Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Paradiso Amsterdam
CLICK ME
CLICK ME
Table of Contents Preface Speaker Biographies ArtisT Biographies Time Schedule OPEN LETTER Click Me Publication STIMULATOR BIOGRAPHIES CLICK ME & THE THIRD DIMENSION Practical Information & Credits
1 2 3 8 11 12 16 18 19 20
CLICK ME
PREFACE
CLICK ME is an event to investigate internet pornography in a non-conventional way. We are looking forward to a queer event without any rigid queer correctness (as queer doesnt always mean good porn!). We want to rethink the society of the netporn spectacle: the digital zeitgeist that has given us a hypersexual body. What to do with our bodies and digital machines? Pornography has found its way into every nook and cranny of the Internet, but how can we still be queer radicals or body artists, private hedonists or fervent bloggers in this climate? Do we still need to have a sanctified space like an underground or a dungeon, when we produce desire with our floating networked bodies? Porn went porn chic years ago. Today netporn goes into Myspace bedrooms and everyday realcore. CLICK ME is not only netporn displays, but strategies of public engagement and sharing thoughts about netporn. While creating a visibility of desire, we try to experiment with a new invisibility of identities. From the era of queer communities, we move into the culture of crossbreed pornography. Even amongst those horny mobs targeted by the netporn industry giants, people cherish their own queer varieties. Netporn means the messy process of personal affections and anomalies melting into the databases of porn masses. In the era of pornification of mainstream imagery, there is no more society without netporn, but a lot has to be done to sexualize the critical multitudes. Queer and net activists, theorists and artists once again gather in Amsterdam to discuss the growing pains of autonomous culture zones, but also netporn as sexwork, production of affective commodities and one of the biggest global markets. CLICK ME wants to create a networked debate, continuing the discourse started with the first Netporn Conference in 2005 which was organized by Katrien Jacobs, Matteo Pasquinellie and the Institute of Network Cultures. After that connecting to other experiences across Europe and elsewhere, like the Porn Film festival and the Post Porn Politics symposium both held in Berlin in 2006. What does a post-porn politics mean after entering the digital realms of the network society? And what will be the destiny of the porn genre in the age of the affective technologies? Before brainstorming the dissolution of porn into commodities or its future explosion in global conflicts, our specific DIY contribution is an anti-essentialist and intoxicated event, with input from new publics, with a nostalgic embrace of (post) punk wet dreams and sex revolutions. Most of all, CLICK ME invites you to experience the sexual evolution of the digital generation. Your stimulators, Katrien Jacobs, Matteo Pasquinelli and Marije Janssen
CLICK ME
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Feona Attwood
Feona Attwood teaches Media and Communication Studies at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. She has published widely on sex and the media. Her research interests include new pornographies, cybersex, women and sexualization and the study of sexual media in education. She is currently working on online pornography and womens use of online sex sites.
Maxime Cervulle
Maxime Cervulle teaches Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Lille 3 Charles de Gaulle and works on a PhD about white identity and cinematic representation at the University of Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne. He has written several articles on pornography, identity politics and queer theory, and has translated into French works from Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. He has edited the first Stuart Hall reader ever to be published in France, Identits et cultures. Politiques des cultural studies and is currently working with Nick Rees Roberts on a book entitled Homo exoticus: race, class and queer critique to be published in 2007.
Florian Cramer
Florian Cramer holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. He is a writer on experimental arts. Since several years Cramer lives and works in Rotterdam as course director of the Media Design M.A. programme at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy. http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
Lotte Hoek
Lotte Hoek is an anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam. She studied Cultural Anthropology and International Relations at the University of Amsterdam and South Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Her current PhD research project entitled Vulgar Frames: Commercial Cinema in Bangladesh focuses on the production and consumption of commercial Bangladeshi cinema. At the centre of debates about public morality, the research attempts to
CLICK ME
understand the current controversy over vulgarity in Bangladeshi cinema. The research tries to see how the controversy influences filmmaking practices and the work performed by obscenity accusations within society.
Sharif Mowlabocus
Sharif Mowlabocus is a lecturer in Media and Digital Media Studies at the University of Sussex. His research investigates emerging relationships between sexual subcultures and ICTs, with a specific focus on British gay male culture and explores the themes of identity, sexual practice, pornography, HIV/AIDS and queer politics. Throughout his research he seeks to form critical, intellectual and cultural bridges between online and offline space and to this end places himself firmly within fields of both new media studies and cultural studies. Sharif teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate Media and Cultural Studies programmes and is co-director of the Centre for Digital Material Culture at the University of Sussex.
Audacia Ray
Audacia Ray is an executive editor of $pread, a magazine by and for sex workers, and is a contributor to the porn blog Fleshbot. Her first book, Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration, is being published by Seal Press in June 2007. In the summer of 2006 Audacia wrote and directed her first feature adult film, The Bi Apple, which she produced in New York City under the auspices of her Waking Vixen Productions. The film was released by Adam & Eve Pictures in February 2007. She has a BA in Cultural Studies from Eugene Lang College, and an MA in American Studies from Columbia University. Audacia lives in Brooklyn, New York and online at WakingVixen.com. www.wakingvixen.com
Tim Stttgen
Tim Stttgen is author and artist. He holds a BA in Film Studies (London / Berlin) and is Postgraduate Researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, Maastricht. As a journalist (Spex, taz, Jungle World) and theorist he has published on afro-american and asian popculture, cinema, queer politics and poststructuralism. At the moment he is editing a reader on Deleuze / Guattari (b_books) with Nicolas Siepen and editing the reader post / porn / politics. He organized the Queere Kunst. Theorie. Politik.Workshop at HfbK Hamburg(with Renate Lorenz and others) and the symposium Post Porn Politics at Volksbuehne Berlin. Under his drag queen alter ego Timi Mei Monigatti he has performed in Germany, England, Denmark and the Netherlands. www.postpornpolitics.com
CLICK ME
Terre Thaemlitz
Terre Thaemlitz is an award winning multimedia producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label. Her work critically combines themes of identity politics - including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an ongoing critique of the socioeconomics of commercial media production. Her writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines. As a speaker and educator on issues of non-essentialist Transgenderism and Queerness, Thaemlitz has participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan. www.comatonse.com
Adam Zaretsky
Adam Zaretsky is a bioartist, performer, researcher and art theorist. He is also well known as a teacher of Vivoarts: Art and Biology Studio. Vivoarts is a studio art and science crossover lab meant to aid art, science and sociology students in their own exploration of the intersections between art and life. Zaretsky also has taught in Steve Wilsons Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA) department at San Francisco State University, SymbioticA, The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory at The University of Western Australia Department of Anatomy and Human Biology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Integrated Electronic
CLICK ME
Arts Department. This spring he has taught Vivoarts at Leiden University Honours Programme in the Netherlands as a guest of The Arts and Genomics Centre. www.emutagen.com
CLICK ME
CLICK ME
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Khan of Finland
Centered around the figure of Can Khan Oral, Khan Of Finland are a trio in the traditional sense of the word who make a sound that is anything but. Utilizing just vocal, piano, human beatbox, they play an all Acoustic Electronic Blues but also switch roles and improvise. The piano becomes a percussive instrument. The beat melodic. The vocal full blooded, From the blues to a howl. The sound veering from metal heavy riffs to dubbed out cabaret. www.khanoffinland.com
Le Clic
Le Clic is sex, drugs and rock n roll in a nutshell - but with an attitude and sound, that formed the band into one of Amsterdams best kept secrets of the underground. This is a band with a catchy repertoire of danceable sexy disco-house. An electronic band that can make the whole crowd dance is quite unique in Holland... Le Clic sails the seas of deep minimal, groovy disco and music in the best French house traditions. www.leclic.org
Dj Sandrien
Sandrien is probably the biggest rising star of the Dutch dance scene. Her sparkling personality in combination with her qualities as a DJ, brought her to the top of female DJs in Holland over the last 2 years. Her sets are always surprising and full of energy, she is known for her fine tuning with the audience, which in return is known for loosing it when Sandrien plays her mixture of minimal, electro and deeper freaky sounds.
Dj Abraxas
DJ Abraxas used to be one of Hollands best known hardcore djs. This was a long time ago in the early nineties, nowadays he entertains the crowd with something completely different, sometimes in drag, other times unrecognizable behind his rubber mask. But always with a wild mixture of music. Where electrodisco meets gabber and Marc Almond meets Marilyn Manson. Abraxas is a true trans-genre-bender.
CLICK ME
Team Plastique
Team Plastiques music is Sushi Punk - an unorthodox mix of electro, hip hop and punk. This decadent threesome grew up in tropical Australia in the shadow of a Big Pineapple, so their style is Neon Noir - sexy, ex-travagant and colorful, yet dark. The Team are a performance band and love bending the brains of audiences through interactive stunts like Food Bondage and Date Tape. www.team-plastique.com
Phag OFF
Phag OFF is a multilingusitic queer project; the dawn of a new era which produces lighting designs for a post-gay imaginary. Phag OFF uses its irreverence to express what lies between new sexual identities and the radical critique to power relationships inside the g.l.b.t. community (as an historified form of expression of the sexual differences) and the radical deconstruction of identity. Phag OFF creates and rides the sexual new wave: cultural Frankenstein, freaks identities, morbid war machines. www.phagoff.org
CLICK ME
10
VJ Zanne
In her very own way, vj Zanne uses the everyday things in life to create her own animated stories. At first glace her work seems fashionable and commercial, at second glace there are deeper layers to reveal. Highlights in her career are her tour with Lois Lane and Generic City, an autobiographic animation with music of composer Huba de Graaff. ZANNE is resident vj in the Supperclub and the Sugarfactory. She is known for her supermanga visuals and is a respected vj in the gay community in Amsterdam. www.zanne.nl
vj Infidel
Born as an underground comic author the infidel has through the years mutated into a terrorist graphical artist for the TORAZINE (now CATASTROPHE) magazine and actually acts as a vj (using the Flxer flash video mixer free software) for many roman underground and upperground parties such as PHAG OFF - the ultimate queer experience (side by side with WARBEAR), LEKTRICA, SUBWOOFER - the ultimate bear dance party, MINIMAL ROME, PINK FREUD - electronic music therapy, TONER, KARPET, MINIMA and the live sets of RODION (gomma records). www.flickr.com/photos/ynfidel
CLICK ME
11
SCHEDULE
Day
Main Hall Host: Nat Muller 13.00 - 15.30 Audacia Ray I am Woman, See Me Nude: The Rise of Independent Women in Online Porn Florian Cramer Indieporn. Loss of Obscenity and Imagination Terre Thaemlitz Viva McGlam Feona Attwood Porn for Ladies? Women, Pinups and Altporn 15.30 - 16.00 Coffee break 16.00 - 18.15 Warbear 21st Century Schizoid Bear Tim Stttgen Post Porn Happiness Lotte Hoek Tangled Technologies, Entwined Bodies: Bangladeshi Pornography in Celluloid, Bits and Pieces Maxime Cervulle Beur online: pornography as community making Basement 18.30 - 20.30 Drinks and book launch Dinner
EVENING
Main Hall Host: Bahram Sadeghi 21.00 - 23.00 The Bi Apple Show Your (Least) favorite Porn Scene The Bareback Monologues, Adam Zaretsky Food performance,
NIGHT
Main Hall DJ Sprinkles (aka Terre Thaemlitz) 0.30 - 1.15 Le Clic 1.15 - 2.00 DJ Abraxas 2.00 - 2.45 Khan of Finland 2.45 - 3.15 Abraxas 3.15 - 5.00 Sandrien VJ: Zanne Small Hall 23.30 - 1.00 Cruise Control 1.00 - 1.40 Team Plastique 1.40 - 2.30 Phag Off 2.30 - 3.00 Phag Off Performance 3.00 - 5.00 Phag Off/Cruise Control VJ: Infidel Basement For Your Ears Only by SNDRX Entresol Super 8 eros by Maarten Jansen Hong Kong retro
CLICK ME
12
NewTimes,Old sex,
DutchWomenandtheir PlayboyVaginas
[The last couple of months the discussion about pornification and the objectification of women have been a hot issue in the Netherlands. Old feminist issues are once again debated when Dutch documentary maker Sunny Bergman produced her documentary Beperkt Houdbaar (Limited Usability) about the Playboy image that women feel they need to live up to. She states that women are still extremely sexualised and objectified and finds a soulmate in Ariel Levy with her book Female Chauvinist Pigs. This book also raised a lot of controversy in the feminist debate in a country that is regarded as openminded but still is underdeveloped in thinking about contemporary sexuality and media. In the Netherlands, the only alternative voice comes from Dutch lingerie designer Marlies Dekkers with her book Stout (Naughty) where she states that the main power of women lies in her sexuality and she should be naughty to get what she wants. In this pro/contra discussion the Click Me stimulators try to provide an alternative in their open letter to the main Dutch newspapers.] In the Netherlands we seem to be living the old days of angry feminists who want to take the streets. In every corner of society women are discussing sex and porn, but in the mass media we find only a polarized portrait. Is that the reason why we have landed back in the 1970s? Our bimbo culture, the pornification of society, the limited perseverance of the body, are these really the themes that stir us? If we can believe the media, one is either against any impulse towards public sex culture, and one babbles endlessly about the victim position, or one expresses a vital femininity by means of sexuality. Other nuances seem to be lost. This is the reason why all discussions about womanhood in relation to porn do not the go beyond the female victim position and the misery that it engenders. Of course we cannot deny that women are sex objects because of stereotyping, unrealistic beauty standards, and the male gaze which they cannot satisfy. But why do we find endless tirades about victimization in the 21 st century? It does not make us feel any better. Let us have a look at how we think differently. Of course porn is arousing, sexually stimulating, thought provoking. Of course we can even participate in DIY (Do-ItYourself) porn culture. Of course we are beyond attitudes of radical fear and hidden
CLICK ME
13
prudery. The alternatives in the Netherlands dont seem to go much further than the sexual liberation of Marleen Dekkers and Heleen van Royen and their book Stout (Naughty). In this book they reduce the position of a strong female sexual identity to a SBS6 format. Women are supposed to use their sexuality as a means of power and to be naughty to get what they want. And if we take this suggestion one step further we become like bimbos. What seems to be lost in this discussion is that there are also women who look for a sexuality that is grounded in different values. For instance, we still have to make a Kinsey style inventory of what women and men, old and young, like to do, and what they find exciting. We also have to look at the evolution of sexuality, instead of constanty looking back at what has gone wrong. The commotion going on the Netherland shows that people are willing to consider evolution, but falling back into jaded pro-porn/anti-porn debates. Of course we cannot always avoid the porno fight as these are discussions that do touch us, and the ideas come close to our personal dreams, aspirations and frustations. It is a most interesting tendency that these personal sensibilities are now surfacing in the online environments. The internet offers opportunities for people from different backgrounds to look for arousing materials. One doees not have to follow mainstream taste, but one can look a for a personal touch. One does not have search according to a one dimensional ideal, and this makes the search more confusing and exciting. Online it is not about the intention of the spectator but that of the provider, so mainstream beauty standards play a smaller role. This is a theme that we want to discuss as curators of the Click Me festival, which is about the role of Internet Pornography in formulating sexual selves and relations. If we look beyond commercial porn, we find a multi faceted underground that is concerned with other values than satifsying fleshly lusts. Womens, queers and transgender communities may find each other in new reality body standards and playfulness. No more silicone breasts and playboyvaginas, but an environment that criticizes the mainstream heterosexual ideals of sexuality and aesthetics. Through digital networks we can reach a quirky individualism and critical playful masses, and these are some the netporn and post-porn objectives, which are also called indieporn, altporn or DIY porn movements. These are open to women and men, and have in mind a cross fertilization between art and porn, between queer and hetero sex. But these tendencies are to be found beyond commercial porn, and this culture has not surfaced in the Dutch debates.
CLICK ME
14
CLICK ME
15
We look at alternative websites such as nofauxxx.com, where porn is interwoven with a positive and creative activism. This site has meanwhile been linked to many other sites, and these are social zones for people who may be sick of beauty standards or who dont care about the demands of commodity culture. These sites offer alternatives to common ways of framing the porn body and power roles and they do not start from heterosexual ideals. These were the themes of the 2005 conference Art and Politics of Netporn, organized by the Institute of Network Cultures in collaboration with Matteo Pasquinelli and Katrien Jacobs. It seemed to be an urgent task to host artistic and academicactivist perspectives on netporn. We deem it important to carry out this progressive porn research and to further create an international censor free zone where porn can be discussed and shown, because we do not just want to rely on galleries and discussions in cyberspace. We want to meet in an actual space and time. The CLick me Festival will continue where Art and politics of Netporn ended, and will once again discuss alternative porn zones by inviting partcipants and experts from different backgrounds. The conclusion is that we want to look forward to these netporn circuits. If we are going back in time, lets us go back the erotic sensibilities of our (bi) curious (grand)mothers and whatever they were into in their avid masturbations or sexual affairs with others. Because it is also about a deep sexual feeling and uge for erotica that remains constant throughout centuries of porn, despite the fluctuating media. It is about the joys of being naughty and disciplined. Because we cannot spend all our time with cranky conversation partners. Marije Janssen and Katrien Jacobs
CLICK ME
16
CLick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader is an anthology that collects the best materials of two years debate, from The Art and Politics of Netporn conference held in 2005 in Amsterdam (www.networkcultures.org/ netporn) to the 2007 CLick Me festival (www.networkcultures.org/ clickme). Opening the field of internet pornology based on nonconventional approaches, mixing academics, artists and activists, the CLick Me Reader reclaims a critical post-enthusiastic post-censorship perspective on netporn. The CLick Me Reader covers the rise of the netporn society from Usenet underground to the blogosphere, analyses economic data and search engines traffic, compares sex work with the work of fantasy, disability and accessibility. The CLick Me Reader also expands the notion of digital desire and smashes the predictable boundaries of porn debates, depicting a broader libidinal spectrum from fetish subcultures to digital alienation, from code pornography to war pornography. The reader concludes by recontextualizing the Queer discourse into a postporn scenario. Contributions By: REGINA LYNN, MARK DERY, SERGIO MESSINA, NISHANT SHAH, AUDACIA RAY, ADAM ARVIDSSON, MANUEL BONIK, ANDREAS SCHAALE, TIM NOONAN, MATTHEW ZOOK, FRANCO BIFO BERARDI, MATTEO PASQUINELLI, FLORIAN CRAMER, STEWART HOME, MIKITA BROTTMAN, MICHAEL GODDARD, MIREILLE MILLER-YOUNG, KATRIEN JACOBS, BARBARA DEGENEVIEVE, MARIJE JANSSEN, JULIE RUSSO, SAMANTHA CULP, TIM STTTGEN, FRANCESCO MACARONE PALMIERI AKA WARBEAR. The book will be presented at Paradiso, Amsterdam, on the 2nd of June 2007
CLICK ME
17
CLICK ME
18
Stimulator biographies
Katrien Jacobs
Katrien Jacobs is one of the curators of Click Me and Art and Politics of Netporn. She is assistant professor in new media at City University of Hong Kong. She has lectured widely on pornography, sexuality, art, and new media. She was born in Belgium and received her Ph.D. degree in comparative literature and media from the University of Maryland, with a thesis on dismemberment myths and rituals in 1960s and 1970s body art and performance media. Her forthcoming book Netporn: DIY Web Culture and Sexual Politics delves into new porn genres and skilled amateurism. Her travelogue book Libidoc: Journeys in the Performance of Sex Art published in 2005. As a curator and artist, Jacobs has organized several exhibits in different countries. www.libidot.org
Matteo Pasquinelli
Matteo Pasquinelli has been working as curator on Art and Politics of Netporn and Click Me. He has been based in Bologna, Italy, for a long time. After dealing with several media activism projects (from Luther Blissett to Telestreet), he is now a Berlin based free lance curator and critic, focusing on media philosophy. He is the author of *Media Activism* (Derive Approdi, Rome 2002) and editor of Rekombinant (www.rekombinant.org), an influential italian speaking webzine and forum about media activism, culture jamming, and radical philosophy.
Marije Janssen
Marije earned her MA title in January 2006 with her thesis about cyberfeminist perspectives on the representation of the female sexual identity in online communities. She has worked as a research assistant with the Institute of Network Cultures for the Art & Politcs of Netporn conference which was held in October 2005. Currently she is working as a producer/researcher on the follow up of the conference, as well as a publication that will be presented at the Click Me Festival in Amsterdam. Next to that she organizes Gayporn for Girls nights and works partly as phone operator at the first female run escort agency in the Netherlands.
CLICK ME
19
20 Credits
Concept & Program: Katrien Jacobs Matteo Pasquinelli Marije Janssen Night Program: Katrien Jacobs Matteo Pasquinelli Marije Janssen Maz Weston Advisory board: Nat Muller Arie Altena Hosted by: Paradiso Institute of Network Cultures Click Me is supported by: Stichting Democratie en Media. Fonds voor Amateurkunst en Podiumkunsten. Special thanks to: Maarten Duinker Anneke Jansen Design: Kernow Craig Website: Kernow Craig, Nick Koning Printer: Sneldruk Many thanks to the models: Mira Me, (Night Flyer) Tota P. & Beral T. (Day Flyer) DLock. (Poster)
Contact
Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8 1017 SG Amsterdam The Netherlands +31 (0)20 - 626 45 21 www.paradiso.nl
CLICK ME
21
CLICK ME
22