Johannes Grenzfurthner

Daniel Fabry

Gunther Friesinger

From the depiction of female genitalia in a cave painting to the latest Internet porn, technology, art, and sexuality have always been closely linked. So closely, in fact, that the development of emergent technologies — photography, motion pictures, and the Internet — has been largely fueled and funded by pornography. As J. G. Ballard once prophesied, “Sex times technology equals the future.” In the spirit of Ballard’s epiphany, an eclectic group of writers, theorists, artists, and philosophers gathered to speak at the 2007 Arse Elektronika, an annual conference hosted by the celebrated art-tech-philosophy collective monochrom. The talks are collected in Pr0nnovation? Lively and wide-ranging, they explore the porn-tech connection historically and in the present day, covering topics such as sexual privacy in the online world, DIY pornography, the impact of digital effects on adult films, sex toys of Granny’s day, and software interfaces for sexual interaction. Timothy Archibald, author and photographer of the acclaimed Sex Machines, contributes color photographs.

Pornography and Technological Innovation ; Monochrom's Arse Elektronika Anthology

PrOnnovation?

Thomas Ballhausen

As the official artists' collective representing Vienna at the São Paulo Art Biennial in 2002, the monochrom group — Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, and Daniel Fabry — invented an artist called Georg Paul Thomann and carried off the exhibition as a very elaborate prank. The trio, aided by philosopher Thomas Ballhausen, brings that same sense of the cutting-edge and the carnivalesque to this collection exploring erotica, science fiction, and technology. A bracing mix of literary forms, the book shows why the fantasy genre is especially suited to the investigation of the transgressive realms of sexuality and pornography. Here questions of science, research, and technologization are examined, along with the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality, and control (or the loss of control). Provocative and penetrating, Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? reveals a wealth of depictions of the future and shows the many ways in which they also address the present.

Daniel Fabry

Books

Your next favorite book is out there