SYNTIA_CAM: Re-imagining
Sex-Work Through Digital Storytelling (Research)
Work: Design Research, Practice-Based Research, Workshop,
Qualitative Research
Year: 2023
Starting from an overview about online sex work in relation with the cyber-feminist movement, the research explores the raise of the the online sex work industry in the 90's, and how this industry became a trend setter and early adopter concerning digital tech. For the second stage of the research, a more practice- based approach has been applied for the creation of a workshop series for sex workers about co-creation and digital storytelling as a way of subversion and healing. This second part employed the use of extended realities such as motion capture performances and avatar creation to implement and expand the experience of the sex workers participants while creating a new space for imagination and creativity. At the end this process lead to the creation of a collaborative XR artwork.
MA Thesis ZHDK, IAD
WORKSHOP “Re-imagining (online) Sex work thorugh digital storytelling (2023)
WORKSHOP “What sex workers can teach us about Surveillance” (2026)
More people are relying on internet-based sex work to make ends meet, exposing sex workers to intensified digital surveillance. Since the passage of FOSTA-SESTA in 2018, online platforms have increased censorship and discrimination against sex workers and sexual content.
In this workshop, we explored the question of how to protect your data from the perspective of the sex workers’ community that must navigate constant digital and psychological vulnerability as a daily reality. What does it mean to register on a platform, create a digital identity, when your work depends on visibility but your safety depends on invisibility? Practical tools, identity management strategies, and harm-reduction models developed within sex worker communities and collectives have been discussed to reflect on how these approaches can be applied more broadly to questions of digital privacy, autonomy, and resistance.
