Arse Elektronika 2009 Festival, 10/1 - 10/4

Annalee Newitz speaking at Arse Elektronika 2008. (credit: Laughing Squid)

Arse Elektronika 2009, the annual conference on sex, technology and the future, kicks off tonight. Here's how this year's kinky conference (“Of Intercourse & Intracourse”) is being described.

We may not forget that mankind is a sexual and tool-using species. And that’s why our annual 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 year will see us explore the possibilities that fictional and authentic bodies have to offer.

Yeah, we're not sure what that means either. Fortunately, Violet Blue, who will be on hand at most of this year's events, is here to help. This year's sci-fi-y porn bash "promises to be a buffet of futuristic and fantastic sexual innovations, artistic explorations, and virtual hallucinations of the sci-fi-meets-pr0n kind," Blue notes.

Highlights include:

• Tonight's opening night bash, featuring Annalee Newitz speaking at an "explicit film festival" at the Roxie Theater in the Mission.

• Friday, October 2: Johannes Grenzfurthner’s “Dating Yog-Sothoth and Fucking a Zombie” at the Center for Sex and Culture at 8 p.m.

• Saturday, October 3: the delicately-titled "Big Fat Future Sex Day" over at ParisSoMa, with sexually-charged chats going from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

• Sunday October 4: a hackfest: at hacker space Noisebridge, where "sex hackers will demo how to create a Joydick (and other sex/gaming hybrids), you can learn how to make your own ’steampunk’ vibrator from the expert, the Thrillhammer’s Allen Stein will show you genital-based haptic devices and much more."

Violet can tell you more over at Laughing Squid.

Tickets can be purchased at Brown Paper Tickets. Check out the festival's entire schedule here.