Can we reduce rates of HIV transmission using architecture? Despite the closure of Public Sex Environments during the AIDS crisis the drive for men to meet each other anonymously for sex has remained. Cruising in virtual spaces, such as Grindr, has not reduced the demand for Real-space Sex Environments. The aim of this project is to open up for discussion the possible benefits and costs associated with Commercial Sex Environments in an era of HIV and antiretroviral therapy (ART); exploring issues such as anonymity, social identity, improvisation of self, dopamine, risk and ritual behaviour.
Alien Sex Club will be an installation at Ambika P3 in July-August 2015 by artist John Walter that attempts to answer these questions. I am asking you to get involved in the discussion by giving towards Alien Sex Club. Your donation will help build a 'cruise maze' containing painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, music, video, hospitality, fortune-telling and free rapid HIV testing, which you can then explore. It will also help raise awareness for the project through the media and HIV testing centres and support a series of collaborative events between scientists and artists during the exhibition. Alien Sex Club will hybridise strategies from art, science and architecture that can potentially enable art to reclaim its potency as socio-political tool.
30 years after the start of the AIDS crisis the visual arts are failing to address the subject, as some perceive it to no longer be a problem. However, rates of HIV transmission amongst gay men continue to increase with around 3500 new diagnosis each year. ART has transformed HIV into a manageable chronic infection with near normal life expectancies and lowered infectiousness. The cost of being on ART per patient over their lifetime to the NHS is around £500,000 and there are potential side effects to being on the drugs. I am undertaking research for the project as part of a PhD at The University of Westminster and working with Dr. Alison Rodger, Senior Lecturer and Hon Consultant in Infectious Diseases/HIV at University College London (UCL). You can find out more about John Walter on my Sponsume profile or at my website.
The owner of this project has not made any updates yet.
