Helena Roig Prats

This work is a visual performative response made in collaboration with people I encountered online as a part of my research on algorithms and sex content. With each of them, I use body language as the main tool to explore the intangible boundaries that arbitrate how sexuality should exist online. We discuss the internet - a system that has a really seductive front end and a really secret back end. What are the behaviors that will give you visibility, and what will make you disappear from internet platforms? Gentrification of the internet implies the set of algorithms that are making those decisions and resulting in a mainstream, homogenized visual culture. That includes the process of sexual commodification that turns sexuality, in all its forms, from reproduction to bodies to sex acts, into objects of economic desire for increasing the exchange in the market. At the same time, intentionally selling your body online is restricted and controlled, making it harder for sex workers to gain clients. I draw on a personal experience as a content reviewer for YouTube company, a later involvement in online sex work and being an artist that likes to play with the boundaries of allowed nudity and sex suggestive content online. I look at what I’ve learned from sex workers about resistance, hacking, and internet development in relationship to community guidelines applied by algorithms.

Link to the video showcase