Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

Friday night 7pm, Oct 5, 2007, San Francisco

There are certain events (temporary autonomous zones or TAZs) where you feel like you’re living in a future society, or a future world. I often had this feeling during 70s Punk Rock Shows, or talking to J.G. Ballard and William S. Burroughs, and always at Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) shows. People say they experience this at Burning Man. I definitely got this feeling attending ARSE ELEKTRONIKA, curated by the Vienna art group “monochrom,” hosted by kink.com (and others) at a no-sign location on Jessie St between 5th and 6th Sts.

It was relatively easy to find parking (because the area is rife with homeless and crazies), especially on the smaller alleys. Concentrated urine smell everywhere – this area is definitely not going to be the next yuppie takeover YET. Went into a small grocery store to purchase a banana (35 cents) and it was an armed / caged camp. Walked down Jessie Street holding my breath til I got close to the doorway of the P.P., guarded by a tall, heavyset, bearded man wearing a watchcap — he searched my backpack, looking for alcohol. I told him I didn’t drink. At least he had a twinkle in his eye.

The black painted interior led to a bar area on the left, a bathroom on the right (patronized by both sexes simultaneously) and straight ahead was the main audience room, with the stage to the left. Decor was authentic medieval castle, with iron rings everywhere. The ceiling had dozens of light fixtures — this was a film set. Behind the “auditorium” were authentic-looking prison cells, a community shower, and horse stables (sans horses). The audience was mostly dressed in dark clothes, with at least three people sporting neon magenta or bright red hair. Two young people had mohawks (more on them later).

The beginning of the Arse Elektronika was introduced by Johannes Grenzfurthner, a very amusing off-the-cuff speaker who is capable of instant improvised oblique responses to any question. The conference’s focus was on pornography and its role in catalyzing/inspiring/leading the invention of new technology. As J.G. Ballard put it, “Sex times technology equals the future” (1972?) and the A.E. event fleshed out this prophecy, literally. There were new ideas introduced every hour, and some of them may have fallen into the category of “too much information.” As this is a “family”-appropriate newsletter, much of what was witnessed will have to be withheld until later…

A beautiful female mannequin christened “Moaning Lisa” (pun; get it?) not only contained a Mac laptop, but was fitted with sensors (back of neck, back, crotch, nipples) which, upon appropriate stroking, emitted moaning sounds. Rich, the only man present wearing a tuxedo, went onstage to demonstrate. Lots of nervous laughter from the audience – in fact, nervous laughter was the major audience response throughout most of the entire conference. “Lisa” was on display and available for audience fondling all three days. Then the “Porn Tub Punch” – a simulation of sperm dissolved in water – which had been prepared in a huge tub on a table, stage right, was brought to stage center and the audience was invited to sample it. Our intern Elie and his girlfriend May bravely accepted a glass, as did dozens of others. Well, this is San Francisco, after all.

Next up was The Electric Orifice Orchestra who demonstrated a kind of “sound innovation” not experienced in most nightclubs or art musems. Two beautiful women (wearing a blue and a red dynel wig styled a la Charlie’s Angels) and a buff young man, mostly nude, demonstrated how the sensors attached to their crotches emitted a full range of sounds when the appropriate kegel (and other such) muscles were contracted. Very interesting. Fortunately there was a constant stream of charming, witty, narrative patter from the two women. Definitely worth seeing; they have to be a group on their way up…

Finally, the climax (literally) of the evening drew near as a large robot was pushed to the center stage. It bore a wheel of pink self-lubricating tongues. Also present was a power tool sporting an overly-large dildo. Brilliantly magenta-haired Jake the Enabler pulled on disposable gloves, someone else fitted a condom over the dildo, and a call was made for a volunteer from the audience. Amazingly, the female half of the mohawked duo (those “Punk Rockers” have guts and courage) raised her hand and climbed onstage. (I don’t think she was a “plant.”) As the event was being webcast live to Vienna, a gauzy modesty screen was hung in front of the stage. What we saw must be left to the imagination, and I personally did not see the one-meter perpendicular spray of female ejaculate – must have blinked, I guess. This was one of the most intense experiences ever witnessed by yours truly, and the sheer volume of the demonstratee’s expressive sounds was somewhat eye-popping and ear-shattering. At the end, everybody seemed slumped in their chairs and avoiding eye contact, although there was wild applause. Unbelievably, there was yet a second demonstration. Reportedly a video of this “marathon” was posted on YouTube and pulled down almost immediately–albeit after a huge number of viewers had logged on – word spreads quickly in cyberspace, apparently. No wonder various folks have predicted that “robots shall inherit the earth”…

The next (Saturday) morning Mark Dery (pompadour, trim dark suit, dress shoes with thick rubber heels, red patterned shirt and gold patterned tie) proved what a professional speaker/theorist he is, with an “awesome” Powerpoint demonstration encompassing stills and movie clips. Title of his talk was “Paging Dr. Moreau: ‘Humanimal’ Porn in the Age of Xenotransplants and Genetic Chimera.” Reportedly his Q&A displayed his amazing improvisatory flair at crafting complicated, academically-inflected compound sentences bursting at the seams with innuendo. Here memory betrays me; was it his presentation that showed American G.I.’s laughing, giving thumbs-up and high-fives while pointing at a dead, blackened corpse of an Iraqi at their feet? Did he show us some darkly sinister rarely-seen prison photos taken at Abu Ghraib, or was it in someone else’s presentation? Must wait for the video which, it is promised, will be uploaded later to the monochrom website.

Had to dash to the second day of the S.F. Zine Fest, and returned barely in time (7pm) for the educational art-history presentation of Stefan Lutschinger: “The Re-Judgement of Paris: How ‘Ob/scenity’ Gave the World Modern Art in 1863″ – featuring, of course, Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” painting, and its remake by Malcolm McLaren featuring Annabelle from Bow Wow Wow – this photo did not make it to the U.S. LP pressing. It turned out that Annabelle was only fifteen when the nude art photo of her was snapped (but really, you couldn’t see a thing). Next two clips from a movie, “W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism” were shown — highly recommend this film which mixes footage of a copulating couple with post-Marxist slogans, footage of a million-person rally in Chairman Mao’s China, and other amusing-yet-political scenes… Sex and radicalism is (almost) always a good combination!

Had to miss David Dempsey’s “Porn and Personal Development” presentation, but the word was: it was good. Ditto for Autumn Tyr-Salvia’s “How Porn & Tech Change Sexual Discourse” – heard that a lot of beautiful vintage porn photos were projected, along with the accompanying text on the theme of “the invention of the camera and the movie camera immediately led to production of porn photography” — no surprise there!

Sunday morning at 10 AM is too early – but that’s when Arse Elektronika screened Peter Asaro’s “Love Machine” feature documentary on small-town inventors of “love-making machines” along with interviews featuring the likes of Manuel De Landa, Ken Goldberg, and many other inventors, scientists, and engineers. This is a work of depth and substance, and must be viewed at least three times to be comprehended. It’s amazing that such a professional, thorough, in-depth production can be shot and then finished on a laptop, self-funded. Wow. Next followed one of the best Q&As of the conference, with questions asked by Katie Vann of Oakland, California. Peter and Katie discussed “Pornomechanics: Sex Robots and the Mechanisms of Love.” Elegant discussion, indeed.

A funny presentation by Annalee Newitz (clad in a baggy man’s suit and tie, with Doc Martens look-alikes): “A Futurist’s History of Sexual Technology” was followed by Thomas Ballhausen’s “Push It! Fragments from the History of Adult Remakes” (of Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc). Great film clips and almost Dr Freud-style dispassionate narrative. Too much, almost! Unfortunately, at this point I had to leave…

The Arse Elektronika Conference was an amazing challenge to American Puritanism — which yet survives. What a contradictory country this is! We saw a full spectrum of demonstrations / evidences of Yankee technological ingenuity harnessed to over-the-top, obsessive sexual inventiveness. What was “synthesized” at the Arse Elektronika weekend conference was “proof” that there are no limits to the extremes of human conceptualizing and subsequent uninhibited behavior. We experienced a full demonstration of the power of human thought, in the absence of moralizing censorship and without value judgments – just naked reality and super-reality being made manifest in the privacy of one’s own home or home laboratory or home theater. Truly, the imagination is what creates the future, like it or not… – V. Vale, founder of RE/Search & Search & Destroy, www.researchpubs.com