[hackerspaces] Arse Elektronika 2009: "Of Intercourse and Intracourse"

[das ende der nahrungskette]

Arse Elektronika 2009:
OF INTERCOURSE AND INTRACOURSE

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

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Call for Papers, Performances, Machines and Sponsors.

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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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Please send us [arse2009 AT monochrom.at] your papers, ideas, machines!
Deadline: July 31, 2009!

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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
(*) Separate calls will be out shortly.

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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