SX-POIESIS¶
- Aesthetic experience of one self throw autoexploration, bodily selfconsciosness, sexuality
SX-POIESIS stems from the need to talk about sexuality in its most total freedom.
Exploring what lies behind the pleasure principle, that pleasure confined to the norms of heterosexuality and patriarchal systems, it creates new dialogues to dismantle taboos by re-coding them as resources, thus pushing body boundaries and self knowledge.
Sx-poiesis comes from the term self-poiesis ( 'self' + 'creation, production') which refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts;
of resisting established norms and structures;
of de-instituting the classifications through which identities are institutionalized and naturalized. (Athanasiou and Butler)
Through the construction of a do-it-yourself sensibility, open source biotechnology and body biohacking; erotic artifacts, sexual prostheses and a bodyfluid-based biomateriality are created.
MANIFESTO¶
CYBORG MAP¶
ENTROPY¶
Behind the concept a deep research was conducted focused on four main fields that intersect and dialogue in various ways.
Feminist Biology: Throughout history, the female body has been associated with taboo and misinformation a restriction that to this day continues to hinder the development of women’s intimate health and care, the aim is to make accessible topics of the body in connection to biological knowledge.
Feminist Porn: born in the 80s, thanks to Candide Royalle, former porn actress, founder of "Femme Productions", aims to be inclusive, giving visibility to practices, people, bodies, gender identities and sexual orientations that are usually excluded and that become active subjects, thus deconstructing any stereotype and toxic narrative.
Sex tech: Decoding sexuality and pleasure through sextech. Sextech refers to the combination of sex and technology with the intention of improving the sexual life of the human being, as well as supplying certain deficiencies and finding solutions to certain problems. "The erotic toy and its technological revolutions will give us a new perspective of enjoyment and self-knowledge".
Cyberfeminism/technofeminism: technology as a form of liberation for the female sex, it also provides an interpretation and debate on the feminist movement.
It integrates the creation of new languages, programs, platforms, images, fluid identities and multisubject definitions in cyberspace where women can truly re-engineer, redesign and reprogram information technology to help change the status of women.
A survey about conscious sexuality and conscious menstruation was conducted, the questions were multiple choices or free text responses and about 70 people replied.
Most of them are women, queers and nobinary identities, only few cis-men replied and the most refused to take part of the survey.
To the question Have you ever felt that your desires and sexuality have been oppressed?, most people answered sometimes but also a small part replied usually or always.
It is still a topic we need discuss about and open new conversations to “un-taboo” it.
Free text answers to the questions "How is sexual liberation claimed for you?" and "How do you like to be pleasured?" were inspected and its keywords highlighted, and took an active part in the creation of the music and voices of the performance art video, as the final presentation object of the project. Using the digital laser engraving on film analogue 35mm.
SX-ARTEFACTS.1_TABOOS & NATURAL CYCLES¶
** The first artefact is created around the topic of taboo and natural cycle.
Menstruation blood is still a topic that is so ashamed, that has so many taboos on top of it, when in fact it is the source of life and a core issue in returning to female self-government.
"Menstrual conscience " is a path that many still prefer to undertake and the reason is the stigma due to the absence of menstrual blood not only in our imagination but in the entire culture.
*USES OF MENSTRUAL BLOOD
There is a false belief that menstrual blood is a substance of waste such as urine or feces, but the truth is that it is not.
Our menstrual blood is made up of water, dead cells, lipids, proteins, hormones such as progesterone, and stem cells. And they have only found toxic components in those women who used compresses and/or disposable tampons.
So after knowing this, we wonder... have you ever stopped to think that our blood could be reused?
Well, surely it's something you never thought about because of the prejudices instilled by society. But the reality is that we can do great things with her.
Menstrual blood contains many regenerative stem cells so getting rid of it in each of our periods supposes a loss of resources that nature provides us.
In some tribes (still existing) they used their blood to treat wounds, fertilize the earth, beauty treatments and many other regenerative and nutritious uses.* <
To dismantle this taboo, crystals are grown out of menstrual fluids, using distilled water and borax/alum.
Following the process of crystalization did in week 9 I grown my own taboo-based crystals.
The wearable bodily fluids created on the “outside” of our body as a “brutal attack on our culturally conditioned aversions to fluids and body boundaries”, are then re-shaped in and re-conceptualised becoming a sexy lingerie part of a performative act.
The lingerie, created using the shibari knots technique (originated from Hojo-jutsu, a method of restraining captives and a form of torture, before morphing again into the erotic bondage Kinbaku) is immerged in the blood based solution for days and weeks until the crystals have grown on it and on the LEDs that are embedded.
The taboo artefact / lingerie is connected to a sound sensor for the musical performance act but also worn in everyday actions such as eating spaghetti, to claim its liberation from pre-established and structured everyday patterns.
PROTOTYPING¶
HOW WOULD YOU WEAR IT?¶
MUSIC PERFORMANCE¶
SX-ARTEFACTS.2_BIOMATERIALITY & SEXUAL PROSTHESIS¶
The second artefact is created around the topic of biomateriality and sexual prosthesis. Aims the production of forms of pleasure–knowing alternatives to modern sexuality.
“The counter-sexual practices must be understood as technologies of resistance, in other words, as forms of counter-sexual discipline (manifesto contrasexual. Precioso)”
The dildo is the first indicator of the sexual plasticity of the body and of the possible prosthetic modification of its contour, it challenges the roles of penetrated and penetrating. the roles of man and woman within the traditional sexual relationship also disappear: even a woman can penetrate, even a man can be penetrated.
The choice of the creation of the dildo in a new biomateriality is strictly connected with the exploration of the naturalness of one's body and its environment, allowing to investigate one's own sexuality, beyond pleasure, desires and fantasies without limitations or judgments. DIY artifact and self-esteem are intimately intertwined.
SX-ARTEFACTS.3_BIOHACK ORGASM¶
The third artefact is created around the topic of biohacking orgasm.
Exploring our own sexuality and power and give voice to our experience.
It is the communication channel of the cyborg, the radio waves, feminist waves, reverbarate in shared discursive space.
The data generated by Biosensors inputs embedded on the dildo artefact,capable of capturing vaginal contractions, heart rate, temperature and humidity, are sent by microcontroller to a computer/telephone and convert into music/voices.
The interactive music can enhance erotic feelings and sexual arousal in the way of biofeedback, then converted as well into output vibration sensors situated in erogenous body zones.
Reich's medical and scientific work revealed the existence of a radiating biological energy, the orgone energy.
Reich investigates the importance of sexuality for human life and its relevance in understanding society's problems.
DATA COLLECTION & BIOSENSOR DATA SONIFICATION
SX-ARTEFACTS.4_BACTOINTIMACY ALGORYTHM¶
The forth artefact is created around the topic of Artificial Intelligence, algorithm and bactointimate microbes.. Subversion, queerness and dissent are silenced, censored and hidden by algorithms prioritising only what can be monetised to the most people.
The aim is to recode the language and create a new one.
Hack the algorithm and uncensored the invisible, give space to our vaginal microbes in their own beauty and shapes using artificial intelligence and gans.
SEXUAL PROPAGANDA¶
The research and experiments carried out around the cyborg are converted into an experimental video art and performance, and recorded in an E-zine, in the form of a magazine, a sexual propaganda, which claims images and languages of sexual desire through a feminist lens.
It is a continuous evolution of an intimate self-exploration aimed at inspiring other people to do the same, breaking boundaries and taboo topics and freeing our fantasies without any judgment.
A possible future scenarios would be Integrating the artifacts into a haptic vest.
A haptic biolatex vest created using body fluids and biomaterials in which the biosensors, inputs/output are embedded to it, taking part of a interactive performance as act of unclaimed sexual pleasure.
E-ZINE¶
SX_POIESIS_TRAILER¶
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ciberfeminismo_Remedios zara
Porno Espanso_Ovidie
Pink noise_
Il corpo elettrico_
Porno-grafic and porno-tactic
Queer ecologies