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Queer cyberpunk sci-fi porn about orgasms as commodities in an age of digital technologies.
The year is 2030, and Reiko, a sex worker and replicant, is roaming the futuristic megacities of Japan in search of willing prey for sex marathons. As a coder for the GENOM Corporation, she collects data on orgasms. This data is used to develop a mobile phone chip that is designed to give people virtual orgasms “on the go.” When Reiko catches the mysterious “Tokyo Rose” virus in a nightclub, her mission appears to have failed, but a system reboot and masturbation in an effort to find herself replenish her chip. I.K.U. lives up to cyberpunk science-fiction porn by featuring a cast from the Tokyo nightclub and adult film scene, Y2K-era computer graphics, lots of sex, and indulgent consumerism.
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Before the film: Talk with Shu Lea Cheang
City 3
Meet the director
Shu Lea Cheang
Shu Lea Cheang is a leading multimedia artist. With her approach at the intersection of film, video, Internet-based installation, software interaction, and durational performance, she is considered a pioneer in Internet-based art. Born in Taiwan in 1954, Cheang earned her bachelor’s degree in history in Taipei in the mid-1970s and subsequently moved to New York City to study Cinema Studiesfilm. Shortly thereafter, she joined Paper Tiger TV, a collective that broadcast live weekly programs on public-access television. Grassroots in nature, the collective sought to revolutionize television by playfully challenging its underlying ideologies in a do-it-yourself approach. Her operating radius has simply adapted to the technological developments and media available at a given time, such as by expanding into the networks of cyberspace in the late 1990s. Her works have been shown at international festivals such as Sundance and the Berlinale, exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the ICC in Tokyo, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and presented at biennials and art shows such as the Documenta in Kassel and the Gwangju Biennale.