The introduction of combination antiretroviral therapies in 1996 brought about a radical change in the temporality of HIV infection, moving us away from the event-time of the AIDS crisis to the expanded/expansive temporality of chronic ‘undetectability’. That, and the later extension of antiretrovirals as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, has dramatically shifted the lived temporalities of both sex and subjectivity among gay men who were able to access the new medical protocols for testing, managing, and preventing HIV. In this lecture, I draw from fieldwork carried out in Berlin, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and analysis of gay pornography, to map the new temporalities of sex and subjectivity that have been catalysed by the introduction of antiretroviral drugs, speculating on their limits and queer political potential, situated as they are at the intersection of neoliberal regimes of biomedical self-administration and sex understood as both an aesthetics and poetics of existence. If modernity developed through an incessant rationalisation of time, including of lived, embodied time, I argue that antiretroviral time has triggered the emergence of sexual behaviours and subjectivities that open up new avenues for thinking 21st-century triangulations of sex, subjectivity, and resistance being experimented with in bedrooms, sex clubs, and bathhouses across the developed world.
This session is part of the Queer Practices / Queer Embodiment remote transdisciplinary conference that aims to bring together artists, theorists, and practitioners. The conference continues our work of building a community that is focused on intentionally developing bodily practices. We want our space to be a place for political growth and experimentation using all the materials that bodywork, sex education, and cultural inquiry can provide.
We aim to take advantage of the opportunity for an online conference. We seek to engage a broader audience that may be familiar with sex-positive culture but is not necessarily attuned to a wider set of political concerns, or approaches to gender and sexuality that are more often encountered within academic, activist, and artistic spaces. We want to put together a conference that will be open to the public and focus on fostering challenging yet accessible conversation.
Queer Practices / Queer Embodiment is curated and organized by a collaborative team consisting of Andrea Rimon (an intimacy choreographer and movement artist) and Georg Barkas (a tying and sexuality educator) and Karada House in Berlin (a queer art/research space). It is sponsored by Karada House and Github for Good.
You can browse the full program and get access to this session/the conference here
Event Details
Date & Time: October 2nd, 2021, 7 pm – 9 pm CET (Berlin time)
Format: transdisciplinary conference
Audience: LGBTQIA+ & FRIENDS
Language: English, automated closed captions provided
Recording: yes, will be available for 30 days to the participants of the conference
What else to know
After your successful ticket purchase, you will be sent an email with all the necessary data for this event.
This event is free. You can also choose a payment for your ticket which will be used by Karada House to finance similar events in the future.
photo: Caio Oviedo
