Thursday May 19th
2005 Rx Lecture Series with
MARK DERY

<http://rxgallery.com>

The Sexual Grotesque: Pomosexualities and Robopathologies on the Web

Posthuman relationships with the anatomically accurate androids called
RealDolls, extreme bukkake orgies, ultra-violent Japanese hentai
cartoons: Depending on your perspective, the Web is a libidinous
interzone---a torture garden of unearthly delights---or a sinkhole of
depravity. What are we to make of the runaway proliferation of
fetishism, in the Web age? (Tentacle rape, anyone? Decapitation
fantasies? Amputee worship?) Is fetishism becoming the default modality
of our post, post, postmodern sexuality? If so, is it transgressive or
repressive---one more example of the iron cage of techno-industrial
rationale constricting our desires, or an inspiring example of
subcultural sensibilities rebelling against normative notions of
sexuality? As well, what are we to make of the Web-enabled
"democratization of exploitation": the niche-marketing of nonstandard
body types that, ironically, realizes the feminist dream of dethroning
normative notions of beauty by peddling the flesh of the morbidly obese
and the mind-crushingly ugly. Does this stuff subvert the Beauty Myth?
Or is it simply extending its exploitative logic to the far margins of
society? "Sex organs sprout everywhere," wrote William S. Burroughs, in
Naked Lunch. Even as the self-appointed morals czars of the Bush
administration try to childproof the Web, exotic new toadstools spring
up in its danker corners. In The Sexual Grotesque, I'll examine the
Newtonian physics of our culture---the equal and opposite reactions of
official culture and the Web's sexual underworld.

7:00pm doors / 8:00pm lecture / 21+UP
$10 / $5 with student ID
Seating is Limited

CURRENT EXHIBITION
Christina McPhee
recent work
Seismic Memory
May 12 - June 8
Gallery hours : Wednesday - Saturday 12pm-5pm, or by appointment by
calling (415) 756-8890. Bar opens at 5pm Thursday-Saturday.

Rx Gallery
Realspace, LLC
132 Eddy Street @ Mason Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

1 Block west of Powell Street BART
Gallery Phone:
415-474-7973 (RXSF)

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