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We may sometimes forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species, and that we use tools in sex, and sex as tools. And that’s why monochrom’s conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and a plethora of genders have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this anthology sees us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is not the ONLY one exploring this territory!
A review appearing in NEURAL magazine, Issue 40:
This is the third anthology after “Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep?” and Pr0nnovation?: Pornography and Technological Innovation” to expand on and “archive” an edition of the Arse Elektronika festival. The event, which takes place each year in San Francisco, was, initiated and fostered as a conference by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The founder’s legacy is very clear in the heterogeneous selection of texts and projects included here, reflecting his remarkable work with the “monochrom” fanzine. In fact, the book includes an amazing number of stimulating and often disturbing ideas related to fringe world of sex and technology, which deeply questions what the editors refer to as the “heterosexist matrix” (in this sense it also fits well into RE/Search back catalogue). Concepts are expressed via academic papers, interviews, panels transcriptions, underground science fiction, artwork documentation, and instructions on how to build electronic Do-It-Yourself sex toys (for example the “Steampunk Vibrator”, the “Joydick” and the “Pussypad”). The book opens windows onto a series of rare yet serious contexts that make the reader feel temporarily dislocated; uncertain about when the scenarios described may actualize. The hybrid nature of this work doesn’t make it a bizarre object, but rather a useful compendium for exploring what bodies and desires mean in a stretched contemporaneity, with no room for prejudices and with many new possible paths to take.”
