Group Exhibition: piXXXel
Saturday May 10 7pm
Boom Gallery, Cincinnati
1940 Dana Ave.
Cincinnati, OH 45207
Artists explore the effects of technology on sex, dating and romance. Sex–this animal impulse, this most intimate of human experiences is frequently mediated and captured by machines, commodified and marketed by corporations, and continually reappraised by individuals. Using a wide variety of media including performance, video, drawing, photography, sculpture, sound art and painting, responses from these eight artists range from humor to despair.
Sexuality is inseparable from technology. Nearly as quickly as a particular technology is created that technology is put to use by a few clever individuals for sexual purposes. Drawing, painting, and photography brought us pornography. Video improved it. The electronic battery brought us the vibrator. Most recently the internet has changed our perception and experience of sexuality in dramatic ways, both physical and psychological. From finding a suitable partner, courtship, to bleary-eyed late night sexts, the transmission of information through screens permeates our experience of reality and coupling. Like religion for the middle ages or electricity to the twentieth century, the screen–and thus its most integral feature: the pixel–dominates our waking moments and governs our lives, often transparently. Does this sea of mediated information and communication change our collective and individual expectations of sex in unrealistic ways? Or can new technologies bring us greater opportunities for suitable partners and satisfaction? Masturbation, dating, queer culture, pornography, sex machines, etc.–area artists interface with these themes and more in an exhibition which marks the the debut of Boom Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- Kate Tepe's game for PiXXXel: Sex and Technology group show
- Jiemei Lin's installation for PiXXXel: Sex and Technology group show