[aha] ARSE ELEKTRONIKA 2009. Conference, film festival, DIY workshops, performances

[T_Bazz]

monochrom's
ARSE ELEKTRONIKA 2009
"OF INTERCOURSE AND INTRACOURSE"

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Conference, film festival, DIY workshops, performances.

Oct 1-4, 2009. San Francisco.

With talks, machines and performances by Allen Stein, R. U. Sirius, Noah 
Weinstein, Randy Sarafan, Uncle Abdul, Jonathon Keats, Ani Niow, Jason 
Scott, Annalee Newitz, Rainer Prohaska, Douglas Spink, Tatiana 
Bazzichelli, Violet Blue, Eleanor Saitta, Reesa Brown, Saul Albert, 
Monika Kribusz, Kim De Vries, Pepper Mint, Micha Cárdenas, Rose White, 
Elle Mehrmand and many more...

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Up-to-date info on festival site:
[ http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/ 
]http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

Tickets:
[ http://bit.ly/arse2009-tickets ]http://bit.ly/arse2009-tickets

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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 theperson'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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Festival Schedule:

October 1 (6 PM-midnight): Film festival, opening
ceremony and Prixxx Arse Elektronika Gala @ Roxie Theater
October 2 (8 PM-midnight): Art, pixels,
interactive performance @ Center for Sex and Culture
October 3 (11:30 AM-9 PM): Talks and discourse @ PariSoMa
October 3 (after 10 PM): Party and performance night @ Femina Potens Gallery
October 4 (12 noon-10 PM): DIY workshops @ Noisebridge

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Up-to-date info on festival site:
[ http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/ 
]http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

Tickets:
[ http://bit.ly/arse2009-tickets ]http://bit.ly/arse2009-tickets