[spectre] Technésexual: Organic Interface for Erotic Mixed Reality Performance

[micha cárdenas]

english: http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1847
italian: http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1834

Technésexual: Organic Interface for Erotic Mixed Reality Performance
Txt: Micha Cardenas  & Elle Mehrmand

Biometric sensors, made cheaply available by do-it-yourself (DIY)
prototyping platforms such as Arduino, allow a shift away from visual
interfaces to proprioceptive interfaces, away from the touch of a
finger and towards a more internal, embodied form of sensing. One
possible effect of this shift is away from the command-control
methodology which was a historical basis for cybernetics, and towards
a form of modulation and cooperation akin to intersubjectivity. In
this paper, we will consider recent writings on interface relevant to
the shift from external to internal, or from haptic to organic,
discuss our experiences creating and using them, and explore some of
the implications of this shift.

As an illustrative example, we will discuss our work technésexual, a
performance where we commit erotic acts in physical and virtual space
simultaneously, using heart rate and temperature sensors to amplify
and modulate the sound of our heart beats for two audiences. This
performance explores how relations between people, and between people
and technology, change in Mixed Reality environments. technésexual
uses the body as a musical instrument to produce sound with the
Puredata programming language, in order to bridge the physical
performance space and the 3-dimensional multi-user virtual environment
of Second Life. The sounds of our heart beats are also sent into
Second Life and emanate from our avatars as they too commit erotic
acts. This performance involves what we call an "organic interface",
or a physical interface which responds to one's organs. Erotic touch
becomes a way to activate the body and change its internal state.

Read the rest at http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1847


-- 
micha cárdenas

Co-Author, Trans Desire / Affective Cyborgs, Atropos Press, http://is.gd/daO00
Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California, San Diego
Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org

gpg: http://is.gd/ebWx9