Shedroff, 23N!, Benjamin Cowden, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Daniel Fabry.
Edited by Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Daniel Fabry, Thomas Ballhausen.
Published by RE/Search Publications (San Francisco) in cooperation with monochrom.

Our new artist in residence arrived in Vienna! Hooray!

Kyle Machulis, aka qDot, is a researcher of alternate input mechanisms and haptics, which is really a fancy way of saying he breaks sex toys. Through his Slashdong webpage (http://www.slashdong.org), he uses the topic of teledildonics (remotely actuated sexual experience) to teach the basic concepts of software, electrical and mechanical engineering. He also tracks the convergence of sex and technological advances in toys and interaction, building on the idea that paradigms for interfaces people would use for intimate encounters on computers can be extended to other usage experiences.
He is one of monochrom's collaborators at Arse Elektronika in San Francisco.

Eddie Codel shot a video of Jason Scott's talk about digital retro-porn at Arse Elektronika 2009.

Jason Scott @ Arse Elektronika 2009: The Atomic Level of Porn from ekai on Vimeo.

Love hotels. Swinger club design. Phallic architecture. The gentrification of Times Square, kicking out all the peep shows, and similar anti-sex gentrifications and battles. Kids making out in the back seats of cars, and people fucking in parks. Housing for unconventional family units. Augmented reality sex spaces. Furniture for sex. Room design. Creating new environments. Gendered spaces, and gender in the creation of space. Architecture by women, and the potential for the construction of a feminist architecture. Actively gender-segregated spaces, as both empowering and oppressing. Queer-segregated spaces, similarly. The acts of human intimacy, sexual intercourse, and procreation in weightlessness and the extreme environments of space. Erotic space tourism. The visibility of sex, genders, and relationship structures in various spaces. Spaces of sexual control and permissiveness. Sexual subcultures as spaces of social division. Spatial enforcement of relationship structures and gendered power structures. Geotagging as an expression for kinks. The sexual reading of architecture, especially around historical and modern styles and concerning ornament and detail. The eroticization of buildings -- architecture for whorehouses, the Las Vegas strip, people who want to sleep with buildings. What makes design "sexy" and the construction of "sexy" as an architectural category as a comment on late heteronormativity. The terabyte gloryhole. The space in which the male gaze occurs and the space it defines.

Heterosexism, misogyny, and heterocentrism reinforce the dominant cultural structure and contribute to the oppression of large sectors of society. Sexuality, sex, gender, and related constructs are heavily implicated in and reproduce space, and are also constrained and restricted by it and by heterosexism. Let's explore this space of interactions -- send us your ideas for talks, performances, films and machines.

Contact.
Deadline: February 28, 2010.

Just to remind you: both Arse Elektronika anthologies can be ordered now!



(Picture by Scott Beale)

Order Link

And if you are a journalist and want to receive a review copy: please email office AT monochrom.at

Arse Elektronika 2009 was a full success. It's time to cheer! So let's have a drink and talk about Arse Elektronika 2010.

When?
October 9, 2009; 7:30 PM.
Where?
House of Shields
39 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105-3438

Please add your pictures!



Link