netporn/postporn and queer/ feminist activism

I want to do some work around netporn/postporn and relations to queer/ feminist activism and visual art. Should you have any suggestions about UK performers/ visual artists or netporn producers who consider their work activist (feminist / queer), please contact me (af93[at]sussex).

At the moment I am looking at the work of Katrien Jacobs‘ blog and her book ‘Netporn: DIY Web Culture and Sexual Politics’ (2007).  In her book she argues that there is an extensive porn culture online which is based on amateur practices and p2p exchange which makes non-commercial sexual communication possible, despite the corporate branding of cybersex that is taking place or the moderation of web spaces. In particular, she uses the gift paradigm to argue that the porn exchange, just like the link exchange for bloggers, signifies the existence of an exchange culture (a gift economy) which potentially undermine ‘capitalist porn industries’. Sharing of porn is seen as a socil activity which, just like gift exchange, aims at social cohesion in practices of play which are different to the ‘discipline and punish’ of the nation-state. This applies to amateur porn, realcore and queer amateur porn.

There have been two netporn criticism conferences (2005 & 2007) in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures, Katrien Jacobs and Matteo Pasquinelli. It was The Art and Politics of Netporn (2005) which aimed

‘to discuss the potential of art and critical research in times of heightened information surveillance, filtering and censorship. The research presentations, art projects and performances viewed netporn as a complex network, with impact and growth, like any industry or media operation. Conference presenters addressed the ‘schizo’ climate of hype and censorship, focusing on the ethics and aesthetics of digital media environments and activities such as blogging, webcamming, chatting, p2p porn, live journals, confession boards, mailing lists and zines’.

This also produced the ‘C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader’.

The second one was  C’Lick me (2007)-

‘We want to re-think the society of the netporn spectacle: the digital zeitgeist that has given us a hypersexual body. What to do with our bodies and digital machines? Pornography has found its way into every nook and cranny of the Internet, but how can we still be queer radicals or body artists, private hedonists or fervent bloggers in this climate? Do we still need to have a sanctified space like an underground or a dungeon, when we produce de-sire with our floating networked bodies? Porn went porn-chic years ago. Today net-porn goes into Myspace bedrooms and everyday “realcore”.

I want to do some work around netporn/postporn
and relations to feminist activism and visual art.

Would you have any suggestions about UK performers/ visual artists or
UK netporn as feminist activism?