[aha] Arse Elektronika 2009, San Francisco, USA

[T_Bazz]

Arse Elektronika 2009:
OF INTERCOURSE AND INTRACOURSE

Sexuality, Genetics, Biotech, Wetware, Body mods.
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

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Scottish SF author Iain Banks created a fictitious group-civilisation
called "Culture" in his eponymous narrative. The vast majority of
humanoid people in the "Culture" are born with greatly altered glands
housed within their central nervous systems, who secrete - on command
- mood- and sensory-appreciation-altering compounds into the person's
bloodstream. Additionally many inhabitants have subtly altered
reproductive organs - and control over the associated nerves - to
enhance sexual pleasure. Ovulation is at will in the female, and a
fetus up to a certain stage may be re-absorbed, aborted, or held at a
static point in its development; again, as willed. Also, a viral
change from one sex into the other, is possible. And there is a
convention that each person should give birth to one child in their
lives. It may sound strange, but Banks states that a society in which
it is so easy to change sex will rapidly find out if it is treating
one gender better than the other. Pressure for change within society
would presumably build up until some form of sexual equality and
hence numerical parity will be established.
Does this set-up sound too futuristic? Too utopian? Too bizarre?

We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species.
And that's why our annual conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex,
technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies,
genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of
literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this year
will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic
bodies have to offer. Our world is already way more bizarre than our
ancestors could have ever imagined. But it may not be bizarre enough.
"Bizarre enough for what?" -- you might ask. Bizarre enough to
subvert the heterosexist matrix that is underlying our world and that
we should hack and overcome for some quite pressing reasons within
the next century.
Don't you think, replicants?

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Festival Schedule:

October 1: Film festival, opening ceremony and Prixxx Arse
Elektronika Gala
October 2: Literature, fiction, reading
October 3: Talks and discourse
October 4: DIY workshops

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Arse Elektronika 2009 will take place in San Francisco, USA.

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http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/
http://www.arse-elektronika.com