Naughty Innovation?
“Arse Electronica”, a conference about pornography and technological innovation, provokes a series of interesting questions about how we view innovation. Regardless of the fact that we know more than we might be prepared to admit about innovation, we often still treat it as a rather sterile thing. That our baser instincts, or interest in sex, might generate innovations of a kind that are less wholesome and family-friendly than a new mobile phone, yet more innovative, is something we’d rather ignore. A quote from the conference website:
The porno effect accompanies every new technological development. Immediately after producing his famous bible, Gutenberg used his press to print erotica. Photography was utilized just as quickly. In 1874 the London police discovered 130,000 pornographic photos in the course of a single house search. The introduction of cinematic technology also confirmed the close relationship between pornography and technological innovation: in 1896 a pornographic film was shown publicly for the first time, two years after the premiere of the first films of any interest to the general public. Since then, more pornographic films than nonpornographic films have been produced. That in 1977 the first video cassettes to appear on the market featured pornographic content should come as no surprise. The development of the camcorder and the instamatic camera made it possible for anyone so inclined to produce porno in privacy at home. The fact that the first affordable Polaroid model was named “The Swinger” seems to indicate that the industry was well aware of this possible use.
How much of truly interesting innovation is lost to us because we don’t want to acknowledge it?
How many creative impulses are we denying ourselves with our “morality-blinders”?
Have you looked at something that offends you today?
There’s a book on the history of vibrators by Raichel P. Maines, The Technology of Orgasm; it is a good read.