The Art of Adult Architecture

La Femme (2005) | image by Bert de Muynck
La Femme (2005) | image by Bert de Muynck

CUT-UP Magazine | The Art of Adult Architecture or the Politics of Pornographic Planning | Published September, 2005

This essay – a montage of analysis, opinions, voices and ideas centred around the topics of architecture, ideology, pornography and the network culture (the natural versus the electronic) – explores the possibility of resurrecting the concept of Progressive Political Pornography, this time as the Politics of Pornographic Planning, not as an act of retro-active necrophilia, but as a manifest discontent with the way the legacy of the hard-core second generation of modernists (the ones shaping our world after the Second World War) is treated.

Around the same time of the above-told events, PPP came into live – the Politics of Pornographic Planning. This group would, through the use of pornographically inspired architecture, method, strategies and analysis offer the world two of the masterpieces of pornographic planning. One in Brussels, Belgium, the other in Vilnius, Lithuania. The one is known as the Tower of Finances, the other as the Vilnius Concert and Sport Palace. Both roam around in the shady realms of urban subculture.

Cut-Up Magazine special issue on the art and politics of netporn

In cooperation with the Institute of Network Cultures, Cut-up.media.magazine has produced a special issue on the art and politics of netporn. Although a growing number of theoretical and historical porn studies have appeared over the last decades, few have focused on the analysis of netporn as complex networks and its embedment within digital media environments. By publishing five new articles based on original research online and freely accessible to all, we hope to contribute to a climate of critical research surrounding the topic of netporn.

The five new articles are:
- Nishant Shah, “Playblog: Pornography, Performance, and Cyberspace”;
- Manuel Bonik and Andreas Schaale, “The Naked Truth: Internet-Eroticism and The Search”;
- Bert de Muynck, “The Art of Adult Architecture or the Politics of Pornographic Planning”;
- Tim Noonan, “Netporn and the Politics of Disability: A Catalyst for Access, Inclusion and Acceptance”;
- Mireille Miller-Young, “’Because I’m Sexy and Smart!’: Black Web Mistresses Hack Cyberporn”Publication data: “Special Issue: The Art and Politics of Netporn”, ed. by Bas van Heur, Cut-up.media.magazine, issue 20 (2005).

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spatial agency:
Established in 2007 by Bert de Muynck and Mónica Carriço, movingcities is a think tank based in Beijing Shanghai whose work focuses on how the practices of architecture and urbanism affect the city.

Their name is a reaction to the influential 'Shrinking Cities' project, which they critiqued for an over emphasis on just one part of a larger phenomenon. In contrast they see contemporary urbanity as being in constant flux and speak of city-regions that incorporate shrinking and expanding, rural and urban.

Their work takes the form of projects, writings and collaborations as well as interviews. (...)

Their projects take the form of embedded research on the city, usually carried out in collaboration with other architects."

creative cities:
Mov­ing­Cit­ies is an inde­pend­ent research organ­iz­a­tion based in China

archiblog:
MovingCities is a blog investigating the role that architecture and urbanism play in shaping the contemporary city. MovingCities features urban research, critical architectural investigations and publications. MovingCities operates from Beijing Shanghai, China.

snowball architecture:
Bert de Muynck is the other half of MovingCities, a Shanghai based duo of “shrinks in the urban debate” as him and his partner Mónica Carriço like to describe their practice. MovingCities are also the curators of Snowball Shanghai – Event on Finnish Architecture to be organised in Shanghai this March.