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.

Was planning to get to announce this last week, but got caught up in some last minute finagling with MIT. But we've finally got it hammered out.

In any case, happy to announce today that we've officially decided that ROFLCon II will be on April 30th and May 1st, 2010.

Got it? Awesome. Planning to open up registration sometime in January, and we'll announce on the blog when it goes up. If you've already hit up tim AT roflcon DOT org, we've already got you covered (even if I haven't responded), and, if you haven't, definitely do drop a line if you want to be notified by e-mail when it opens up.

Johannes, an insane Austrian man we met this weekend, will be conducting a rant at Hackerspace.SG this Thursday evening.

For those who are unfamiliar with the rant: it is a tradition of performance art which was developed in Europe in the 19th century and successfully ported to the Internet in the early-to-mid 1990s. It is now being introduced to Asia by aesthetic pioneers like Johannes Grenzfurthner.

In recognition of Singapore's leading position as the financial and cultural capital of Asia, and of Hackerspace.SG as the leading hackerspace in Singapore, he has chosen Hackerspace.SG as the venue for his first Singapore performance of this artwork.

We invite all members of hackerspace.sg and the related community to attend this rant.

There is no fee, though we wish to thank in advance all the wonderful people who consume beer, wine, or soft drinks, for their cash donations into the little glass that says "your donations are welcome."

For the purposes of licensing under Chapter 257 Section 319, this is an exempt entertainment as defined by the Public Entertainments and Meetings (Specified Arts Entertainment) (Exemption) Order 2005.

monochrom and the East: Some stories about Context Hacking and Asia
A tour-de-farce by Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom

monochrom is a worldwide operating collective dealing with technology, art and philosophy and was founded in 1993. So to sum up, monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, political activism and technological disaster.

Johannes wants to tell us stories about monochrom's "context hacking" projects that specifically deal with our focus on contemporary Asian topics.

The term context hacking—like its mimetic sibling "communication guerrilla"—refers to unconventional forms of communication and/or intervention in more conventional processes of communication. Context hacking is a specific style of political action that observes and makes visible the paradoxes and absurdities of power. Context hacking uses absurdities as the starting point for interventions by playing with representations and identities, with alienation and over-identification.

With all the talk about failing, one interesting speaker that managed to get all our attention was Johannes Grenfurthner who runs Monochrom – an art-technology-philosophy group in Vienna. With his stage presence and use of different yet interesting metaphors conveyed why it's important to fail and had interesting points on why sometimes competition isn't the right way to create something that people need.

Santa: "HO HO HO! Wien is MY turf now, Christkindl. I've been making a list, checking it twice, and I know who's been naughty or nice... and who's going to get their skinny white angel butt kicked if they don't get out of my way. It's time to work for me or leave for China, baby boy."

Christkindl: "Santa, du Oaschsau! Gemma auf die Bluatwiesn!"

Hackers love knowledge. They try to find out how stuff works. And that's great. Experimentation is a major part of hacking. It is in the most philosophical sense a deconstruction of things.

A specific use is never inherent to an object, even though technical demagogues like to claim that it is. Just compare the term "self-explanatory" and the term "archeological find". It's a pretty hard task to find out what technology is and what it should do if you don't have a clue about the context. Usually the use is connected with the object through definition ("instructions for use"). Turning an object against the use inscribed in it means probing its possibilities.

Science and Technology Studies (especially Langdon Winner and Bruno Latour) have convincingly demonstrated that the widespread inability to understand technological artifacts as fabricated entities, as social and cultural phenomena, derives from the fact that in retrospect only those technologies that prove functional for a culture and can be integrated into everyday life are "left over." However, the perception of what is functional, successful and useful is itself the product of social and cultural, and last but not least political and economic processes. Selection processes and abandoned products (developmental derailments, sobering intermediary results, useless prototypes) are not discussed.

Well. What can we do?
We can fail. Beautifully.

Frank Apunkt Schneider ist Germanist und Mitglied der Wiener KünstlerInnengruppe monochrom. Er lebt als unfreier Autor (u.a. testcard, Skug, Intro, Jungle World), unfreier Künstler und Hausmann in Bamberg. Im Ventil-Verlag erschien 2007 sein erstes Buch mit dem Titel "Als die Welt noch unterging – Punk und Wave im deutschsprachigen Raum von 1978 bis 1985". In unserem Podcast dokumentieren wir seinen Vortrag vom 18. November 2009 mit dem Titel "Die Diktatur des >>man<<. Von der Schwierigkeit, in linken deutschen Medien geschlechtsneutral zu sprechen. Bericht aus der weitgehend beschissenen Praxis."

Lust auf einen Robo-Moji oder Digi-Colada? Die Roboter sind wieder da uns mixen uns Hochprozentiges. Auf der Roböxotica, dem einzigartigen Festival für Cocktail-Robotik, in Wien!

monochrom presents:
++TAUGSHOW #20++
Roboexotica Special

Friday, Dec 4, 2009 / 9:00 PM @ Roboexotica, Drinkomat-Halle, Missindorfstrasse 21, Vienna (presented by Johannes Grenzfurthner und Roland Gratzer)

But who are our guests?

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/// AARON "SFSLIM" MUSZALSKI

/// ROSE WHITE

/// KYLE MACHULIS

/// METALAB

/// BAR2D2

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Die Szene der Cocktail-Robotik versammelt sich im Rahmen des elften Roböxotica-Festivals einmal mehr in Wien. Mehr als zwei Dutzend Roboter zeigen vom heutigen Donnerstag bis einschließlich Sonntag bei freiem Eintritt ihr Können: Sie mixen, nun ja, Cocktails, oder sie beweisen sich in anderen Bar-typischen Aktivitäten: Konversation, Armdrücken, Anzetteln von Streit oder Betteln um Zuwendungen zur Finanzierung weiterer Intoxikation. Super Mario und Tetris dürfen bei dem radikalhedonistischen Ereignis ebenso wenig fehlen wie musizierendes Sexspielzeug und ein Flammenwerfer.