WHAT IS SEX?
Astria Suparak
2004–2006
- Description
- Publications
- Presentations
What Is Sex? is a survey that accompanied the touring video program QUANTUM LEAPS and other presentations by Astria Suparak. At the beginning of each event, audience members were handed blank index cards and pens, and asked to write down their birth year and an anonymous response to the prompt, “What is sex?” At the end of the program, selected responses were read aloud by Suparak, revealing the intimate thoughts of friends and strangers sitting next to each other, and perhaps helping to expand the possibilities of what sex can mean.
This research project fielded over 500 responses from a range of participants aged 15 to 65 (birth years 1940–90) across numerous cities, with polling venues including colleges, art spaces, and microcinemas. The answers captured the conflicting fears, hopes, experiences, and ideas about sex from a particular moment – before easy internet search, the rise of dating apps, the #MeToo movement, and present-day mainstream LGBTQ+ representation. Respondents were poetic, scientific, cryptic, personal, celebratory, jaded, rousing, and hilarious. The project touched upon ideas of consent, spectrums of gender and sexuality, love, lust, and duty. Notable patterns emerged in the project, such as dry, biological definitions from a Texas football town; conceptual answers from a historic art center in New York; replies in the form of drawings and abstract symbols from creative communities in Philadelphia and Providence; the inclusion of God in answers from Ruston, Louisiana (which also had a higher number of self-declared virgins); and lyrical responses from Amherst, Massachusetts.
Selections from “What Is Sex?” were printed in a British art magazine, a New York art zine, and a smut zine in Montréal.
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PUBLICATIONS
Excerpts of What Is Sex? published in:
- “American Girls,” BLACK DIAMOND MAGAZINE (UK: White Diamond Projects, 2004)
- “What Is Sex?,” FANTASTY (New York: R&S Art and Publishing, 2004)
- “What Is Sex?,” LICKETY SPLIT #3 (Montréal: 2006)
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PRESENTATIONS
Partial list.
June 24, 2004, 7pm
@ GirlsFilmSchool , The College of Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
As part of a screening of Let’s Get Tested
2005
@ Concordia University, Montreal, QC
September 24, 2005
@ Cafe Toc Toc, Montreal, QC
March 2006
@ Clark’s, 314 Main St., Houston, TX
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 7, 2006, 8pm
@ minicine?, 846 Texas Ave., Shreveport, LA
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 8, 2006, 8pm
@ Lewis (an abandoned department store), 108 Park Ave., Ruston, LA
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, presented by Nomad Nights, with opening band The Upstairs Divine
March 9, 2006, 7pm
@ Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 13, 2006, 9:30pm
@ The Cable Car Cinema, 204 S. Main St., Providence, RI
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, presented by Brown University and Magic Lantern Cinema
March 15, 2006, 8pm
@ Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, presented by Mass Art Film Society
March 18, 2006, 9pm
@ Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, organized by Small Change
March 20, 2006, 7pm
@ Bard College, Avery Film Center, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 21, 2006, 7pm
@ The Kitchen, New York, NY
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 22, 2006, 7pm
@ The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Troy, NY
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, presented by iEAR Presents!
March 24, 2006, 8pm
@ Spark Art and Performance Space, Syracuse, NY
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps, presented by SparkVideo
March 27, 2006, 6:30pm
@ University at Buffalo, SUNY, Center for the Arts, Amherst, NY
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
March 31, 2006, 7pm
@ National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
April 3, 2006, 3pm
@ Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
As part of a screening of Quantum Leaps
May 6, 2005, 8pm
@ Hampshire College, Film & Photo building, Amherst, MA
As part of a screening of Elusive Quality, sponsored by Queer Community Alliance
Astria Suparak 