A review from Arse Elektronika

A review from Arse Elektronika (by Ann Antidote)

(complete text to be found in the Krake 2012)

Arse Elektronika is a compilation of texts and presentations from the conference with the same name, organized by Vienna-based collective Monochrom. “We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that’s why Monochrom’s conference Arse Elektronika deals with sex, technology and the future. As bio-hacking, sexually enhanced bodies, genetic utopias and plethora of gender have long been the focus of literature, science fiction and, increasingly, pornography, this anthology sees us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer. ” reads the manifest.

One grey day in November I found an envelope containing this book with both “the Krake” and my name on it, due to an avalanche of chances. Browsing this book in a hurry I recognized electronic diagrams and lines of code, quite familiar from my previous life as an engineer, I caught words like sex, gender, hacking, control theory, feminist pornography, kink, body extensions. I had immediate flashbacks of one of my favorite books, “The Cities of the Red Night” by William Burroughs, and it was not before long that I found, selbstverständlich, his name, his imaginary and even his writing style quite present all over this book. “Ok, I just have to write about it”, I thought.

At a first glimpse, Arse Elektronika appears to be a book that demands you are an engineer or a geek in order to understand it. It isn't, it is a book that asks more or less politely from you that you believe that you don't have to be engineer to understand its main topic - the interconnections between technology, humanism and therefore our sexual boundaries, our identity boundaries, their reflection in social matrix, and possibilities to extend those - or be inspired by it, to be challenged by it.

If I had to explain in a nutshell what is inside this book, I would start by listing examples on how technology, not only recently, has changed our bodies, our sexuality and therefore our society. There are people out there living with artificial limbs, with more or less neuronal control; people who modify their body to accommodate it to their gender identity via surgery and/or hormonal intake; saying tender words to our absent loved ones - like we do now on the telephone or on skype - would be unthinkable some centuries ago. In these almost every day life examples, we see how technology was used to solve a problem or fill a hole, and how our bodies, emotions and society integrated it. Now, if we use this as a starting point, what if we all sit together and try to think what other possibilities are out there, and what could they do to our life, our sexuality, and our concept of humanity? Would you like to have an embedded LCD display on your arm showing you -real time- your lover´s heart, beating? Would you build a DIY set for having remote, intercontinental, sex with one of your lovers, transmitting most of seeing, sensing, hearing sensations? What about computer controlled electrical sexual titillation? And most of us used the internet to find polyamorous like-minded peers, right? Would you like to add an extra pair of arms to your torso? What about Krake-like tentacles? And how would society accommodate this? Would it be more variety-friendly? Would this press hetero-sexism out of the picture? Would it still be regarded as human? Ethical?

Arse Elektronika is an exploratory book which will leave questions unanswered, for the interested reader to look further for the answers. It will eventually inspire you and show you the principles on how to build the mentioned DIY remote sex set or the so-called pussy pad, but it is not a “how to” manual. The manual, the actual set, and the identities and societies you will be living in with it will have to be constructed by you.

Bibliography:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrom_Gruppe

http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

Poly em Portugal, Krake, parte II

Poly in Portugal II, for Krake #3

There was a "poly in Portugal" in Krake #1. I did this not (only) out of vanity: IMNSHO, it is in interesting and empowering to know what other "polies" are doing, which joys, problems, conquests, defeats, they experience. Meanwhile, some things developed in a way that seldom happened in Europe, with poly-portugal taking active part in CSD Porto. That very naive (I can barely read it) article can be found here.

For completeness, that original article was written (beginning of 2006) when I lived for some time in Porto, and had lots of time in my hands, as my primaries were back in Germany. I busied myself with creating a poly regular meet-up ("stammtich") and trying to cluster people under an umbrella group. Today´s story resumes from the point when me and a handful of others started to regularly meet (virtually and personally) to discuss poly and LGBT activist issues, as well as to have some serious glass-in-hand fun together. The effect was, that besides ruining my career, reputation and liver, those meetings started to gain momentum, and after some time, poly-curious and poly-indeed earthlings started to pour in the mailing list, and to cluster around an ideal.

Meanwhile, Spring 2006, the first CSD in Porto orga meeting took place. For a lot of reasons (long), Porto activists where not identifing anymore with the revindications done by Lisbon CSD (mainly around same sex marriage) and wanted to focus more on gender identity/orientation, discrimination vs diversity, and anti-normativity. It was only natural that poly-portugal would be there, as founder member, hand in hand with other groups (LGBT or not). Off course, the fact that all people in poly-portugal, back then, came from other LGBT activist groups played a role in this. Nothing poly specific came on the first Manifest in 2006, but we scripted it very diversity oriented, with tints of poly and libertarian arguments, which started the discussion in LGBT circles. The time for more specific wording regarding polyamory and "familiar" diversity came only in 2008. Here some extracts, for your eyes pleasure (Complete Manifest, see [port] [deutsch]):

That inclusion was not consensual, and unfortunately some LGBT organizations, headed by ILGA, decided to leave. Others (e.g. Rosa Panthers, a radical interventionist group) supported poly louder than ever, adopting poly and emotional rights as an LGBT and democratic topic indeed. That conflict, mainly going around the argumentation that "Poly is not a LGBT topic" or "Poly will give a bad reputation to the movement", its arguments and how they were solved, will not be addressed here, for lack of space, but it is my belief that it will be a recurring, actual discussion on other CSDs, in case the poly topic is raised. I would like to continue that discussion with other activists.

The movement is still growing. We have been working closely with the press (which, actually, is not always turning the way we want it), publishing a bit, continuing participating in Porto CSD orga (...but not in Lisbon CSD orga, N.A.), and the regular/irregular meet-ups. Presentations for public in general are also held. We don't have in the moment the resources to do more, actually we are quite stretched, and we have recently published a communicate in which we define us as "a leaderless reflection and intervention group where decisions are consensually taken".

For the future I expect the group to continue growing in numbers, maturity, consistency, and activity specially after all visibility it got. The shock waves started by the work with the press and Porto CSD are still spreading. It is only the start of the discussion, not the end.. Nevertheless, we lack in the moment the critical mass to have people willing to represent the group among other activists or to pursue the already started promotion activities. Which strategies are being used to overcome that, successful or not, would yield a too long article, so I will keep them out. As conclusion, I and others trust that the strenght of the group is exactly its diversity, that it will yield creative solutions.. We have people from all walks of life and poly flavours, from all political colours, gender and sex orientations, ages, countries, languages etc.. So, let's wait and see what happens. I am optimist.

Thanks for reading. Questions, comments and suggestions more than welcome.

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revista Krake #2: Goya, devaneios

Uma pequena contrbuicao minha para a revista Krake. A oferta de cerveja grátis para quem ainda se lembrasse acabou.

A revista Krake é uma fanzine com periodicidade indefinida que compila textos e artes várias de interesse para "mulheres que nao estao de acordo com a natureza", a bem dizer, para a mulher poliamorosoa e indomável. Compila cancoes, poemas, experiencias, ensaios e muito mas mesmo muito autohumor. Se querem saber como extrair o máximo rendimento da agricultura polibiologica, ou duma oficina politecnica, é aqui que devem procurar. O número dois vai sair no fim do corrente mês e pode ser pedido através do link acima.

A perfect day

Escrevi este texto em Janeiro de 2005, no mesmo dia deste acontecimentos aqui descritos. Recentemente a vossa já conhecida Gwendo resolveu compilar uma zine poly em Munique, a Krake, e pediu me alguns textos. Desenterrei este que traduzi e adaptei para inglês. Quem tiver interesse em receber a Krake, que é escrita em alemão com excepção dos meus textos e se dirige a um público feminino (queer) deve contactar-me ou á Gwendo.


6/Jan/2004 - "A perfect day", or, "on the nature of Present and Future in relationships".

We had a beatiful day today, cold and bright, planted in the middle of a grey and condescending January. We decided to jump in the car, throw some wine and cheese inside a picnic basket and just drive to that medieval village we contemplated visiting for so long. In pure honesty, what was really important was not quite the village itself, but driving there, and images like that of a k7 box tapping lazily against a thermobotle filled with tea on the bottom of the car.

The day was so bright that we drove with an open car, heater constantly busy. Nothing between us and the blue sky except icy wind. Buried in berets, caps and coats, we insisted in the decadent poetry of the open car. We crossed the kms of suburbia where nobody who wants to be taken seriously really wants to live. We suffered with a smile and dreamy eyes all the fatal colds and lung infections that the bypassers would predict (or even wish) us.
The rolling hills immediately afterwards were crossed at antisocial cruising speed, more adequate for contemplative beings than for drivers in a competitive world, "Durutti Column"´s gentle music as soundtrack. All other cars on the road got, thankfully, impatient and eventually overtook us, finally leaving us alone on the asfalt, mountains looming proud on the horizon as sentinels. Being January, the shadows were dark and long against that impossibly bright green. We were very happy, happy inside, and happy with us. All of us. Very likely we were asking ourselves in silence (well, I was, at least, definetely) if we shouldn't be together again, specially after we recreated such a beautiful moment without any effort. But nobody voiced it loud. Maybe because all of us knew that this thought was not only in one´s head. Maybe because we were in a way together again.

We got to our destination, and unanimously decided to skip the cultural visit, expontaneous empty heads we all are, and just indulge into walking along the river where so many before us strided through the centuries. Let's assume it, is has been a quite "bourjoise" saturday, and not even shopping was overlooked, in an improvised antique shop contiguous to the city walls, smelling of mold and "saudade". This shop we left with the already usual amount of odd music reliqs and unlikely objects which will end up some day in another antique shop after we become dust, without lips to kiss and love anymore.

But, allas! Suddenly the fight erupted, violent, unsummoned, redundant and ridiculous like always. It is the end of the state of grace, the World becomes ugly in a second, and each of us only wants to go back home, to familiar territory, where one can be alone and not face this another defeat. We know then, that this fighting is an old story and that rivers don't run backwards.

Now it is clear why we are not together anymore. Because of never being able to handle such fights. But at the same time, we are silently certain that such moments tell us clearly how precious the Present is, and that they remove all fear from the Future. If this is our beautiful and bitter Present and we have no expectations from the Future, then we are free because we have nothing to loose. Ours is the complete beauty of a moment because we don't try to confine it.

We flee to the car, because only a trip back home can give us the isolation needed. After such bitter discussion none of us can endure to sit together. But suddenly we hear music, and we follow it, like children. There is a party going on. We are explained that is a very seldom heppening, takes place only every seven years for centuries and that people drive specially for the occasion (and we land on it unknowing.. so typical) We drink some with the crowd, and let the party creep inside us. We are still bleeding inside, but now we are somehow in peace. We go to the car. We lay a table cloth over the motor cover, blue and white squares over metal, and make our picnic there, in the cold air. The crowd and the dance are a distant rumour now.

Now we are home. I am writting this. We pacified our feelings over a spartan but correct table. The same blue and white table cloth, some beans, bread, wine, some manioc as dessert. Coffee, "medronho" and a hand rolled cigarrette to close it. I spent the whole trip home cunning ways to ensure I could be alone, not see these two lovely but so irritating darlings for some time. Too painful to see them. But as soon as we arrived, it was just automatic to sit at the table and eat together, like we did for years, like a family that we never stopped being, even after we are not together anymore. I watch them talking on the sofa as I writte this. They know what I am writting about.
I am almost finished with the writting. I think I will publish it online, and then go over there, to the sofa, rejoin those two, rejoin our bliss. I don't know what the evening is reserving me, but I am sure it will be wonderful, after a wonderful day. Maybe this evening has no Present and no Future, or maybe it has. But this is not important. Love doesn't care about the potential of a nice and confortable Future. Love is something that just happens and knows no boundaries.

Seven in a bed

Escultura de Louise Bourgeois: Seven in a Bed,

Imagem sacada daqui : http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42408000/jpg/_42408520_louise_bed416.jpg

Agradeço á revista Krake a ideia :-)

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Antidote: Perfil poli-activista completo

(embora diga "completo" no título, este post está permanentemente em construção!)

Antidote, não é apenas o pseudónimo usado para escrever neste blog. As actividades poliactivistas, (Actividades de informação e divulgação do poliamor como modo de vida válido e merecedor de respeito), com ou sem o poly_portugal, têem sido levadas a cabo com o mesmo pseudónimo. O pseudónimo não é usado para encobrir alguém que escreve ou faz o que lhe apetece sem querer assumir responsabilidades mas sim proteger uma vida profissional. A maior parte das pessoas que se movem no activismo/jornalismo/etc conhecem Antidote pelo seu nome e sabem que a podem chamar à pedra se necessário.


(em inglês e exaustivo: http://www.diepolytanten.de.tc/impressum/profiles.htm)



Por áreas de actividade:


* Internet:
- Publicação regular deste blog, o Our Laundry List (informativo, divulgação e contra-corrente)
- Criação e manutenção da página "Die Schlampige PolyTanten" a primeira página em língua alemã dedicada ao poliamor para "damas de todos os géneros" (mulheres e pessoas de identidade transgénero).
- Moderação da mailing-list com o mesmo nome e mesmo público alvo.
- Moderação da lista poly_portugal (grupo electrónico de discussão, auto-suporte e intervenção sobre poliamor).
- Participa no blog polyportugal.



* Workshops, apresentações:
- Apresentação, com outras (J. e I.) do workshop "Uma, Muitas, Nenhuma" na Ladyfest, Viena 2007 (resumo, programa).
- Apresentação e discussão sobre poliamor ("O que é poliamor e como o vivemos") a um grupo organizado de jovens lésbicas, "Ragazza" (também com J. e I.).
- Workshop "Poly, why and how to network", com Steffi, na Conferência Schmacht de Páscoa, em Hamburgo, 2008.
- "Conversas sobre Poliamor", 5 de Junho de 2008, co-organização poly_portugal e Panteras Rosa, com Sérgio (resumo).

- "Poly, Poly support-groups and poly-activism" apresentada conjuntamente com R. ("nuvens no céu azul", deste blog), no "1st Munich's "Poly Begegnungtag", 8 de Fevereiro de 2009 (resumo em breve).



* Marchas LGBT
- Participação, individual, e como poly_portugal, na organização e fundação da 1a Marcha do Orgulho LGBT Porto 2006.
- Participação do poly_portugal na marcha Orgulho LGBT 2007 como associação (ver "colectivos" em http://marcha.orgulhoporto.org/).


* Panfletos
- Elaboração, com Lara, do panfleto "Poliamor no Dia da Mulher"


* Artigos publicados:
- Vários artigos sobre poliamor na Zona Livre, publicação mensal do Clube Safo. (alguns).
- Vários artigos publicados na Krake, "revista de apoio à mulher poliamorosa" (Alguns).
- Bichana, zine das Panteras Rosa (Alguns).



* Mesas/encontros de discussão/informação poliamor:
- Comecei as mesas mensais de discussão e auto suporte sobre poliamor no Porto em 2006 (paradas entretanto)
- Comecei alguns encontros em Lisboa não regulares (exemplo)
(os encontros regulares são felizmente entretanto continuados e organizados exemplarmente por outra pessoa, ver http://www.poliamor.pt.to para mais informação)
- Banca de informação, perguntas e respostas sobre poliamor na festa Porto Pride em 2006 e 2007.
- Moderadora e organizadora do encontro mensal ("stammtisch") QueerPolyMuc, mesa regular sobre poliamor para mulheres e transgénero.



* Campo de Verão
Co-organisou em 2008, co-organisa correntemente em 2009, as Férias em Vale Galdérias ("Ferien in Schlampenau"). Workshops, convívio, networking, utopias. Mais informaçoes, ver die PolyTanten em "events".



* Contactos com a Imprensa:
Entrevistas á imprensa (Sol, Grazia, Máxima e Jornal de Notícias), sob pseudónimo: http://poliamorpt.com.sapo.pt/press.html


* Divulgação da lista poly_portugal:
- flyer antigo
- flyer novo


Escrevam: antidote [arroba] imensis [ponto] net

(under construction)

polylogo

This logo was developed by Gwendo, and you should feel free to download it for all polyfriendly purposes.

You are also free to pick up a pen and convert those crosses into arrows if you have to.
More about this logo, the Krake project, and for praisal and so on: polylogo@gmx.de

Poli em Portugal (ou o que eu vi disso)

This article is adapted from something I wrote for the alreadyrefered Krake zine from Gwendo (polylogo@gmx.de). I dont claim everything to be correct. I am giving a report of my six months I spent here paying special attention to poly visibility and oganising meetings.

Comments and questions welcome!


A very personal view on the poly scene (as it let itself be perceived) in Portugal


I started writing this with the thought of making a cold, uncommented and distanced description of what I was able to see from the polyamory culture in Portugal, in the 6 months I spend back in my motherland. But right in middle of writing it I came to the conclusion it was impossible for me to do so, that I had to bring here some of my personal background and emotions.

Maybe I would try to explain why I landed in poly first of all. I will try to be brief. The idea dawned in my mind more or less without external influence. I was finishing my studies, which is something that makes one think about the future, and got very disappointed by the relationships I saw around me. Either they were powered by an idea of love as submited to rules and regulations, oriented to a very long distance future, or were romantic passion driven. I have also seen schizofrenic cases of relations that try to follow both models, to my bewilderment.

The romantic passion is something that burns the house. Lives the moment, it is obsessed, it is exalted, it is pure pyrotechnic virtuosismo. Kills individuality, burns the future, raises inflated expectations. Ok, the outcoming poetry of it all is just great, and probably plays some role on the basis of Western Literature and Art, but you cannot expect to live long in such exalted state. One becomes first the mirror of The Loved One and then The Loved One's living picture. You become her. Of course I know that one cannot choose if passion knocks loudly at the front door. But already then I had the suspicion that many people seek this state desperately as an objective in itself, even more important than finding the eventual Unique Loved One.

I have difficulties in speaking impartially about the other model for which I even lack a decent name, but I will do my best. It is regulated by the idea that a relationship is successful only if it is long and it "works" in everyday life. It is "pass/fail" evaluated. Like, if the love of today is the token that it will work tomorrow, and tomorrow, and after, for years to come, no matter how much the people develop and their views change. In this model, strict rules are to be followed, and I have the suspicion that not only your actions and habits are to be regulated, but also what you should think and feel. In short, I suspect that also love suffers an attempted regulation (and "kindly explain me how can love be regulated?", is my eternal question to these people).

Without going too biographical, I was more than a decade in theoretical contemplation of some idea of poli and occasionally reaping some stoms and arguments with people because of some shy attemps at it. I recall from those years the sense of defeat and the isolation, the feeling I was not being understood by people around me. After some time I resolved this and settled my life in a more constructive way. Praxis began. For good and lasting. I had support of a lot of same minded people I found meanwhile in the german city I was living in.


Because I was aware how the very existence of these people did so much for me, and I was so thankful to have had this support, I decided I had to do the same in Portugal. In our days, there is so much you can do remotely over internet, and I was going to spend half an year there anyway, that I dived into the idea of founding and/or consolidating a poly discussion and support group in Portugal.

I did some research and found quickly that something already existed. There is a quite complete internet site, in portuguese, spanish and english, www.poliamor.pt.to, and a mailing list for discussion and support poly_portugal. The list is around 1-2 years old and hosts around 25 members, most of them just readers. It has not been growing and is not very active. Most of the people in it feel a sympathy for the poly ideas but never really had real life experience. Because of this, the "more experienced" others are shy about sharing their real-life poly experiences. I've been trying and making contacts with them individually outside the list just to feel the pulse and motivations. The huge majority of the list lives in Lisbon, 300 km from Porto, where I am sitting, so it is difficult to organise any type of events (discussion tables, parties, dinners,..), a couple of members live in Aveiro, others in the US. Some of the people are also in contact with the poly scene in Spain and UK. The list seems at first sight hetero and men dominated, but recently I start to think it might be a different story. Don't judge a group by its loudest voices.

There was a get-to-know dinner from the Lisbon group in January but then I was too tired to travel. No more events in Lisbon to this day. Because of not having been there, I cannot give a very complete picture about the situation in Lisbon (where like mentioned, the majority of the list lives), simply because I don't have it myself.

I don’t have any illusions that to consolidate a group takes time, that it takes other people, it takes time and that it takes some luck, that the right people come into contact. Also, some words on the social environment: I perceive me and my fellow portuguese as individualists. I don’t mean egoists. I just mean we are not group oriented as in northern cultures. We rely on ourselves, our creativity and wits, and have a tendency to find groups and associations an inefficient waste of time. Activism is regarded with suspicion, and the few who don’t feel this way, tend to engage in activism with fervor and exageration that shuns more moderate people. Off course this is just a model, but helpful to explain the apparent contradiction that I have heard and met stories of people who live or have lived in a poly way, but don’t consider useful to join a discussion group, to network, simply to become in some way "visible" or even "political" (everything you do that others see is political) about it. As a side comment, all this paragraph can be extrapolated to GLBT activism in fact, but that is another quite long laundry list.

What I have been doing for the moment is just agitating the waters in certain scenes. I started a blog to write about polyamory in portuguese in this blog to stimulate the discussion. Fliers have been written and distributed. Inside the GLBT groups I have been involved with, I started publishing translated articles I find good, or my own articles (and collecting the questions and comments they raise). I have privileged the politically engaged lesbian and the incipient bi communities as target groups. There has been some reaction, but not that much until now. The same holds for all the attempts of creating a regular discussion table. But as the weather gets better people are getting more social and I feel the interest steadily growing.

As a way of conclusion, just some words on some comments I got about Portugal typically being perceived from outside as conservative, and therefore poly unfriendly. Well, usually I like saying that there is an enormous variety of backgrounds here, from someone who has studied engineering but writes poetry to the illiterate and poor who still finds resources to feed a blind cat in an alley, so all the possible reactions that can exist, are all the possible reactions you will definetely get. Another point is, relationships and emotions are very important in Portugal, it is something that takes a lot of time and energy in everybody's mind and heart, so people tend to dwell not too long on the logic side of the argument, jumping quickly to gentle understanding of the idea of poly you are trying to explain, or a quick flaming of it. I had heard very unpleasant comments about my ways, but on the overall people were quite receptive and thankful that I shared that with them. Often I heard them saying that they knew similar stories from someone else they knew. I see a future here, and until now it was great fun to engage in all this.

Thanks for reading,
antidote[arroba]imensis[ponto]net

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