A Sexual History of the Internet

Deemed “the internet’s sexual historian” by the LA Times, US artist and technologist Mindy Seu brings her acclaimed participatory lecture-performance to Vivid Sydney, following sell-out shows across North America, Asia and Europe.

Revealing the pervasive and perverted origins of our digital tools, A Sexual History of the Internet questions how technologies have shaped and been shaped by sexuality, decades before AI-relationships or the OnlyFans economy. 

For starters: Did you know that the first JPG was a digitalised Playboy centrefold? Or that an early operating system was called Sex OS?

Pulling together facts, cultural legacies and hidden histories, Seu engages the audience to read lecture citations aloud through a shared script accessible via your mobile device* in a collective performance of re-citation.

Together, you’ll examine the relationships between techno-development and sexuality, innovation and autonomy, lust and extraction. 

*This performance requires a mobile device compatible with Instagram. Please have Instagram downloaded on your mobile device prior to the event.