Techno(sexual) Bodies
I like technology. But I don't want to fuck it. Yet. Now a new exhibition at Videotage is emploring me to reconsider. The artists behind Techno(sexual) Bodies are exploring the proximity and depths of promiscuity between human and machine.
MILK+ kicks off the exhibition, billed as a performance of "Sex, Drugs, and mutated viruses", which brings together artists Shu Lea Cheang, a digital artist dealing in cybernetic interactive art; Katrien Jacobs, known for her writing on sexuality and lectures on digital media, performativity and censorship; and Isaac Leung, creator of the video art exhibit, Oriental Whore, that toyed with the concept of virtual sex using a web camera and the definition of "Oriental". These three artists conspire to transform the space in To Kwa Wan into a dystopic futuristic landscape complete with scenes of "seduction, decadence, corruption and sexual arousal" while photographers and new media artists will display their works revolving around technology's input into sexuality (or vice versa).
Hongkongers are slowly – and reluctantly – experiencing a re-emerging liberalisation of sexual awareness through creative expression that was hidden away with the institution of the Category III rating for movies in 1988. Our desires poke up occasionally in tabloids and online where Hong Kong's top weekly image searches are almost always topped by fleshy starlets.
The exhibition includes talks plunging into the world of post-humanism and the place of sexuality in the future, by Dorkbot-sf's Karen Marcelo, Johannes Grezfurthner, the founder of contemporary art and activist group monochrom, as well as artist and cultural theorist Bonni Rambatan and media artist and video game designer Heather Kelley. Techno(sexual) Bodies aims to bring our desires out and consider the non-human elements of arousal. So what can that iPad really do for me?
Andrew James
MILK+ is at Videotage on March 27, The Techno(sexual) Bodies exhibition starts April 1.
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