workshops

PornFilmFestival workshop, Jürguen Brünning studios, Berlin, 21/10/2006
Mambo workshop, Feminist House Mambo, Barcelona.
(every thursday between march and june 2006)
Hangar workshop, Hangar, Barcelona, 24-28 april 2006
Feminist days workshop, Valencia, november 2005
Queeruption Video workshop, Queeruption8Karcelona, Barcelona, june 2005

Workshop on pornography and feminism.

As women our role in pornography has always been in front of the camera. But now we want to be be behind it. And in front of it. We want to make porno. And not only this : we want to subvert the image of our sexuality that has been constructed by the industry of porn. We want to create pornography that subverts the genre’s sexism. Explore our desires. Sexualities multiply, queer theory as catalyst. As women our desire has been excluded, our sexuality vulgarised. The aim of the workshop is to reflect on pornography from a contemporary feminist perspective and make porn ourselves.

We can explore the themes outlined below in short (3 or 4 hours) or long (4 or 5 days) workshops – depending on the context.
We choose to work only with women, lesbians and trans in order to create a practical space for sexual exploration and reflection.

The aim of the workshop is the creation of do-it-yourself porn and the debate in the theme of porn and feminism.
We will have all the necessary technical material to start shooting: digital camara, video projector, a computer for quick editing and a lot of energy to create sexual representations from a subversive point of view.
We will discuss the proposals, ideas and dreams of short films proposed by the participants in the workshop. We will explore the best way to represent them taking into account the limitations of time and space. We will discuss our desires, our voyeurism and exhibitionism when creating images.
Each participant will decide individually what she wants to do with the recorded material and what distribution it should have. Private use or public screening (in the festival) or internet distribution (we will talk about the diferent ways of doing it).

In the theoretical part of the workshop we will show a selection of the work of a variety of women doing porn: video, photos, internet or fanzines. We will provide a bibliography and a list of web bookmarks for those who wish to continue investigating. Through this material we will evoke questions and themes to be debated with the participants and try to arrive at theoretical and/or practical responses to the numerous unanswered questions posed by pornography in relation to feminism.

Following is a rough outline of some of the main areas that we explore:

-Origin of the term “Pornography”.
Invented during the Victorian period of ninenteenth century England, pornography is composed of two greek words : porne “prostitute” and grafia “description”. It emerged to describe, in a disapproving way, the sexually explicit images (or “daguerrotypes”) that began to circulate amongst the working class due to the invention of photography.

-Definitions of pornography. Different conceptions. From Andrea Dworkin´s definition as mediatic prostitution to the new definitions of postporno of Marie Helene Bourcier.-Dichotomy between pornography and erotism: erotism as euphemism of elegant porn. Pornography as cinematographic genre and as constructor of realities.

-Prostitution, porn and feminism. Webhore manifesto: feminist manifesto that revindicates the decriminalisation of sex work and the use of internet as a tool.

-Netporn. How internet has subverted the flow of information and has completely changed the access to porn material.

-Pornography and feminist movements. From the antiporn positions of Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworking to the anticensorship of Gayle Rubin and Carole Vance.
Women against pornografy vs Women against censorship.

-Women in “feminist porn”. Classics like Annie Sprinkle, Cindy Sherman or recent creators like Maria Beatty, Emilie Jouvet from France or Cronika from Mexico.

-Conexions between post-porn and the queer movement. Queer as the fight against heterosexist stereotypes and pink capitalism. Queer as the breaking force of the social construccions of woman-man, gay-lesbian. Butch-femme roles and drag kings.

-The objectification of woman’s body. Sexual trangression as a feminist strategy. If women’s naked bodies have simbolized patriarchal sexual represion, is it really possible to subvert this gaze ?

-The representation of men as objects of desire. Most of the images of men are made from a gay perspective. Why? Are not women desiring men bodies? How can we create a sexual imagery that represents our desires without degrading the objects of our desires ?
Yes, we desire all kinds of bodies in fact. Men, women, whatever. And men’s bodies are sexy. But perhaps we do not want to do it in the way men have used the body of women as an object to impose their power on them. Perhaps women are not willing to do it in the same abusive, degrading way the male has been doing it. How can we do it?