Arse Elektronika San Francisco 2013
| Performers, film makers and workshop hosts |
Zach Blas
Zach Blas is an artist-theorist whose work engages technology, queerness, and politics. He is the creator of art group Queer Technologies, a founding member of The Public School Durham, and a PhD candidate in The Graduate Program in Literature, Information Science + Information Studies, and Visual Studies at Duke University. Zach has exhibited and lectured around the world, including Abandon Normal Devices Festival, Beta-Local, The Banff Centre, Center for 21st Century Studies, Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, GL.TC/H, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Honor Fraser, The HTMlles, Machine Project, Medialab Prado, MIX NYC, South by Southwest Interactive, transmediale, Upgrade! Tijuana, and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, where he co-curated the 2011 group exhibition Speculative. Zach has published writings in Feminist and Queer Information Studies Reader, Leper Creativity, No More Potlucks, Rhizome, Version, Women Studies Quarterly, and co-edited The Transreal: Political Aesthetics of Crossing Realities by Micha Cárdenas. He holds a Master of Fine Art, Design Media Arts, University of California Los Angeles.Jos Diegel
For Jos Diegel -- as an artist and filmmaker exploring social-political and normative-narrative themes and working also in interdisciplinairy fields as installations, film, performance, painting, theater and multi media project -- "there is interest in multiple-disciplinairy contributions, spread out through poetry, painting, theatre, novel, cinema, performance art, sound design and photography, but also in Social Sciences, Economics, Law, Psychology and Natural Sciences." Thus it became the artists' personal piece of science to create his own structures and construct situations of experimental narration, post-dramatic medializations and alternative world perspectives.Adam Flynn
Adam Flynn does research and strategy work for the nicest bunch of hidden persuaders and brand mythologists you've ever met. His interests include game design, other-stuff-design, media theory, ethnography, military doctrine, and future shock.Günther Friesinger
Günther Friesinger lives in Vienna and Graz as a philosopher, artist, writer, curator and edu-hacker. He is head of Parafows Festival, member of monochrom, co-organizer of the Arse Elektronika Festival and the Roboexotica Festival. Publications: Urban Hacking: Cultural Jamming Strategies in the Risky Spaces of Modernity, Public Fictions, Pr0nnovation?: Pornography and Technological Innovation. Tag cloud: contemorary art, activism, media theory, radical innovation, science fiction, free software and copyright.Johannes Grenzfurthner
Johannes Grenzfurthner is an artist, writer, curator and director. He is the founder and artistic director of monochrom, an internationally-acting art and theory group. He holds a professorship for art theory and art practice at the University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria. He is head of the "Arse Elektronika" sex tech festival in San Francisco, host of "Roboexotica" (Festival for Cocktail-Robotics, Vienna and San Francisco), and is working on two feature films: "Sierra Zulu" and "Over Lunch". He gave talks at SXSWi, O'Reilly ETech, FooCamp, Maker Faire, HOPE, Chaos Communication Congress, Google (Tech Talks), ROFLCon, Ars Electronica, Transmediale, Influencers, Mozilla Drumbeat Barcelona or the Neoteny Camp Singapore. He and his projects have been featured in The New York Times, Liberation, Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, Playboy, Reuters, Slashdot, Boing Boing, New Scientist, The Edge, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, ZDF, Gizmodo, io9, Wired, Sddeutsche Zeitung, CNet and the Toronto Star. Recurring topics in Johannes' artistic and textual work are contemporary art, activism, performance, humor, philosophy, postmodernism, media theory, cultural studies, sex tech, popular culture studies, subversion, science fiction and the debate about copyright und intellectual property.Kyle Machulis (Nonpolynominal Labs)
Nonpolynomial Labs is the quasi-official kinda sorta company behind the projects of Kyle Machulis, better known as qDot. A graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Computer Science, Kyle currently spends his days as a mild-mannered engineer, and his nights sitting in front of his computer with the firm belief that someone on the internet cares about what he does.Nonpolynomial Labs houses Kyle's personal projects in immersive environment and alternative input research. Going by his favorite mantra, "As free as possible", he works to create immersion in video games and virtual worlds through the absolute cheapest, easiest means possible. Not only does he not have a research budget, but he also enjoys proving the fact that simple user interface additions to a very complex computer-generated world can create new kinds of emergent play and interaction.
Kyle is known as a tinkerer/hacker/pioneer/visionary in the realm of sex technology (or at least, a ton of bloggers seem to think so). Through his Slashdong webpage, he uses the topic of teledildonics (remotely actuated sexual experience) to teach the basic concepts of electrical and mechanical engineering. He also tracks the convergence of sex and technological advances in toys and interaction. He was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at Prixxx Arse Elektronika.
Kyle runs the OpenYou Project, reverse engineering and documenting protocols and hardware for consumer health tracking. His interest stems from the idea of taking biometrics beyond health and sports tracking, and integrating it into the quality of his every day activities, be them physically active (like rock climbing) or sedentary (like programming).
The Mystery Box Show
The Mystery Box Show is a live sex-themed storytelling series based in Portland, Oregon. Following the traditions of live storytelling set by shows like The Moth and Kevin Allison's RISK!, The Mystery Box Show features real people sharing true personal stories about the many ways that sex influences our lives.Producer Eric Scheur founded the show in April of 2012 as a reaction to finding no local outlet for sex-themed stories in Portland. "I just wanted to see people telling sex stories on stage, but there didn't seem to be a place that that was happening. So I made one." Since that time, The Mystery Box Show has featured dozens stories ranging from the hilariously awkward to the bittersweet and heartbreaking. Storytellers have included bestselling authors, nationally touring comedians, an editor from Playboy TV, a sex toy expert, members from the kink community, students, and professionals from all walks of life. With a primary focus on entertainment, it's often surprising how touching and heartfelt these stories can be while other stories may inspire listeners to chase after recently-awakened desires. We are thrilled to be a part of Arse Elektronkia 2013 and look forward to sharing our stories with all of you! Find more information about The Mystery Box Show find us online:
Website: mysteryboxshow.com
Facebook: facebook.com/mysteryboxshow
Twitter: @mysteryboxpdx
Yoshi Obayashi
After graduating from Evergreen State College, Yoshi meandered through many unfulfilling jobs before entering the adult field. He first spent four years working in adult retail businesses in Seattle; eventually he reached the highest echelon of the industry when he got hired by one of the most prestigious and controversial of adult video studios, Evil Angel Productions. Yoshi became a DVD producer for such Hall of Fame directors as Rocco Siffredi, Joey Silvera, John Stagliano, John Leslie and Christoph Clark, and oversaw over 800 titles.Meanwhile, he'd begun dabbling in the casting of talent for mainstream shows, such as Jimmy Kimmel Live and the Man Show (with Joe Rogan and Doug Stanhope). Yoshi was a consultant during two seasons of Dave's Old Porn for Showtime. In addition, as a standup comedian, he opened for legendary acts like Dave Attell, Russell Peters, Jim Norton and Patrice O'Neal. You can see him perform in NBC's Last Comic Standing and Showtime's Comics Without Borders.
He was part of a very popular health podcast called DVDASA, and is currently in charge of Yoshi Didn't, his own interview-based podcast show. When not working in the sex industry, performing standup and creating podcasts, Yoshi enjoys traveling to exotic locations like Afghanistan.
Charmaine Ortiz
Charmaine Ortiz is a visual artist based out of Carolina Beach, North Carolina. Her work is rooted in her love for history and by her need to connect with her father, who as a civil engineer drew with graphite until the digital era. She received the Combined Honors Fellowship earning her MFA in Painting and an MA in Art History from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has earned other merit awards including SCAD's Thesis Encore Award as well as grants and fellowships from the Contemporary Art Center at Woodside, the Vermont Studio Center, and The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally and has also presented her art historical research at Universities across North Carolina and Georgia. Her work was most recently accepted into The Drawing Center (NY) Viewing Program.Micah Elizabeth Scott
Micah Elizabeth Scott has been doing unconventional things with technology for her whole life, often exploring the boundaries between hardware and software. She's built satellites, robots, virtual machines, graphics drivers, CPU emulators, networking stacks, USB controllers, reverse engineering tools, and pretty much everything in between. Recently she's been exploring the interactions between technology and art, with projects like Zen Photon Garden and the Ardent Mobile Cloud Platform.