Those crazy machine fuckers lovers at Monochrom are already gearing up (ahem) for next year's conference with an open call for sex machine makers to compete for the prize of "Prixxx Arse," an "unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics."

Their team of specialists tells us that it's a fully open call for machinery asking for, "a PDF containing description and pictures of your working device or a detailed proposal by April 30, 2008. We plan to present the winners of Prixxx Arse Elektronika in autumn 2008 @ Arse Elektronika." We're hoping that whoever wins the prize can deliver an opening night demo worthy enough for us to say, "Move over, Fuckzilla" ... followed by a battle royale of mechanized monster machine mayhem!

An unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics.

This is an open call for machinery.

Please send us a PDF containing description and pictures of your working device or a detailed proposal by April 30, 2008.

We plan to present the winners of Prixxx Arse Elektronika in autumn 2008 @ Arse Elektronika.

The winners will be honored with the "Golden Kleene" (*)

Signed:
A team of specialists

(*)
There was a young man named Kleene
Who invented a fucking machine.
Concave or convex,
It fit either sex,
And was remarkably easy to clean!

(limerick, attributed to John von Neumann)

Omaha artist Scott Blake is well-known for his cheeky bar code art, and now he’s going global this fall with a trip to Europe. Blake will spend a week with fellow artist and blogger Sean Bonner (seanbonner.com) at Net Culture Lab in Vienna. Bonner, there for a month-long residency, invited Blake to come for a week and present his work. Net Culture Lab is part of Monochrom Presents, a Vienna-based, art-technology-philosophy group. Its focus is on "pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism" right up Blake’s alley. To learn more visit barcodeart.com, http://www.monochrom.at and lab.netculture.at.

This weekend, Kink.com hosted the first annual Arse Elektronika Conference, a 3-day event that sought to examine the relationship between pornography and technological innovation through a series of speakers, panels, demonstrations, films and performances. Partially funded by the Austrian government, this international conference brought together over 25 experts who led discussions ranging from the sociology of small-town American sex machine inventors to how sexual minorities are using developing technology to democratize sexual information. With over 200 attendees and extensive positive media attention the Arse Elektronika conference represented a conquest for all involved. Kink.com was particularly proud to sponsor an event where technology, sexuality, and sociology could merge in a forum where their impact on each other would not only be examined, but also valued as a significant contribution to an important collective discourse.

There are certain events (temporary autonomous zones or TAZs) where you feel like you're living in a future society, or a future world. I often had this feeling during 70s Punk Rock Shows, or talking to J.G. Ballard and William S. Burroughs, and always at Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) shows. People say they experience this at Burning Man. I definitely got this feeling attending ARSE ELEKTRONIKA, curated by the Vienna art group "monochrom," hosted by kink.com (and others) at a no-sign location on Jessie St between 5th and 6th Sts.

[...]

The black painted interior led to a bar area on the left, a bathroom on the right (patronized by both sexes simultaneously) and straight ahead was the main audience room, with the stage to the left. Decor was authentic medieval castle, with iron rings everywhere. The ceiling had dozens of light fixtures — this was a film set. Behind the "auditorium" were authentic-looking prison cells, a community shower, and horse stables (sans horses). The audience was mostly dressed in dark clothes, with at least three people sporting neon magenta or bright red hair. Two young people had mohawks (more on them later).

The beginning of the Arse Elektronika was introduced by Johannes Grenzfurthner, a very amusing off-the-cuff speaker who is capable of instant improvised oblique responses to any question. The conference's focus was on pornography and its role in catalyzing/inspiring/leading the invention of new technology. As J.G. Ballard put it, "Sex times technology equals the future" (1972?) and the A.E. event fleshed out this prophecy, literally. There were new ideas introduced every hour, and some of them may have fallen into the category of "too much information." As this is a "family"-appropriate newsletter, much of what was witnessed will have to be withheld until later...

[...]

DORKBOT: TODD BLAIR FUNDRAISER

It’s dorkbot time again. However, this is a very special dorkbot where 100% of the proceeds will go directly to support our friend and long-time dorkbot supporter, Todd Blair. Todd a 15+ year veteran of SRL as well as collaborator with Tim North, Chico McMurtrie, Lynn Hershman, and countless other visionaries, suffered serious head trauma in an unfortunate accident in Amsterdam after the recent SRL performance there for Robodock. He remains in a coma and his injuries are severe.

Due to the generous donations of Kyle Minor, Eric Paulos, dorkbotSF, many SRL members, and our speakers, we are able to pass on all of the proceeds from this dorkbot to the family of Todd Blair for his recovery efforts which are expected to be quite substantial.

Please join us in celebrating Todd’s recovery in this special dorkbotSF event.

When:
Oct 10 2007 Wednesday 7:30pm

Where:
Kyle Minor Design Studio
Pier 33
Embarcadero @ Bay
SF
http://kyleminordesign.com

Speakers:

Ken Goldberg - Robots As Environmentalists: Searching for the Ivory
Billed Woodpecker using Robotic Observatories for Natural Environments
http://www.c-o-n-e.org

Eric Paulos - Citizen Science
http://www.paulos.net

monochrom
http://monochrom.at

Steven Lassovszky - Airplane GPS/Telemetry
http://loc-nar.com

Joe Grand
http://grandideastudios.com/

Mark Pauline
http://srl.org

AUCTION with auction master Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom
(list of auction items to be posted on the dorkbot site soon)

CASH BAR

Catering by Marc Powell
http://foodhacking.com

Gifts

DONATION: $10 or more if you can

http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/

We invite you to a nice little Arse Elektronika (or whatever) after-(or before)-party.

We are leaving fabulous San Francisco pretty soon, and we'd love to meet all our friends without having to think about cables, video streaming, microphones, lights and fucking machines.

Monday, October 8; 8 PM @ House of Shields (39 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco). (Thanx, Shlomo!)

Backup, the German edition of my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has just been published by Heyne. Down and Out was the first novel released under a Creative Commons licensed, distributed for free on the same day the book was shipped to stores — and I'm pleased to announce that Backup is the first German translated novel to be released under a CC license on publication day!

Random House is also working on a German translation of my second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, working with Michael Iwoleit, the translator who worked on Down and Out.

Many thanks to Johannes and Evelyn at Monochrom for their help in translating the oddball concepts like "Whuffie" and "Bitchun Society."

- suicide bots

- qdot

- sean bonner

- lane hartwell

- jonathan lassoff

Call it pornovation or sex-tech. No matter the label, the marriage of sex and technology is gaining more attention. And now the Arse Elektronika conference will spend this weekend discussing how software and hardware are getting funky under the sheets.

This weekend in San Francisco, futurists, tech experts, sexologists, and a who's-who list of emergent sex and technology experts are lined up for talks and panels at Arse Elektronika 2007, a conference about "pr0n and innovation" — or the intersections of sex and technology. At our local Porn Palace, this first-of-its-kind international meeting of the (very geeky) minds on the subject of sex and tech looks to be both a humorous (ahem) poke at past sci-fi visions of "future sex" and some realistic explorations of technology's undeniably constant relationship with sex.

Or maybe it's just what happens when you combine the monkeys with the typewriters. You know, you either get Shakespeare or a monkey humping a keyboard. Likely, both — but I think many of us hope it's a pleasant combination of the two. Most often, it's not. For instance, there's some yummy porn on my iPod right now, but still some scientists feel the need to invent electronic singing condoms. Deep down, I can't help but think these powers need to be used for good, not evil.

[...]

It's surprising that Arse — named teasingly after the highly respected international art and technology festival Ars Electronica — is the first conference of its kind. Looking at the schedule of speakers and demonstrations, it's refreshingly far and away from the typical porn (or sex, or tech for that matter) conference.

This Sunday at 1 PM I'm giving a talk called "A Futurist's History of Technology" in San Francisco at a conference called Arse Elektronika, devoted to pornography and technological innovation. Mostly it will be a tour of sexual technologies in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including some devices that may surprise you. I'll conclude by talking about where we’re headed with sexual technologies over the next 50 years.

If you want to come out and say hi, get more details at the Arse Elektronika conference site. The conference starts Friday, and there will be awesome speakers all day Saturday and Sunday, including Carol Queen, Violet Blue, Kyle Machulis, and many more!