The critical making process for this project started with the object I (rather sheepishly) presented at the CRDM Symposium last year: He Wants This.

HWT was created to explore the relationship between sexualized body and stimulus-generating digital systems when the human-subject is specifically decentered in the construction of the digital apparatus. As the project has evolved, a more streamlined version that highlights the various functionalities of the PiShock emerged, allowing for what I hope to be greater accessibility and interaction with an encountering public.

The revised structure of this project as PnP (an intentional reference to both Party ‘n’ Play and Plug ‘n’ Play as gay pharmacosex and ready-to-connect computer peripheral devices) uses a physical, sculptural interface in combination with a digital interface presented on screen to allow users a low-stakes, low-risk way to insert themselves into the digital system as a decentered experient, stimulated with pleasure-pain based on the unpredictable outputs of subphenomenological digital systems.

The images below (silly WordPress won’t allow me to rotate them) are a small selection of my current sketches of the physical structure and information architecture of PnP. A large PVC pipe, lined with liquid-filled condoms, guides the user’s hand down to a metal plate connected to the PiShock. A simple point-and-click UI, running on a computer within reach, starts the system on a 30-120 second cycle, generating shocks in response to API inputs from X posts regarding digital sex (identified by tags).