SAN FRANCISCO -- Forget wondering whether androids dream of electric sheep. The real question is: Do they have erotic visions and robot orgies?
From movies and television to comic books and the internet, science fiction not only creates fantastical visions of the future, but provides a template for the continuing evolution of sex, according to Johannes Grenzfurthner, founder of Austrian art collective monochrom.
NSFW Seminar: Arse Elektronika Hosts Sex Machines, Music Fiends
"Good science fiction is not just a metaphor for what's happening in the present," said Grenzfurthner (pictured). "It often predicts the future and how it can be."
Annalee Newitz, editor-in-chief of sci-fi blog io9, called sex a key component of sci-fi. "When science fiction re-imagines the world, sex has to be part of that," she said Wednesday in an e-mail.
To give the sex-tech revolution a virtual dose of Viagra, Grenzfurthner invited dozens of sci-fi authors, technophiles, sexperts and futurists to San Francisco for this week's Arse Elektronica, a three-day conference about the ever-titillating intersection of sex and technology.
Jokingly named after highbrow tech and art festival Ars Electronica, the event kicks off Thursday with opening ceremonies hosted by io9's Newitz, who plans to dole out tips on the dos and don'ts of sci-fi sex. (For example, don't have sex with your fembot in a puddle of water, but do have a ménage a trois with two Cylons.)
The event couldn't come at a better time: With sci-fi shows like Fringe, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Heroes dominating televisions' fall lineup, and a slew of geeky movies like Avatar, Transformers 2 and The Day the Earth Stood Still in the pipeline, science fiction has never been more popular in mainstream media. Not to mention the integral role that porn has always played in propelling technology forward.
*Matt Ganucheau demos one of his creations at Arse Elektronika 2007, a mannequin rigged to make sensual sounds if her receptors are appropriately triggered. Her name? *The Moaning Lisa.
There will be several sex machines on display at this year's event, including a "licking" machine outfitted with a silicon tongue, a computer-controlled device displaying erotic images and a seismic-sensitive sex toy that vibrates when an earthquake is occurring.
San Francisco-based interactive designers Chris Noessel and Nathan Shedroff trolled through hours of footage from TV shows and films like Doctor Who, Barbarella and Blade Runner to get a look at how Hollywood sells the promise of sex in the future.
Although virtual reality interfaces -- like those seen in Strange Days or Minority Report -- and interactive matchmaking services are common, sex with machines proves the most popular on screen, according to Noessel.
"It's mostly sexbots," he said. "Largely because they're easy to cast."
But it's not just mechanical advances that are changing sexual experiences. Grenzfurthner and Richard Kadrey will host a talk on "science fucktion," or porn-heavy fantasy literature, and other Arse panels will explore alien intercourse, homoerotic amateur science fiction and technofetishes involving prosthetic limbs.
Fan fiction, one of the few arenas where horny sci-fi fans can trade their off-screen fantasies about characters from shows like Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who, is gaining steam on the internet.
German researcher Jens Ohlig created software to mine data from hundreds of slash fiction stories, a genre of fan fiction that focuses on romantic relationships between characters, to identify correlations and clusters among the internet-enabled literary porn crowd.
"It may not be what critics would consider high-quality literature," said Ohlig. "But there is a real desire for those fantasies -- and the internet is the only place you could publish that kind of work. It's something that could never happen in mainstream media."
Arse Elektronika organizer Grenzfurthner cited cyberpunk author and sci-fi legend William Gibson, whose 1984 book Neuromancer described cyberspace and the world wide web nearly a decade before its existence, as a motivating factor behind the event.
Grenzfurthner said he hopes Arse attendees contribute new ideas and realize their own fantasies as the sexual-technological revolution unfolds.
"This is only the tip of the iceberg," said Grenzfurthner. "It's science fiction in the making."
*Photos: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid; Lane Hartwell/Wired.com *
See also:
- NSFW Seminar: Arse Elektronika Hosts Sex Machines, Music Fiends
- 7 Reasons Your Boss Should Send You to Sex Conferences
- Best Robot Love Stories, From Wall-E to Weird Science
- Bot Bartenders Sling Drinks at Roboexotica USA
- Torchwood Production Begins; Barrowman Wants Sex Toys
*Underwire 2.0: Jenna Wortham's Google Reader, FriendFeed**, Twitter; The Underwire on Twitter and *Facebook
