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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Project - The Obscene Device: Pornographies Between Cinema, Art, and Virtual Reality
Text.Serial.Journal
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Projects & Abstracts
2023-09-22
2023-07-10
2023-09-22
2023-09-22
183-185
Cinéma & Cie
Roberto Paolo Malaspina
2023/09/22
10.54103/2036-461X/20561
183
University of Milan
2036-461X
40
en
185
Sullivan, Nikki, and Samantha Murray. 2014. Somatechnics. Queering the Technologisation of Bodies. Farnham: Ashgate.
Ph.D. Thesis Project - The Obscene Device: Pornographies Between Cinema, Art, and Virtual Reality
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/20561/18793
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                                                                                       The Obscene Device:
                                                                                       Pornographies Between Cinema, Art,
                                                                                       and Virtual Reality
                                                                                       Roberto Paolo Malaspina / Ph.D. Thesis Project1
                                                                                       University of Milan | ERC Project AN-ICON
                                                                                       DOI https://doi.org/10.54103/2036-461X/20561




                                                                                         Since its most recent technological re-               characteristics of contemporary pornographic
                                                                                       emergence (2014-15) (Evans 2018), virtual reality       virtual reality, this doctoral thesis aims to outline,
                                                                                       (VR) has brought forth new possibilities for            through a historical, genealogical, and media
                                                                                       the porn industry. Most pornographic products           archaeological approach, the main connotations
                                                                                       conceived for VR to date are based on a form of         of immersion in the erotic image and its influence
                                                                                       virtual augmentation of the POV (point-of-view)         on the processes of construction and expression
                                                                                       subgenre: even though they limit themselves to          of gender identity.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License




                                                                                       180° or 360° videos rather than actual interactive        The first chapter of this thesis addresses three
                                                                                       environments, they integrate the strong agency          “obscenity devices”— following a double meaning
                                                                                       of the first person shot with the visceral capacities   as material hardware and, from a Foucauldian
                                                                                       of the body transfer process (Slater et al. 2010).      perspective (Martin, Gutman, and Hutton 1988)
                                                                                         The success of virtual forms of pornography           as technologies of the self: the pornographic
                                                                                       raises urgent issues regarding the aesthetic            stereoscope, the adult movie theatre, and the
                                                                                       consequences that such images have on visuality         erotic video art installation. These are three forms
                                                                                       and bodily self-perception: on the one hand, VR         of visual devices that, in light of their multisensory
                                                                                       redefines the composition qualities and directing       nature, outline different degrees of immersion in
                                                                                       strategies of the pornographic image; on the            an erotically active environment and, at the same
                                                                                       other, it constructs new horizons of social and         time, challenge the nature of the framed image.
                                                                                       political agency. VR porn may therefore constitute      In the first case, echoing Jonathan Crary’s (1990)
                                                                                       complex biocultural dynamics concerning the             perspective, the stereoscope is understood as
                                                                                       politics of bodies and the gendered perceptions         the earliest “obscene” device, in the sense that it
                                                                                       of the self. Following a somatechnical (Sullivan        primarily has the capacity to redefine the scenic
                                                                                       and Murray 2014) perspective— stressing the co-         qualities of Albertian perspective vision in favor
                                                                                       constitution between bodies, technologies, and          of the proximity and apparent immediacy of the
                                                                                       images —VR pornography seems to “excite” with           three-dimensional image. Considering the haptic
                                                                                       particular effectiveness the primary potentialities     nature of the stereographic image, this device
                                                                                       and problematics of environmental images                was particularly suitable for the then emerging
                                                                                       (Pinotti 2021), especially in relation to gendered      Victorian erotic proto-industry, expressing
                                                                                       proprioception. Starting from the specific              an unprecedented spectatorial form of the


                                                                                       Cinéma & Cie vol. 23 no. 40 2023 · ISSN 2036-461X                                                    183
pornographic image with strong implications            potentially constitute an unprecedented stage
for the perceptual system of its observers. The        for those playful practices of sexual and bodily
second device, the cinema theatre, takes into          experimentation that are at the basis of the
account the phenomenology of pornographic              constitution of the physical, gendered and sexual
film with particular reference to the so-called        self and, simultaneously, organize strategies
“golden age” (Paasonen and Saarenmaa 2007)             for resisting the normative “contortion” of
of American pornography, and invokes the social        non-conforming subjects. In the context of
and erotic forms produced by the interaction           queer phenomenology, Sara Ahmed (2006) has
between the bodies of the audience present in          introduced the concept of the “contorted body”
the theatre, the ones portrayed in the scenes, and     to describe those cultural corporealities beyond
the symbolic body of the film. The third device        the “straight line”, forced into the compulsory
considers the “anarchic space” (Barba 2021) of         enclosures of the heterosexual matrix. Following
installation art, with particular attention to video   the postural metaphor introduced by Ahmed, this
art and its ability to configure precise perceptual    part of the thesis focuses on queering strategies
atmospheres (Bruno 2022). The focus in this part       through which the fruition of VR pornography
of the thesis is on those artistic practices that,     can make our headset a “disorientation device”
between the 1970s and 1990s, centered their            (Ahmed 2006, 171) that allows forms of genital
research on sexuality and pornography, defining        experimentation along with a new form of virtual
a specific form of erotic atmosphere through           gendered performativity. Referring back to the
the deconstruction of the cinematic image, its         long-standing debate on the possible agency
expansion in the form of the installation and          of porn to shape and influence sexualities and
its interweaving with the bodies and identities        politics, this thesis finally questions whether VR
portrayed in the image.                                technologies as well as the characteristics of
   The second chapter of the thesis — The Virtual      environmental images define new perspectives
Pornographic — examines the dawn of cyber-             for contemporary pornographies: are they part
culture, a relevant moment for the technological       of a broader system of control and capitalization
emergence of virtual reality as we know it today.      of bodies and identities or rather media forms
This historical period, located in the decades         with a strong expressive power and the capacity
between the 1980s and the early 2000s, was             to queer the gendered proprioception?
immediately associated with political and artistic
                                                       This abstract was written in the framework of the
drives of a feminist and queer nature (Seu             research project “AN-ICON. An-Iconology: History,
2023). This chapter analyses the main utopian          Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images”.
                                                       The project has received funding from the European
perspectives of early cyberspace, understood as
                                                       Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s
an environment that is theoretically predisposed       Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
to overcoming critical categories such as              (grant agreement No. [834033 AN-ICON]), hosted
                                                       by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti”
sexuality, gender and race. The chapter will then
                                                       (Project “Departments of Excellence 2023-2027”
come to the delineation of contemporary online         awarded by the Ministry of University and Research).
pornography and its interactions with the latest
technologies of the virtual.
   The third chapter — Identity Performance               Notes
and Technological Systems — concludes the
                                                          1
                                                            Ph.D. Thesis supervised by Professor
proposed theoretical path by discussing the
                                                          Andrea Pinotti (University of Milan). For
agency of the virtual pornographic image in               more information roberto.malaspina@
relation to the construction and expression               unimi.it.
of gender identity. VR pornography could



184                                                                        Malaspina, The Obscene Device
REFERENCE LIST
Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press.
Barba, Rosa. 2021. On the Anarchic Organization of Cinematic Spaces. Evoking Spaces beyond Cinema. Berlin:
Hatje Cantz Verlag.
Bruno, Giuliana. 2022. Atmospheres of Projection. Environmentality in Art and Screen Media. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Crary, Jonathan. 1990. Techniques of the Observer. On Visions and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Evans, Leighton. 2018. The Re-Emergence of Virtual Reality. London: Routledge.
Martin, Luther H., Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hutton, eds. 1988. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with
Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Paasonen, Susanna, and Laura Saarenmaa. 2007. “The Golden Age of Porn: History and Nostalgia in Cinema.”
In Pornification: Sex and Sexuality in Media Culture, edited by Susanna Paasonen, Kaarina Nikunen, and Laura
Saarenmaa, 23–32. Oxford: Berg.
Pinotti, Andrea. 2021. Alla soglia dell’immagine. Da Narciso alla realtà virtuale. Turin: Einaudi.
Seu, Mindy, ed. 2023. Cyberfeminism Index. Los Angeles: Inventory Press.
Slater, Mel, Bernard Spanlang, Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives, and Olaf Blanke. 2010. “First Person Experience
of Body Transfer in Virtual Reality.” PLoS ONE 5 (5). doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010564.
Sullivan, Nikki, and Samantha Murray, eds. 2014. Somatechnics. Queering the Technologisation of Bodies.
Farnham: Ashgate.




Cinéma & Cie vol. 23 no. 40 2023 · ISSN 2036-461X                                                    185
