Arse Elektronika 2011: SCREW THE SYSTEM

September 29-October 2 in San Francisco, USA.
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/
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monochrom's Conference on sex, technology, class, and culture.
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The remarkable diversity of human behavior across cultures and classes also extends to sex and technology. Most discussions in this area tend to make certain assumptions about the culture, class, and race of the participants. Technologically represented sex tends to be ableist and heterocentric. Who gets left out of this, what effects does this have, and what would it look like to include them?
Is there working class, middle class and upper class porn? How does the commercial sex industry reproduce and enforce racial, gender, and class exploitation and dominance? How do people use sex and sexual technology to transgress or change social status? How can DIY porn and sex tech counter the social injustices reproduced by the commercial sex industry? Does gay porn make use of the class, race, and power tropes found in heterosexual pornography, and if so, how?
Is kinkiness a luxury? What does kink from different social classes look like? Can economic realities poison the power dynamics of a D/S relationship? What are the demographics of people admitted to hospitals with weird objects up their asses? Does activity in a swinger or BDSM scene act as bridging social capital? Are there class dynamics at work in the feminist debate over porn?
How and why do governments intervene in sexualities? When do governments shape or use sexual desire, both implicitly and explicitly? Can sex tech challenge the future of biopolitics and what Michel Foucault calls "biopower" (the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations by modern states)?
What are the labor conditions of non-Western workers who make most of the world's sex toys? What's the environmental footprint of a technologically assisted orgasm? How does the criminalization or stigma of sex tech production harm the communities in which it is produced? What's the product life-cycle and planning horizon of sex tech? What are the barriers to entry for sex tech production? How important is intellectual property to sex tech, and how is it enforced?
What does production, regulation, distribution, and consumption of sex tech look like outside of North America, Western Europe, and Japan? How do state-sponsored religions or religious states interact with these issues? How do majority Muslim cultures differ from one another and from non-Muslim cultures on these issues? What's the intersection of sex tourism and sex tech? Is Japan's pornographic dominance in the Asian market an exception to the Korean wave? How does a country's pornography (or lack thereof) reflect its culture? Who consumes racist pornography?
How do the class and cultural impacts of differential access to shifting reproductive technologies like IVF, surrogacy (especially international surrogates), egg and sperm donors, birth control, and abortions affect the ways people have sex and construct relationships? Do these technologies or their social deployment enforce heteronormativity? How could the sex tech industry positively impact control and awareness of STIs?
What's the intersection of sex tech and hospitals or hospice care? Where are the sex toys for the elderly? Where are the sex toys for prisoners? What are the pornography surfing habits of homeless people in libraries? Can technology meaningfully contribute to solutions for sexual social problems like rape? Should the government allow or require masturbation aids in prisons to reduce prison rape? Should your health insurance be paying for your vibrator? How do your sex toys hurt you? What are the health risks of using everyday objects as sex toys when you can't afford the good stuff?
Who buys sex tech? Is sex technology a luxury? Does the demand elasticity for sex tech vary across subcultures? By age, sexual orientation, race, etc? How much does the average lesbian couple spend on sex toys? What are the substitutes employed to or within sex tech if it's unaffordable or unavailable? Is consumption of sex tech correlated with any other social significant behaviors or consumptions, positive or negative? How do distribution methods affect who consumes sex tech? How will the DIY movement change the sex tech market? Will we be able to print our on sex toys on rapid prototyping machines?
Who can afford to challenge sex tech?
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Arse Elektronika 2011: Schedule
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SCREW THE SYSTEM!
Opening Night and Prixxx Arse 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
7:00 PM
Location: Chez Poulet (3359 Cesar Chavez, San Francisco)
An unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics
A gala hosted by monochrom's Johannes Grenzfurthner
Featuring many guests stars, like Aaron Muszalski, Jonathan Mann and the PSIgasm team!
Our gala will be a dignified occasion – and so we invite you to dress up properly. Surprise us with Socialist Sex Superheroes and Superheroines… and maybe win a "Golden Kleene" yourself!
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DISCOURSIVE AND PERFORMATIVE APPROACHES
Friday, September 30, 2011
7:00 PM
Location: Center for Sex and Culture (1349 Mission btw 9th and 10th, San Franciso)
PSIgasm project
By Ned Mayhem / Maggie Mayhem
7 PM
Venereal Disease Helps the Enemy: Biopower at War
Adam Flynn
8 PM
Proverted Pastimes: Orgasm and Gameplay
Heather Kelley
9 PM
It's Wankie Time!
A DIY performance by Johannes Grenzfurthner/monochrom - featuring Rose White
9:30 PM
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CONFERENCE FOR BRAINY PERVS
Saturday, October 1, 2011
12:00 noon
Location: Center for Sex and Culture (1349 Mission btw 9th and 10th, San Franciso)
Experiential Technologies for the Performance of Socio-Sexual Identities
Ella Saitta
12:30 pm
Phallic Home Economics
Griffin Boyce
1:30 PM
Witchhunt 2010
Douglas B Spink
2:30 PM
(Break / 3:30 pm - 4 pm)
Sex Work, Disability, and Stigma
Kitty Stryker
4 PM
Hacking Health: Queer Machines, Ideal Bodies and What Medicine Can Learn From Sex/Tech
Laura Duncan
5 PM
Re-Caste-ing Alternative Sexuality: A Class Analysis of Social Status in the BDSM Scene
Maymay
6 PM
What does it mean to be a technosexual?
Gopinaath Kannabiran
7 PM
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ARSE NIGHT
Saturday, October 1, 2011
8:30 PM
Start at Center for Sex and Culture (1349 Mission btw 9th and 10th, San Franciso) – followed by monochrom's UNICOCK AND UNICUNT that will end at Noisebridge (2169 Mission Street, San Francisco)
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SCREW-IT-YOURSELF
Workshops and Unconference
Sunday, October 2, 2011
1 PM thru 8 PM
Location: Noisebridge (2169 Mission Street, San Francisco)
Screw the System of Objectification. Objectification is a Lossy Compression of Humanity
Rich Gibson
1 PM
Pervertables: A Hands-on Workshop in Being a DIY Deviant
Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem
1:45 PM
Postgeographic Sexuality
Willow Brugh
2:30 PM
Make your own Mind Controlled Dildo
David Fine
3:15 PM
Make your own Pressure Measuring Dildo Redux
Ned Mayhem
4:00 PM
CSS Citizen Sexual Science
Ned Mayhem, Rich Gibson, others
4:45 PM
Measurement Electronics for Hobbyists
Ned Mayhem
5:30 PM
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http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/
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