Pornography and the Pleasure-Paranoia Debate

Prof. Katrien Jacobs will launch her new book The Afterglow of Women's Pornography in Post-Digital China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) at 7pm on 23 October 2015(Fri) in Art & Culture Outreach (14/F, Foo Tak Building, 365-367 Hennessy Road, Wan Chai). Jacobs will give a short illustrated talk while inviting artists, scholars and activists to comment on topics such as pornography and pleasure, eroticism and sex during the (post) Umbrella movement, sex entertainment for left-over women and men, diy porn and capitalism, government surveillance and Internet censorship. The event will come with refreshments and the audience will be invited to join the pleasure-paranoia debate. Special guest appearances by Wong Ky and Egret Chow Book summary: Chinese artists, activists, and netizens are pioneering a new order of pornographic representation that is in critical dialogue with global entertainment media. The book examines the role of sex-positive feminisms as well as queer communities and aesthetics in various types of sexually explicit media in both mainland China and Hong Kong to investigate pornography’s “afterglow” (a state of crisis and decay within digital culture) by focusing on a new generation of artists and scholars who have made statements about gender and body politics. Information and website about the book: http://libidot.org/wp/wordpress/?page_id=2196 Katrien Jacobs is associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has lectured widely and written several books about sexually explicit media and art, social activism and surveillance politics. www.libidot.org/blog (Photocredit, Ren Hang, Untitled)