Arse Elektronika


Arse Elektronika is a recurring conference organized by the Austrian arts and philosophy collective monochrom, focused on sex and technology. The festival presents talks, workshops, machines, presentations and films. The festival's curator is Johannes Grenzfurthner. Between 2007 and 2015, the event was held in San Francisco, but is now a traveling event in different countries.
The name Arse Elektronika is a pun on Ars Electronica, the name of an arts and technology organization based in Austria.
Speakers at past conferences have included Violet Blue, Mark Dery, Richard Kadrey, Annalee Newitz, Carol Queen, Susie Bright and Rudy Rucker, with demonstrations by Kyle Machulis of the blog Slashdong; Heather Kelley; Allen Stein of Thrillhammer; and other engineers of the pornographic website Fucking Machines.
Among the artistic contributions and installations presented as part of Arse Elektronika were works by Dani Ploeger, Nas Zikrach, Laura A. Dima, Philipp Fussenegger, Stefan Yazzie, and Offerus Ablinger.
Arse Elektronika became a point of reference for many debates around sex and technology.
WWW monochrom.at/arse-elektro...

Main conferences

  • 2007: The first conference, dealing with the impact of sex on technological innovation and adoption.
  • 2008: "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep: Critical Perspectives on Sex and Science Fiction," focused on sex and technology as seen through the futurist lens of science fiction, as well as depictions of science fiction in pornography.
  • 2009: "Of Intercourse and Intracourse" dealt with bodies and the modification thereof, including wetware, gene therapy, biotechnology and body modification. Talks also speculated on the social impacts of these technologies, particularly the implications on heteronormativity if biological sex becomes easily changeable.
  • 2010: "Space Racy", dealt with issues of space, both in an architectural and aeronautical sense. Topics included the possibility of sex in outer space, the gendered and/or sexualized nature of built spaces, interspecies romance in video games, and an interactive installation called Six Feet Under Club in which participants could have sex while buried in a surveillant coffin.
  • 2011: "Screw the System," dealt with sex, technology, class politics, and culture.
  • 2012: "4PLAY: Gamifuckation and Its Discontents" dealt with sex, technology and games.
  • 2013: "id/entity" dealt with sex, technology and identity.
  • 2014: "TRANS*.*" dealt with technology and sexuality in societal and personal transition.
  • 2015: "Shoot Your Workload" dealt with technology and sexuality and work.
  • 2023: "Sexponential" dealt with artificial intimacy. It took place in Linz, Austria in September 2023 at the culture center DH5.
  • 2025: "Plug & Play!" was held in Vienna, Austria, in March 2025.

Additional exhibitions and performances

Arse Elektronika organizes exhibitions and lecture performances world-wide that are not always part of the actual conference. In April 2010, the first Arse Elektronika exhibition "Techno Bodies" was presented at Videotage in the city of Hong Kong; it was curated by Johannes Grenzfurthner and Isaac Leung.
In March 2019, monochrom presented a sex robot called Nekropneum Fuckenbrust Neckhammer 40k.

Publications

pr0nnovation? Pornography and Technological Innovation
Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction
Of Intercourse and Intracourse – Sexuality, Biomodification and the Techno-Social Sphere
Screw The System – Explorations of Spaces, Games and Politics through Sexuality and Technology
Sexponential!
  • Edited by Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Jasmin Hagendorfer; published by edition monochrom.
  • Featuring contributions by Offerus Ablinger, ALMA de BruiXes, Big Tiddy Oni-Chan Collective, Bloom, Kate Devlin, Jos Diegel, Claudia Virginia Dimoiu, erfolgsfaktor FRAU e.V., Günther Friesinger, Philipp Fussenegger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Jasmin Hagendorfer, Lisa Hahn, Christian Heller, Kay Kender, Thomas Kranabetter, Tanja Kubes, Quill Kukla, Stefan Lutschinger, Toni Loh, Ania Malinowska, Wenzel Mehnert, Kaname ‘Kenny’ Muroya, Marija Nujic, Ekat Osipova, Dani Ploeger, Toma Pilein, Jason Scott, Natalia Shepeleva, Matthias Smetana, Dan Steinberg, Katta Spiel, Kat Suryna.