Screw the System: monochrom’s incendiary critique

Thirty trenchant essays probe the dominant paradigms ruling both the work and play industries in America, illuminating how both mirror each other in their sex, violence and power depictions. We may be familiar with the shadow industry of sex tourism, but have we thought about designing sex for Space Tourism? How about x-rated interactive video games that go far beyond the most violent pornography found on the Internet? Now that we’re in the Age of Drones, have we considered how our conceptualization of “love” may have been forever modified? Have we noticed that our concepts of “The Apocalypse” may now be obsolete? Why is there increasing workplace shooting-spree violence, now perpetrated by women as well as men? Disturbingly, we barely seem to have noticed that we’ve entered the realm of techno-sexuality where old-fashioned Biblical morals are as obsolete as button-shoes. How have the criteria for sexual selection been transformed by ever-innovative technological leapfrogging in our immersive, 24/7 communication enslavement? This book is bursting with troubling questions, observations and ideas, verbalizing what many already feel but are inarticulate to express, and is a wake-up call to all who are not yet fully anesthetized by the new panoptikon/surveillance-state status quo.

monochrom produces and hosts a yearly symposium on sex and technology in San Francisco. This is the 4th collection of papers from the yearly conference, named “Arse Elektronika” and is edited by Johannes Grenzfurthner, Guenther Friesinger and Daniel Fabry.

Table of Contents:

• Space Racy by Johannes Grenzfurthner

• What Does It Mean to Love a Machine? by Jonathan Mann

• Blowing Your Load—The Workplace Shooting Spree as Sexual Metaphor by Phil Freeman

• Love in the Time of Drones by Thomas Ballhausen

• Designing Sex for Space Tourism by Samuel Coniglio and Katherine Becvar

• Personal Portraits of Australia by Rich Gibson

• The Six Feet Under Club: Interview with Johannes Grenzfurthner by Nadja Sayej

• Queer Technologies—Component Theory and Viral Aesthetics by Zach Blas

• Crash on Television—Primetime Autogeddon by Jack Sargeant

• Screw the System by Arse Elektronika 2011

• Sex, Lies, and Phthalates—Why the James Deen Dildo Isn’t as Safe as it Should Be by Lux Alptraum

• The Importance of Being Kinky by Thomas Ballhausen

• We Know Apocalypses by Johannes Grenzfurthner

• Designing Desire—Meditations on Technosexuality by Gopinaath Kannabiran

• The Golden Age of Porn Is Just Beginning by Maggie Mayhem

• Notes from and about the Pornographic Screenplay Workshop by Gabriel Menotti

• Re-Caste-ing Alternative Sexuality—A Class Analysis of Social Sttus i the BDSM Scene by maymay

• Sexual Science, Academia, and the PSIgasm Project by Ned Mayhem

• 4 Play by Arse Elektronika 2012

• Amorous Bodies in Play—Sexuality in Nordic Live Action Role-Playing Games by Jaakko Stenros

• Multi-P)rofile, Platform-Based Socio-Sexual Performance Constituted thru Polyamorous Relationships by Megan Rosalynn Rothstein and Adam Rothstein

• Want It From Behind While You Play Super Mario Brothers? by Anonymous in Orlando

• Awkward Sex—Exploring the Uncanny Valley by Pietro Righi Riva