SEX APPEAL - And other relevant books

SEX APPEAL - The art of allure in graphic and advertising design (Edited by Steven Heller)

I got this book out of the library. It consists of many essays revolving around sex as a secret tool in advertising and design.

One essay i found particularly interested is titled "Technologies of undressing: The digital Paper Dolls of KISS By Elena Gorfinkel and Eric Zimmerman.

"Input: Keyboard and mouse. Output: sound and visuals. The distinctive challenge of interactive cultural products lies in the liminal space between the boundaries of input and output, the space in which rigidly defines choices unravel, beyond all design, into the emergent complexity of culture."

They next talk about the desperate clicking and dragging that is necessary to strip the doll and how it is perverse. the way in which the hand and fingers interacting with the mouse and keyboard is parallel to masturbatory motion.
Once naked, the doll becomes somewhat a disappointment, when there are no garments left to maneuvre, or remove, there is no more interaction, nothing left to stimulate pleasure.
These online virtual sex dolls reveal the sensual interactions between some users and computers.

I found this particular essay interesting to read as the topic is discusses relates sex and pornographic activity to technology, much like one of the themes I want to incorporate into my work.
In addition, when reading a book titled "The photographic image in digital culture" - edited by Martin Lister. I came across an essay titled;
"The panic button (in which our heroine goes back to the future of pornography)"
There was many useful suggestions and arguments made that relate to my work however, similarly to the KISS dolls discussed in "SEX APPEAL" there was a whole section devoted to computer based interactive technology which discussed how computers and computer generated images and software was 'a natural' home for pornography.

"The cultural histories of the invention of computer based pornography do indeed have much in common, but there are also most definitely some features of computer based pornography which mark a whole new political and representational context." (Page 78)

Next the book suggests that that privatised computer based pornography had brought about a whole new case of moral panic due to the lack of human contact in virtual sex.

The oxford dictionary can find no existence of the word 'pornography' being used before 1864.

There was an advertisement for digital sex and computer based porn programmes published in 'future sex magian in 1993 which read;
     "Hot magazine honeys, You've hungered for these honeys throughout countless magazines and now you can have them permanently on CD-ROM. Girlfriend... is a true artificial intelligence programme... she will remember your name, your birthday, your likes and dislikes."

John tagg has discussed similar ideas - " Perhaps even in the most fully realised erotic image, suture cannot be sustained since the contradiction of the flat actuality of the paper and the fullness of the body of desire is too great. There much be a mechanism to re-immerse the distanced subject." John Tagg.

Virtual Valarie - another online pornographic programme with a point and click feature, allowing the user to own there own online sex doll to play with.
"A cybernetic fantasy - YOU control the action" (Page 83)

The key pornographic potential with such programmes is that they offer interactivity, in that the characters 'of what you want them to do' in front of your own eyes, rather that imagining such activity inside the pages of a magazine.

"whilst all pornography cab be said to be about control to a large extent, here the control is literal, not in fantasy, and thats the selling point." (page 83)

Sadie Plant 1993 - "Machines and women have at least one thing in common: they are not men."

I find it interesting how all of these programmes are aimed at men. I can find no evidence of one of these digitally interactive programmes which is aimed at hetrosexual women. I also discovered that Virtual Valarie comes equipped with a "panic button" which is intended for use by men who are "dating valarie on company time"

I have realised that there is a strong connection between such vitual sexual 'slaves' and cartoons. not just in the visual representation of the virtual women, but in the whole tone and content, they seem a lot more about control and the opportunity to watch the female characters do stupid things, rather than actual sexual gratification.

This is something i am trying to portray in my final image, the doll like cyborg features will represent this link between technologies, sexual appearance and the role of the desirable aesthetics in pornography, where strange technological fetishes can be satisfied.