The internet, since its very inception, has been a conduit for pleasure, sex and sexuality. From early erotic ASCII art and hook-up sites, to the proliferation of porn sites in the 1980s and 90s, despite attempts to curtail it, shadowban it and commercialise it from the top down, sex remains an underlying force in our online world, fuelling intimate moments of screentime and alternative forms of income generation. The many interwoven strands of this topic are explored in the LA-based artist and professor Mindy Seu’s latest book, A Sexual History of the Internet, a small-scale yet densely packed publication-cum-performance-piece. Equally fascinating as the contents of this book are the many design decisions behind its physicality and print, devised by New York-based designer Laura Coombs alongside Mindy.
Unlike the more isolated, wordy beginnings of many books, A Sexual History of the Internet began as an in-person lecture performance, an aspect that is immortalised within its pages. But it was no typical lecture. Reverting the typical hierarchy of lectures, Mindy removed the podium, the typical amphitheatre seating structure (turning chairs in different directions), and even the lighting. Participants were invited into a dark room, told to pull out their phone, make their way to a finsta (@asexualhistoryoftheinternet), and then, on the count of ten, to begin the story highlights – in other words, the lecture slides – with Mindy narrating and weaving in amongst attendees, rather than stationed at the front. This format, coined as ‘Instagram-Stories-as-Lecture’, was developed in collaboration with designer Julio Correa, who conceived the idea while a graduate student on Mindy’s Lecture Performance course at Yale School of Art, where Mindy teaches.