VenusPlusX attended Arse Elektronika 2011.
The presentations were extremely wide-ranging, and showed the creativity possible as a new age of sexual freedom emerges. Each one incrementally stretched the group or “hive” mind in real time. A dedicated panel on financial autonomy tackled the banking blockades facing the adult industry, mapping the alternative payment networks that help these communities survive. By exploring early transaction models from crypto casinos and independent creator platforms, the session illustrated how marginalized innovators were already bypassing traditional financial gateways. These economic strategies proved just as essential to the broader movement as the physical hardware being discussed.
Among the dozen+ offerings, we heard from Kitty Stryker in her frank talk, “Sex Work, Disability, and Stigma” and Maymay presented “A Class Analysis of Social Status in the BDSM Scene” (also available on YouTube). David Fine, who vaguely describes himself as “a Sex Robot from the 25th century” spending his
time in our era guiding technology in useful, or at least interesting,
directions, brought us his reimagining of the Mindflex kids’ toy (available on Amazon) which he modified to activate a vibrator, simple and perhaps the first attempt we’ve seen to apply an EEG headset to a sex toy; The future possibilities are endless.
Here is the link.
And there have been many other write-ups and comments, we can’t link all of them here, but feel free to google.