THE MORAL PANIC ART CLUB

As part of our Study Room Ambassador scheme LADA is delighted to be hosting three discussion events on moral panics, censorship and the cultural value of porn with the artist, pornographer and activist Itziar Bilbao Urrutia.

Each individual event explores a different theme related to the topic and participants are welcome to attend one, two or all three sessions. 

Please note: these events are now full 

Timetable 

November 3 at 7pm –  YES, BUT IS IT PORN?

Queer and Weird: The AVMS Regulations and niche sexual practices, also relegated in the mainstream art world (live art, body performance). Censoring the monstrous feminine.

Itziar Bilbao Urrutia will be in conversation with Pandora Blake, creator of the feminist porn studio Dreams of Spanking. They will discuss their experiences as female pornographers affected by ATVOD and the AVMS Regulations (Audiovisual and Media Services Regulations, aka “the female ejaculation ban”).

followed by a Q&A and debate.

November 26 at 7pm – YES, BUT IS IT CULTURE?

Black bags, top shelves, independent producers, art, feminist, indie, queer pron and niche interests: how they get pushed out in favour of mainstream, heteronormative porn.

Itziar Urrutia in conversation with Stephen Daultrey, former editor of Bizarre Magazine

followed by a Q&A and debate.

December 1 at 7pm – YES BUT IS IT ART??

Art, porn and media censorship, with Myles Jackman.

In 2014, Myles Jackman was one of the solicitors who advised Itziar when her website, The Urban Chick Supremacy Cell, an art project that uses the platform of online porn, to engage in an artistic debate, was reported to ATVOD on the grounds of obscenity. The ensuing correspondence with this offshoot of Ofcom, effectively attempting to censor all adult content produced in UK, was an attempt to answer the timeless question: “yes, but is it art?”

Is pornography devoid of all cultural value? Or is porn the latest medium appropriated by the art scene? Are we entering New technologies vs old technologies as new forms of expression, sexting, revenge porn, age and consent issues, apps, etc. Moral panics, the shock of the new, the awkward relationship between law and new technologies.

followed by a Q&A and debate.

Bio

Itziar Bilbao Urrutia is a fetish video producer, visual artist and writer. Her background in Art, with an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, gave her a creative and critical approach to fetish, and specifically, to her her sexuality of choice, female domination or Femdom.

Her background in performance and video art and activism gave birth in 2010 to her ongoing project, the Urban Chick Supremacy Cell, a members' fetish video website where she explores new narratives and representations of female sexual dominance, challenging the male gaze hegemony in more mainstream porn.

The concerns in her work and writing revolve around non-normative narratives of female heterosexuality and specifically, giving  a queer interpretation of non-normative female heterosexual desire. More recently, politics and disobedience have been added to the subjects in both her practice and writing. She has been an activist with Backlash UK since 2009.

Along with her presence in the online adult industry as an independent porn producer, she has published and exhibited her work in galleries, art museums and cultural events London, Europe, the US and Australia.

She is currently a doctoral researcher at the School of Government and Society of the University of Birmingham since January 2015.

Itziar is Basque by birth and a Londoner by choice.

Following a public call for proposals, ten artists and researchers who represent a wide range of research interests have been invited to become Study Room Ambassadors, hosting Study Room visitors and receiving space, time and other support for independent research in the Study Room in return.