Is it sex or is it art?

Is it sex, or is it art? By Janelle Brown. In Austria, right-wingers take aim at a Net arts group for peddling porn. But maybe they've just got the wrong URL.

By Janelle Brown

Aug 6, 1998 | Like thousands of other online porn purveyors, the site Sex.net -- at http://www.sex.net -- serves up members-only smut. Operated by a British Virgin Islands company called Ocean Fund International, Sex.net promises only the finest "100% Pure Raunchy Nasty Sex" at $25 a month.

Halfway across the world, a public-access Internet art space called Public Netbase nestles in a baroque building in the middle of the historic museum district in Vienna, Austria. Besides teaching introductory Internet classes and providing Net access for artists, the nonprofit routinely hosts technology conferences for a network of European academics and creatives. Here, you can find author Mark Dery debating "Metaphor as Illness," or cyberfeminist Sadie Plant discussing "Binary Sexes, Binary Codes."

The two groups are worlds apart, to say the least. But thanks to the Freedom Party -- a growing right-wing party in Austria accused of Nazi sympathies -- and an unlucky choice of names for Public Netbase's most recent conference, Public Netbase is under siege: The Freedom Party says the organization is running a porn network out of Sex.net, and the citizens of Austria are helping pay for it.

In the lazy heat of a European summer that has been filled with high-profile child pornography controversies and arrests, this strange scandal has riled up the European network of technology theorists who fear cultural censorship from the growing right wing -- and an Internet whitewashed by techno-ignorant politicians.

Public Netbase was founded by Marie Ringler and Konrad Becker in 1994 to offer cheap public Net access for artists. Four years later, Public Netbase has 1,000 members, who use its computers and Web terminals for their creative projects. The organization teaches technology workshops, hosts electronic music lounges and throws bimonthly seminars on social technology issues -- with titles like "Infobody Attack" and "Robotronika" -- that draw academics and thinkers from around the world.

In May, Public Netbase hosted a month of discussions about sexual discourse and the Internet, headlined by a host of colorful luminaries. Pro-porn feminist Cherie Matrix lectured on fantasy and role-playing in online dating. Sultry San Francisco dominatrix Midori talked about how the Net has liberated radical sexuality, rounding off her talk with an S&M performance. Media artist Christina Gvstl launched her Web site sex.t0.or.at, a guide to intelligent smut, with a spoken-word performance involving blindfolds and cigarettes.

Next Page: Whose "sex.net" is it, anyway?

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