A sex worker art collective exploring:
Intimacy through lies.
Authenticity through commodification.
The digital as the real.
PROJECTS
Trick Mirror
Contract
Low Art/High Standards
E-Viction
Personas zine
UNVEIL
About Us
Press
BLOG
One Year After E-viction
Statement on Censorship: E-viction
CONTACT
From the Rupture emerges Body of Workers
We are launching Body of Workers as part of the Eyebeam’s From the Rupture festival, along with the seven other fellows from the Rapid Response for a Better Future residency. We hope you’ll join us for our talks with Juno Mac, Nash Sheard, and our satirical panel discussing Body of Workers and our Eyebeam Residency Phase 1 project, E-Viction. More on all that below:
Launch Day Program
Feb 20th, 2021 (EST)-
starting 3:10pm: A conversation between Juno Mac + Ze Royale (BoW)
- starting 4:15pm: A chat between Yin Q & Marr (BoW) + Nash Sheard (EFF)
- 4:55pm-5:10pm: In the Flesh: Real Artists, Real Studios (shot and edited by Empress Wu, starring Domme Discordia, Liminal Praxis, and Shayla Lange)
- 5:10pm-5:20pm: Introducing the Body of Workers platform
- 5:20pm-6:30pm: Low Art/High Standards: A satirical panel examining the relationship between sex work and the art world
Low Art/High Standardsis a fictional panel which poses six archetypes from different positions in the sex work movement and the art world in dialogue about the Body of Workers platform and the art piece E-Viction (2020). Each archetype has something to gain. Each holds a different funhouse mirror up to the viewer.
As sex working artists, the validity of our creations are challenged at every turn: the erotica we make is censored, and the art we create is unrecognized. Both Body of Workers and E-Viction pose the question: what can we learn from looking at sex work through the lens of art? In this panel, we will explore commodification, the eroticism of censorship, and the political stakes in reclaiming space for sex workers online.
While we find ourselves in the midst of a global health crisis, sex workers are also finding themselves in a crisis of access to digital space. Corporations’ rampant gentrification of the internet, along with laws like SESTA/FOSTA, are encroaching on our access to vast swaths of the virtual world. By challenging, parodying, and subverting the politics of online space, these projects seek to reimagine what the internet can be -- not only for sex workers, but for everyone.
The panel begins with three screenings of satirical tours of sex workers’ “artist studios,” before launching a discussion of Body of Workers, E-Viction, and the lines between sex work and art.
Characters
| THE CURATOR [Performed by Tina Horn] A curator at the Contemporary Museum of American Art. Received the “Hot Curatorial Award” in 2020 for their commitment to showing the most titillating art by the most marginalized and tokenized artists across the US. Produced the catalogue Relational Thinking Through Artistic Dialogue. |
| THE DEALER [Performed by Empress Wu] Head of The Dealer Gallery, with locations in New York, Los Angeles, and Milan. Their first show Piss/Art was a legendary success, and they are renowned for their capacity to turn art into gold. |
| THE COLLECTOR [Performed by Lena Chen] Works in a distinguished financial institution, and has a strong interest in supporting sex worker art in every way that makes him feel more generous and necessary. |
| THE CRITIC [Performed by Ze Royale] The foremost scholar in their field of post-postmodern hyper-criticism. They wrote the book Queering Queerness: Towards Even More Queer Theories of Contemporary Performance.  THE ARTIST [Performed by Niko Flux] Almost has a BFA in Painting. Now does bespoke one on one art pieces with high paying collectors. You can find more of her body and work on the Body of Workers platform. |
| THE LOBBYIST [Performed by Mistress Blunt] The head of a wombyn-led anti-trafficking nonprofit, and a leader of WAP: Wombyn Against Pornos, of course. In 2020 she was recognized as “Mother of the Feminist Movement Award” for having personally rescued dozens of survivors who have since become feminist role models. |
Cast
Open Studio Artists:
Liminal Praxis: EPB is a writer, visual artist, performer & researcher who plays in the space between theory and practice. In her writing, she parallels her observations of the art world with academic discourse and the politics of sex work. She is the Head Mistress of Liminal Praxis, an online space which contains archival material from performances beginning in 2001 and running through 2021. These performances touch on themes between esoteric & erotic, head spaces & somatic impressions, lived experience & multiple theoretical frameworks.
Shayla Lange: Shayla Lange is a Brooklyn-based Pro Domme and kink educator. She likes dogs (both animal and human), cheese, and long romantic walks down the fasteners aisle of the hardware store.
Domme Discordia: Domme Discordia is a professional dominatrix of nine years, currently based in NYC. Discordia, aka Disco, aka Joules McKnuckles' projects have included Thirst Fursdays, a monthly queer art and music residency, pirate transmissions for People Will Radio, hosting absurdist speed dating with Erica Nix, and various engagements with Holodeck Records videos.
Panelist Performers:
Tina Horn: Tina Horn hosts and produces the long-running kink podcast Why Are People Into That?!. She is also the creator and writer of the sci-fi sex-rebel comic book series SfSx (Safe Sex). She is a LAMBDA Literary Fellow, an AVN nominee, the recipient of two Feminist Porn Awards, and holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Sarah Lawrence. Tina is currently working on her first scripts for film and television. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TinaHornsAss
Ze Royale: Ze Royale is a writer, performance artist, sexual anarchist, and pleasure activist whose philosophy of subjectivity and individualism is threaded in all of their work. Provocation, eccentricity, and erotic neurosis are shown through visual representation. Ze performs in text, film, and via chanting rituals in the music duo Zoid^. New work: performance installation called Daymares. @ze.royale
Empress Wu: Wu is a social media coordinator and digital archivist for arts nonprofits, who enjoys being mean to people for money, and nice to them for free. Her work has been featured in Peachfuzz Mag, Big Medium Gallery, Satellite Art Fair, Leslie Lohman Museum, and Performa 19.
Niko Flux: Niko Flux is a Pro Domme by day, traveling artist by night. She is the co-founder of Veil Machine and a member of Red Canary Song.
Danielle Blunt: Danielle Blunt (she/her) is a New York City based professional Dominatrix. Blunt is a co-founder of Hacking//Hustling, a collective of sex workers and accomplices working at the intersection of tech and social justice to interrupt state surveillance and violence facilitated by technology. Blunt is on the advisory board of Berkman Klein's Initiative for a Representative First Amendment (IfRFA) and is one of the 2020 recipients of EFF’s Pioneer Award. You can follow her kinky adventures on OnlyFans and AVNStars.
Lena Chen: Lena Chen is a Chinese American writer and artist working across performance and social practice. Named “Best Emerging Talent” at the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image (Frankfurt), she has performed and exhibited at Transmediale (Berlin), Die Digitale (Düsseldorf), Museum of Modern Art (Antwerp), Färgfabriken (Stockholm), Tempting Failure (London), and Baltimore Museum of Art, among others. She holds a B.A. in sociology from Harvard University, and is currently pursuing her MFA at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art, where she holds the Lea Simmons Fellowship.
Crew
Thea Luce: Luce is interested in the intersections of intimacy and labor, which she explores as a graduate student, curator, organizer, and sex worker rights organizer. She is a co-founder of Veil Machine and frequent collaborator with Kink Out.
Eli: Eli is a freelance stage manager and a full time coordinator and artist wrangler. She is a frequent collaborator with Kink Out and was on the production team for E-Viction.