GMU:Designing Utopias: Theory and Practice/Martin Müller

Hatching Alien Babies

Starting Point: Research

At the end of my Bachelor’s studies I started a research about the performance of sex, specifically on the online video-chat platform Chaturbate.com. The platform is freely accessible and features performers acting out various sexual acts – most often against a financial transaction. A lot of them use remotely controllable bluetooth-sextoys (teledildonics) that can be activated by the financial transactions of the users. In the platform and especially in the use of the I found a lot of subversive „countersexual“ (term borrowed from Paul B. Preciado) potential, that is unfortunately not used at all. Most of the chats follow patriarchal, pornotopic and capitalistic standards that are so hardened in our society. Ever since I wrote my thesis on this topic I have been wondering how I can find a practical approach to work with those teledildonics and possibly with the platform in order to crack open the subversive, posthuman, postgender potential of them.

For more info on the topic, see the chapter about Dildos from my thesis „Performing Sex: Sexual Practices at the Interface Between the Physical and the Virtual on Chaturbate.com“: File:4_Dildo.pdf

The Idea Forms

After realizing the idea’s potential to form an utopian prospect, I brought it to class this semester.

As a starting point I got two of the most frequently used teledildos on Chaturbate.com in order to use them for a performative or installative approach. I came up with the wish to interfere with the functions of the dildos by hacking them. But since I have not a lot of knowledge of electronics, silicone casting and programming, I had to start from the beginning.

During the process I realized, that in order to really crack open a subversive potential, it would be worthwhile to open up the process already and make it more communal. This is how the idea formed, to look out for fellow sextoy-hackers and form a community, entitled to follow the open-source approach. It should be free for anyone to join in, in an anticapitalistic, non-hierarchical, sex-positive manner. We will learn from each other’s various skillsets – nobody needs to be a programmer/hacker/sex-enthusiast. We will figure it out togther.

However, In order to start off I still want to find out how to build my own teledildo…

The Process

So I started to recreate the sextoy I had bought: (the original toy: Lovense Lush)

First of all I cracked open a cheap sextoy that I had (the lovense toys were too precious to crack open, since I might want to use them for installations/ performances still...). This was a vibrating cockring with several modes and intensities of vibration (wich is an important feature, if I want to have a range of variation in my sextoy)

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(cracking open the vibrating cockring. The circuit I found looked quite simple: A microchip connected to a simple switch, a vibrating motor, a LiPo Battery and the magnetic charger.)

In a next step I wanted to learn how to mould the dildo shape out of silicone. I want my dildo to be transparent, in order to make the electronics inside visible.

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(Making the cast of the original dildo. I decided to use silicone for the cast because it seemed easier and more practical for a two-parted cast - which was necessary, because the object does not have any flat surface.)

Copying the circuit:

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References of my Research

Richard Schechner and Sara Brady: Performance Studies: An Introduction. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge 2013, p.38.

Judith Butler: Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York: Routledge 1993, p.2.

Erika Fischer-Lichter: Ästhetik des Performativen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2004, p.162.

John L. Austin: How to do Things with Words. The Williams James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford: UP, 1962.

Lea-Sophie Schiel: Sex als Performance. Theaterwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf die Inszenierung des Obszönen. Bielefeld: transcript 2020, pp. 72-73.

Susanna Paasonen/ Kaarina Nikunen/ Laura Saarenmaa: “Pornification and the Education of Desire”, in: Ead. (eds): Pornification. Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture. Oxford: Berg 2007, p.1

Susanna Paasonen: Carnal Resonance. Affect and Online Pornography. Cambrige, Mass.: MIT Press 2011, p. 2.

See Humberto R. Maturana/ Francisco J. Varela: Der Baum der Erkenntnis. Die biologischen Wurzeln menschlichen Erkennens. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch 2010.

Nathan Widder: “Matter as Simulacrum; Thought as Phantasm; Body as Event”, in: Laura Guillaume/ John Hughes (eds): Deleuze and the Body. Edinburgh: UP 2011, p.99.

Ella Brians: “The ‘Virutal’ Body and the Strange Persistence of the Flesh: Deleuze, Cyberspace and the Posthuman”, in: Laura Guillaume/ John Hughes (eds): Deleuze and the Body. Edinburgh: UP 2011, p.125

See Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UP 2008.

Michael Heim: “Virtuality”, in: Marie-Laure Ryan/ Lori Emerson/ Benjamin J. Robertson (eds): The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 2014, pp. 514-519

Marco Caracciolo: “Virtual Bodies”, in: Marie-Laure Ryan/ Lori Emerson/ Benjamin J. Robertson (eds): The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP 2014, p.503.

Donna Haraway: “A Cyborg Maniefesto. Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth-Century”, in: Id.: Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books 1991, p.150.

Wikitubia: Projekt Melody. https://youtube.fandom.com/ wiki/Projekt_Melody (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Merriam Webster: fan art. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fan%20art (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Merriam Webster: anime. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anime (last visited September 24th, 2021)

dj gs68: Hentai. (June 26th, 2003) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hentai (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Cam Model agency: Chaturbate Token Calculator. https://cammodelagency.com/chaturbate-token-calculator/ (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Chaturbate Broadcaster Guide: Interactive Toys. https://support.chaturbate.com/hc/en-us/ articles/360048893331-Interactive-Toys (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Chaturbate Broadcaster Guide: Welcome to Chaturbate!. https://support.chaturbate.com/hc/en-us/articles/360048400712-Welcome-to-Chaturbate- (last visited September 24th, 2021)

Chaturbate Broadcaster Guide: Tips for Success. https://support.chaturbate.com/hc/en-us/ articles/360048893751-Tips-for-Success (last visited September 25th, 2021).

Projekt Melody: Projekt Melody. Origins [Official Debut]. https://youtu.be/Z1dLmpfdL1g (last visited September 25th, 2021).

Jacob Kastrenakes (November 24th, 2020): What happens when a Virtual Streamer doesn’t own her Body?. https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/24/21591488/projekt-melody-twitch-ban-copyright-strike-digitrevx-vtuber (last visited September 25th, 2021).