Technocapitalism has radically changed and impacted the manifestation of desire. Physical spaces where queer communities were meeting to have sex, to cruise are diseappering. Public bathrooms are being deserted, clubs are closing (1), the act of cruising in urban, natural territories, spaces not designed for such purposes, is increasingly rare. With their disappearance, whole histories and narratives are erased (2). In the absence of extensive queer archives, cruising utopias vanish, witnesses of liminal and forgotten histories.

Our video proposition investigates contemporary sites of affection-making online. Digital platforms owned by conglomerates offer the prospect of finding love, whether easily, fast or through self-promoted complex algorithms. We investigate such sites and contradictions inherent to their business model (3). Acknowledging how apps like grindr, tinder, okcupid actively support the perpetuation of normative capitalism on one hand, we dig into the possibility of counter-discourse through acts of hacking, subversive behavior. Thus, such sites can offer windows of opportunity for users to create networks, exchange practices and knowledge. We investigate how online-dating apps can be localities for radical practices. Flirting, dating, sex are powerful catalysers for production of knowledge (4). Following epistemologies that are rooted in alternative pedagogy methods, we explore what knowledge can be created on such platforms, which narratives can be expressed.

The video will last 5 to 10 minutes and will include self-made material as well as images and videos sent through online-dating platform.

[1]Sarah Schulman, The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination
[2]José Esteban Muñoz, Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts
[3]Richard Mèmeteau: Sex friends - Comment (bien) rater sa vie amoureuse à l’ère numérique
[4]Ashkan Sepahvand - Everything I learned about technocapitalism, I learned at Bergain