David Schneider

"I want you to think about your last sexual experience," says the lithe Asian dancer, swirled in gauze and wire and magnetic tape, with a needle-like antenna spiking from her head at a dangerous angle.

It's difficult to consider anything else at "Turn On," a Saturday night technology/sexuality art, music and fashion event arranged by Fluxcore. Unless it is liquor, or the lack of it. By 9:30pm, the chic capacity crowd drains the available libations and I am standing, tremblingly sober, in the shadow of a fetish model who calls herself Messy Stench, and towers over me in six-inch platforms with computer cords looping through her furious hair.

An artists' collective created by students at Columbia College, Fluxcore adamantly rejects corporate sponsorship, giving them creative independence but a distinct lack of funds for an extra beer run. I mention to a designer standing next to me that intercourse, whether sexual or conversational, requires lubrication. "Well, there is that wall over there," she giggles, jerking her thumb in the direction of the art exhibit, which includes several exquisite miniatures derived from the "Kama Sutra," a porthole peepshow, blow-by-blow illustrations of fellatio, and a painted female torso opened to reveal circuitry inside. Most delightful are a series of pornographic pastels, framed in antique ceramic ovals suitable for a matronly drawing-room. Is this a 21st-century Boucher, extending his leer into the future with salacious drool, or a comment on porn's normality via its ubiquity?

But if the sexuality is humming along like a well-oiled machine, thankyouverymuch, our technology appears more cantankerous--cell phone appeals to the anodyne, alcoholic world outside are countered by the voice of another type of cyberdominatrix, explaining that "All circuits are busy; please try again later." So we wander inside to the Harem, Artist Relief Ltd's lush and expansive private club, where DJs, anti-establishment short films, a female impersonator and models are whiplashing the crowd about. Spectators clamber on sofas to get a better view of superbly indecent latex gear by Laura Vex Clothing and clever couture by Gerry Quinton and Lisa Maruna before a modern dance performance that could only be described as a lesbian android pas de deux.

"Who wants to be touched?" the dancers ask. "We need three volunteers." And they choose--not the whooping blokes angling for a grope, not the sex kittens pouting by the Persian rug--but three perfectly normal-looking women who, with eyes closed, are tickled and commanded to think of their latest erotic exploit. "Did you do it to a DVD? Did you come together? Were you satisfied? Are you satisfied?" The exhibitionists turn provocateurs and I still need a beer.

(2003-09-10)

Also by David Schneider

Sensuous Chicago: Taste
I was famished for excitement in a relationship gone stale, and consequently whipped up this bad hash of an idea that an `amuse bouche' would curry her favor
(2003-08-05)

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