My Boys Can Swim! The Great Sperm Race
By Leonardo Calcagno
Ever heard the expression “My boys can swim?” Well at the ARS Electronic Festival in Vienna, they got down to the real deal. On September 3rd and 4th, visitors had the opportunity to submit a semen sample (participants were encouraged to jerk off to porn and ejaculate into their condom) and donate the spunk to a sperm race. Each sperm unit was assigned a numerical code and entered to the race, while the lucky donor could observe his sperm cells trough penetrative radio microscope. The sperm were then digitally photographed (enlarged 1,000x) at the finish line. Female visitors were encouraged to bet and wager on the sperm race..
This race was a way to promote the breaking of social taboos in regard to reproductive technology used widely in the world and a direct assault on how we look at our sexuality in the future. “Facilitating an encounter with science means also seeing the entire reality of this science and not just pretty pictures of it only this way can people make contact with science and find a way to approach it,” said Reinhard Nestelbacher, a molecular biologist at the University of Salzburg.
The electronic and digital artist community that staged the race was also using it as a platform on ethical and moral messages for people to think about the future of sex.
“Giving the opportunity to the people to see up close their own sperm you make them think about their human potential as creator and destroyer in the era of technology. Internet and pornography sites have changed the way to acquire sex and masturbate,” explained M. Teresa Pujol, a digital biologist at the University of Barcelona. “Dont be shocked about masturbation; it’s a normal sexual function and everybody does it. The sex industry is the one that makes more money in the net and there’s millions of people using sexual products. The foundation of life is sex, and the digitalization of life as we know is changing everything and everyone.”
Madonna and Jodie Foster use it and many other well-known personalities, but still with the so-called sexual openness of our society, it seems sex is still a disturbing subject.
The ARS Next Sex platform gave us a great festival of our sexual future, by examining human and post human sexuality in the age of cloning, in vitro and genetic engineering.
Other highlights from the festival: Do we need humans, anymore?
The decoding of the human genome, cloning of human embryos in Great Britain and the field of genetic engineering have all changed the way we look at human sexuality and reproduction. For instance, Nobuya Unno, a researcher at the University of Tokyos Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, has developed an artificial womb capable of incubating goat fetuses. This method has been seen by many scientists as a big scary step to eliminate the mother’s nine-month pregnancy term. The repercussions of this technology are enormous. Think about it.
By the way, a 31-year-old Austrian named Lemon was ranked first in the races.
Leonardo Calcagno, well know writer in Montreal Canada. He’s been writing for local Canadian, Americano and European e-zines and zines in French, Spanish and English for almost 5 years. More known to get hate letters from right-wing housewives and to get into fights with promoters who don’t let him interview bands! You will mostly see him eating tofu dogs and drinking Guinness with his laptop in Montreal writing another article about politics, music and sex. Graduated with a bachelor degree in International Politics with a minor on international law… his parents are still wondering why he took on a life of sex writer! Tattooed with Che, Husker Du and ARA! Played chino-Hispanic punk on Les Kalisses D’immigrant, Trash Blues on Les Tetes Reduites and now stoner rock on Your Sister ! He contributes on Freezerbox.com, Kerozen, Indymedia.org, Stooky.com, Eroticandy.com, Biotech Montreal Action, QuebecTel, Zona de Obra and other zines!
For more of Leonardo’s work, please visit www.montrealnightguide.com and www.montrealconfidential.com