{"id":63464,"date":"2018-03-28T12:44:26","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T10:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=63464"},"modified":"2018-03-28T12:44:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T10:44:26","slug":"motherlode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/motherlode\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet The All-Female Tech Collective Taking Sex Toys into the VR Realm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"All-female tech startups are rare. All-female tech startups comprised of fine artists who specialise in interactive design are even rarer.<\/span> Motherlode<\/span><\/a> is digital art lab for interactive 3D, virtual reality and augmented reality design, created by Isa Ghaffari, Leah Roh, and Carol Civre. If your vision of Utopia is one in which ethical queer artists are at the forefront of technology and sex education, Motherlode serves as an ideal model. The three artists, all in their mid and early twenties, are already making a splash in New York\u2019s art and tech scene. While Ghaffari and Roh have backgrounds in animation, Civre has her roots in digital art. All three say their original interests more or less \u201cspiralled\u201d into 3D modelling and virtual reality. As animators and designers, the women of Motherlode see 3D, VR and AR as the new frontier and figured, in their own words, \u201cWhy not live in our own animations?\u201d<\/span>
\n\"\"Motherlode was born this past year in<\/span> NEW INC<\/span><\/a>, a “cultural incubator” at NYC\u2019s New Museum, dedicated to supporting innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurship across art, design and technology. The collective are in some ways NEW INC\u2019s dream participants: not only are they harnessing some of the most complex technology to date, they’re doing so from a fine-art perspective and for a greater social purpose. Although Motherlode as a company is in its nascency, Ghaffari, Roh, and Civre have already taken on sizeable projects. Their first team-designed VR experience was, \u201cBroad Land\u201d, a virtual retrospect of society\u2019s sexist marketing practices and gender-biased gaming industry. Motherlode are also creating a massage table experience for VR consultant and producer\u00a0<\/span>Tyler Pridgen\u2019s<\/span> \u201c<\/span>Luxury Escapism<\/span><\/a>\u201d, an experimental platform dedicated to oddly satisfying immersive design. As Civre explains, \u201cWe\u2019re really interested in using VR for something it\u2019s not necessarily intended for\u201d. In generating experiences that are neither games nor hyperrealistic, Motherlode are carving out a distinct niche for themselves. Their experiences are interactive and have narrative qualities, much like a \u201cChoose Your Own Adventure Story\u201d, where you can participate but cannot change the ultimate outcome. <\/span>
\n\"\"Lately Motherlode\u2019s work days at the New Museum are spent building 3D renderings of sex toys. \u201cNot just dildos,\u201d Ghaffari clarifies, \u201canal beads, butt plugs, lube bottles, cock rings. You name it.\u201d Motherlode are members of <\/span>Women in Sex Tech<\/span><\/a>, an initiative promoting femme entrepreneurs in the sex-tech industry. Their most recent project, \u201cPillow Talk\u201d, utilises VR technologies to generate a dynamic sex education experience. Ghaffari, Roh, and Civre see sex education as something which \u201cdesperately needs updating\u201d and that \u201ccan benefit from new technologies\u201d. Ultimately, a virtual reality experience is an intimate one: the user is immersed in a world on their own and has the power to explore it, free from the gaze of others. And, for Motherlode, changing the learning environment to one where\u00a0people can explore taboo concepts in a private setting is the first step toward more successful sex education. The computer generated aspect makes the experience playful, while the interactive qualities give users options to personalise their \u201cjourney\u201d. The first instalment of \u201cPillow Talk\u201d is called \u201cLube River\u201d, where the user enters a candy coloured tropical world, with sex toys dispersed throughout. You can then explore the world, discover toys and learn about those that interest you. Civre explains, \u201cWe talk about them in terms of what part of the body they can be used on, instead of genders. For example, we give information about use for both ‘vagina-havers’ and ‘penis-havers’ for the same toy, when applicable.\u201d In designing an entirely new world controlled by a neutral avatar, Motherlode have harnessed their power to make the experience an inclusive one.<\/span>
\n\"\"Ghaffari, Roh, and Civre\u00a0are a part of a broader industry referred to in New York as \u201cSilicon Alley\u201d; if California\u2019s Silicon Valley represents the \u201cblockbusters\u201d of tech start-ups, the New York scene, Roh says, is different than the creative tech scene anywhere else. “In my opinion, we are more focused on community building and social justice,\u201d she expands. But the women of Motherlode have found the VR scene to be just as male dominated in New York as anywhere else \u2014 an important factor in their decision to join forces in the first place. The three met in 2017 while working at “<\/span>Jump Into the Light<\/span><\/a>\u201c<\/span>,<\/span><\/a> a VR cinema and playlab with male ownership, and instantly bonded over their shared aesthetic sensibilities and desire to push the boundaries of the medium. Roh explains, \u201cVR has existed since the \u201880s, but it\u2019s only in the past decade become more popular. I think it\u2019s urgent for women to be involved now, to do more things and develop as many projects as possible to shape the industry, because it’s only going to continue to grow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Motherlode, a queer, ethical artist collective based in NYC, is changing the landscape of tech and sex ed in bold new ways.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[3557,10416,10417,10418,8991,1096,5137,10419,10420,10421,4581,124,7026,4947,7355,2192,2193,10422],"class_list":["post-63464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-3d","tag-3d-modelling","tag-augmented-reality","tag-carol-civre","tag-collective","tag-digital-art","tag-feminist-art","tag-leah-roh","tag-motherlode","tag-new-inc","tag-new-museum","tag-new-york","tag-queer-art","tag-sex","tag-sex-positive","tag-virtual-reality","tag-vr","tag-women-in-sex-tech"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\nMeet The All-Female Tech Collective Taking Sex Toys into the VR Realm Meet The All-Female Tech Collective Taking Sex Toys into the VR Realm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/motherlode\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet The All-Female Tech Collective Taking Sex Toys into the VR Realm Meet The All-Female Tech Collective Taking Sex Toys into the VR Realm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Motherlode, a queer, ethical artist collective based in NYC, is changing the landscape of tech and sex ed in bold new ways.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/motherlode\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sleek Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sleekmag\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-28T10:44:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@sleekmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Verfasst von\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sleek\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Gesch\u00e4tzte Lesezeit\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4\u00a0Minuten\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/\",\"name\":\"Sleek Magazine\",\"description\":\"Sleek is Germany\u2019s leading independent media house\/brand for creativity and innovation located in Berlin the creative capital of the world. 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