Pictured above, photo of cam artist Lindsay Dye by Noelle Duquette
NEW YORK—The Museum of Sex in New York City is taking a historical approach to the world of camming with its new show Cam Life: An Introduction to Webcam Culture. The exhibit furthers the museum’s mission to “preserve the history, evolution and cultural significance of sexuality through public enlightenment and discourse.”
The opening party for the exhibit drew a creative and fun crowd to the museum, including artists, musicians, actors, models, authors, sex educators and performers. Attendees included such notables as Mickey Mod, Mood Killer, Theo Germaine, Lindsay Dye, Leah Schrager, Shawné Michaelain Holloway and Lorenzo Maccotta. Curators Serge Becker and Lissa Rivera mingled with Instagram star Tana Mongeau, art critic Carlo McCormick, sex educator Dirty Lola and author Daniel Pinchbeck.
According to the curators, the show “delves into the untold history of cam and web chat,” chronicling the “expansion of sexual expression on the internet from early text-based chat rooms to high-definition explicit one-on-one intimacy. The show is also fun for sexy sex museum-goers who get to insert themselves into the “audience participation cam stage” for selfies.
Left, "Live Chat Studio" photo by Lorenzo Maccotta; right, "Cam Boy" by Mood Killer
The frontier of the sexual internet began in 1990 with camcorders providing a more immersive and participatory experience, overtaking the phone sex lines of the 1980s. Since then, live streaming and an improvement in technology has transformed pornography to the point where performers call the shots and, according to Becker and Rivera, ordinary people “become successful enough to build their own sex cam empires.”
According to internet pioneer Josh Harris, “This is the era of the home studio. The difference between the last century and now is that the last century was making programming for the audience, but for this century it’s programming the audience. You were trained to idolize what you see on the screen, these people you’ve never met. So how big of a leap is it entertainment business-wise to start producing the audience?”
Partnering with CAM4, a global cam platform with more than 1 billion annual views who welcomes male, female, transgender and gender-non-conforming performers, the exhibit continues until May 31.
For more info, visit “New York’s most daring and exciting museum” at MuseumOfSex.com.
