A history of porn, piracy and digital art

 If you don’t know me, please let me introduce myself. I am Domenico  Barra, I am an Italian artist exponent of the artistic movement known as  Dirty New Media. I work with different digital media approaching with  critical and tactical spirit both the tools and the different cultures  conditioned by the use of computers and other devices connected online  producing numerous works “at the speed of the internet”. 

 “…people could also enjoy this digital art physically…” 

 If you haven’t seen much of my works then you are welcome to go on http://dombarra.tumblr.com  and you will see that I created many works, mostly gifs but also videos  and still images on various topic such as online surveillance, spam,  malwarez, emotions and porn and what you will find on my Tumblr be aware  that there is very hardcore material coming up as you scroll. 

 “…the use of the body online that is totally influenced by The Media…” 

 Basically  what I do is… [appropriation] via “save as”+ screen-capturing /  [remixxxing] via databending >>> [producing] &&  [problemizing] distribution and consumption {of porn} via dirty new  media DIY practices focusing on professional and amateur players in the  realm of cyber sex && pornography, the various (sub)-realities  canalized&connected&&defined by communication toolz &  peculiar languages influenced by the ever growing and dynamic and and  shapeshifting inter(net)worked  social/political//economical///technological scenarios. If you want to know why and what I do please read this . . . 

 "Dirty_New_Media_Art highly addictive" 

 Well, it all started when I was at school at the age of 12/13. I was  producing and distributing pirate porno material for my school friends,  it was a little hobby and a little business too as I was charging for  the costs and the efforts. I was also taking advantages of the scanner  and printer and paper, VHS recorder, floppy disks and then the internet  and CD-ROM and CD burner. I came across the work of Stan Brakhage when I  was studying at the Leeds College of Art and Design for an Access  Diploma for Higher Education and I was fascinated by the practice and  the different creative qualities of bleaching, burning and piercing 8MM  films and photo film. When I came across glitch art and I was exploring  the vast landscape for databending digital format, I was also realizing  how much the web and social network were influencing our relationship  with our body, with others body and sex. Massive focus on online  production and distribution of porn material, especially amateur and I  wanted to work on this hot topic, thanks also to the collaboration with jonCates and Shawné Holloway for the http://dirtynewmedia.tumblr.com — I  wanted to hack and remix the porn online visual presence and the porn  industry aesthetic experimenting the web and the digital for DIY  production and distribution of Pirate_Porno_Material. My idea was that  of creating with digital matter what Stan Brakhage with 8MM films. I was  also motivated into approaching digital as Brakhage did with film by a  conversation with Nick Briz that with his works on glitch art was  inspired by Stan Brakhage too. Databending digital format for me was  like bleaching, burning, and piercing film. I wanted to use the web to  diffuse my works and use hashtag to make it reachable and spreading the  projects on different channels, from Tumblr and Instagram, Facebook and  Reddit, maybe disappointing who search for “real porn” and found “glitch  porn” as I was tagging a lot of my works just #porn. I wanted to use  social network for my works because porn and sex were becoming and now  definitely are a social created and distributed act and event. I  published my works also on porn channel such as X-Tube, disappointing  the audience even more probably. I arranged all of the works in  different projects and published them on Tumblr. I chose Tumblr because  it allowed a lot of porn and people went looking for porn more on Tumblr  than on Youporn, as porn on Tumblr maybe gets perceived, as I said,  more social and so real. Especially because the porn industry was dying  in its pathetic and stereotyped narrative and fantasy and horrible  cinematography. You can view the works on Tumblr in this large full  screen template and scrolling you see all of the works that mesh into  one big messy glitch animated picture. I was very much interested in the  way that porn gets consumed online, scrolling becoming the act of porn  reading, we never consumed porn this way before, infinite porn scrolling  & reading. In this way the computer screen and the Tumblrs were a  sort of Internet era Peep_Show where people enjoy porn at home on  computer desk screen or away on tablets and smartphone screens. This  reminded me of the works of Lasse Braun that totally revolutionized the  way porn was distributed and consumed and produced in the 60’s and 70’s  and I thought that combining a dirty new media / DIY approach and using  databending as creative technic using social network to make those  glitched remixed works available was a good way to depict the reality of  contemporary online porn and cybersex in the age of social media. Also  the idea that people could also enjoy this digital art physically, I  mean literally physically, it was an intriguing aspect that moved me to  create many and different series of works on this topic. Of course when  working with porn and appropriating online found pictures it is  unavoidable to touch more than one aspect of online porn and sex such as  the appropriation of other people’s body by downloading the pictures  and publishing or using those photos for different purposes but that’s  why I tried to make my databending very hardcore to the point of making  the original picture nearly unrecognizable as I only needed a digital  image to start to work with. Of course we live in times where we pay  little attention to what we share online and who we share these contents  with, we are little aware of the consequences of all of our online  acts, especially regarding the use of the body online that is totally  influenced by The Media, even if sometimes a body online can lose its  identity, I hope my works, approached critically, can bring up these  type of questions in the viewers mind and people before posting nudes  online will think twice (photos of nudes online are perceived as  pornographic) as online fame can cost a big price as revenge porn,  bullism and gratuite public shaming. Of course, I didn’t make my works  to advocate porn but I am very positive about pornography, with the  depiction of sexual acts in all of its forms and also as a way to  achieve self-confidence, as a job or just as a way of living and having  fun. I hope that people becoming some time the main subject of their  porn experience and experiencing porn and sex in a more social way can  have a better picture of the state of the art of pornography and become  more smart about sex and respect sex workers and whoever gets involved  in this sexy world. 

 "Screenshot of http://piratepornomaterial.tumblr.com"

 I also built a bridge between the offline and the online world making  dirty new media pornography accessible in public spaces like streets,  parks, bars, trains, toilets thanks to the use of stickers and QR-Code  coining the hashtags DNMStreetArt and DNMAccessPoint. 

"RED_LiNK_DiSTRiCT sticker access point in Chicago, Illinois, USA"

 Last year (2016) I was invited to go to Chicago where I had the chance  to present my works and to talk about pornography, sex revolution, the  Berlusconcene and the objectification of women on Italian TV, DIY  practices for adult material production and distribution, the use of the  body online and glitch art. The presentation took place at the Leroy  Neimar Center of the SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) for  RE:MESH.WWWERK/s: an international series curated by jonCates. 

 

 "Doing that DIRTYNEWMEDIA talk at at the Leroy Neimar Center of the SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago)"

 Here below some of the works most representative of what I have described so far.

> Pirate_Porno_Material_01 > http://piratepornomaterial.tumblr.com/

> Pirate_Porno_Material_02 > http://piratepornomaterial2nd.tumblr.com/

> Red_Link_District > http://redlinkdistrict.tumblr.com/

> Dirty_Screen > http://dirtyscreen.tumblr.com/

> Rural_Sex_Remixxx > https://www.xtube.com/video-watch/RUR4L-S3XXX-R3M-XXX-b-ts-25650071

> XXX_Tribute_Me_XXX > https://www.xtube.com/video-watch/XXX-TRIBUTE-ME-XXX-26128371