Camgirls on the Exhibition Walls

By: Abby DivDate: Nov. 27, 2020

In Le Sex Lab's podcast we are talking about camgirls, bedroom culture and virtual intimacy on the exhibition walls. In the lab to chat about their recent work Digital Muses are Designers Giorgio Gasco and Gianmaria Della Ratta.

Abigail Div
Hello everyone, we're going to be talking today about virtual intimacy in the increasing digital era, taking the camworld from the bedroom to the exhibition walls. I'm your host Abigail Div, founder of the Sex Lab and experimental media lab exploring sexuality. Today's interview will explore the following. How did the idea behind Digital Muses come about? How do you research and develop camworld? How do you translate those learnings to wall art? And are there plans to expand and iterate on this work? With me today to talk about bedroom culture in their recent work, are designers Giorgio Gasco and Gianmaria Della Ratta. Welcome Giorgio and Gianmaria.

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Hello, hello. Hello. Hi, thank you very much for having us here.

Abigail Div
Oh, my pleasure. And welcome to Le Sex Lab podcast. You've been doing some very curious research and development into the experience of the cam site consumer. But first, let's do our own lab research into how you developed the project. Both of you come from design backgrounds, studying conceptual design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. You've chosen though, dare I say a very unconventional topic for designers. extrapolating design from the world of camgirls/boy/guys, feels like you got out on a limb with this project. What drew you to the world of camming?

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah, basically, I would say we started this project around the team of streamers in general, and to talk about also the fact that yet the digital media nowadays, something really, really important, we cannot leave anymore without them. And for this reason, we as designers, we felt the need to investigate this universe we've consciously needed and also to understand it. So for this reason, then from the world of streamers, and as we all know, streamers are many. We decided to concentrate and to focus on camgirls. We decided to focus on camgirls, because we found out that they rooms were really appealing the fact so the fact that they were creating their own stenography was really sort of cultural ferment and artistic value that we saw inside these inside these rooms. And we wanted to we were fascinated by it. And we wanted to investigate and explore what does it mean for designs for design to research about camgirls. And yeah, we started this research looking at the rooms with the with the eyes of our designers.

Abigail Div
Camming has definitely grown in popularity since its inception of this podcast in 2020. As this is being recorded, we are in dare I say our ninth month of COVID locked down a strange time. But an opportune one if you're thinking about going into online media, with the beginning of shut down sites, like only fans on increase in New usership signups by 75%, though content creators, though they've reported an increase in traffic not necessarily correlated to an increase in revenue. But the idea behind the exhibition happen pre pandemic, correct?

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yes, it happened actually pre pandemic, because we were thinking about this project, actually, since one year already. Because also, I would like to say that this is our first project as a duo. Because again, as you said, like we graduated in Design Academy, but but then we decided to join our forces to make this project. And we started around this, this theme of streamers, because also we were looking at it as something that it's it's already happening. It's not something that is, is having this popularity during during the pandemic, but it was a phenomenon that already started some years, some years ago with the advent of YouTube, for example of the Twitch. So then we started to think about it in December specifically because we have seen online some of the news about some news about a museum of sex, actually in New York where there was this news about how actually they are talking about just talking about the cam life, but with an artistic, with an artistic point of view. So these captured our attention. And we wanted to actually we, from then on, we started research, research about this topic, and we decided to pick up this topic of camgirls.

Abigail Div
Great. Yeah. And there is a museum of sex, as you're saying, right downtown Manhattan that, you know, has gone virtual with a lot of this initiatives as well, which is ironic in some ways that you would have started this, in conjunction with having seen their live exhibits only go virtual with them.

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah.

Abigail Div
Yeah, great. Well, let's talk more about them the R&D behind the work. Digital Muses is something of a social study of the internet, mixed with a designer's eye for extracting the essence of it into physical objects. Let's take us back to the beginning of the project into the research phase. Where did you start? Were there specific sites that you were using?

Giorgio Gasco
Yes, indeed, there is some sociology thoughts, we dive into it. The and then of course, we mix it also with the research purely research about the cam life, and how that works before starting production, and the design of the pieces. The bedroom culture concept is quite interesting, because it talks about how the youngsters they create their own identity inside the bedroom. First, it's like the first place where teenager create their identity, and then that when they grow up, it goes into the outside world. And these can happen through the dress code or like other options. But from the moment that the streaming is an opportunity to show your identity online, so share your identity as well online, then we can see that the back bedroom culture became really important in the as demographic aspect for the coming life and the streamers in general. So sociology, you have to understand the importance of the scenography in this word, and in this work as well. And then we started making also some interviews with camgirls, we use website like Chaturbate, and Live Jasmin, mostly. But there's many more. And we started conducting some camgirls, we tried to have a conversation wasn't super easy, because sometimes they were really focused on the work more than trying to, yeah, just make us a conversation that was bringing the topic into the artwork or something not related to the work itself. But then we find many, many people interested in what we were doing. And during those conversation, we had the chance to understand the importance of how people curate their space, and how much time they spend in the in details for the room that they are going to use for the streaming. So it was indeed really interesting to also have the opportunity to speak with them.

Abigail Div
Yeah, speaking of how you were speaking with them, what part of the site's features were we using? Were you using the chat, the video, some combination of the two things to interact?

Giorgio Gasco
Mainly, we had the opportunity to talk to them through chats, chats, but also then it became necessary to see each other and to have also a visual contact. So we did some interview on Live Jasmine also live like live streaming, where we show our face and we had to possibility to talk with them. We also try to contact some girls, in real, try to have a conversation face to face. But this wasn't possible yet at least because there is a an important let's say the virtual intimacy stays virtual. So it stays in the virtual world. And it's hard to break this wall. Probably because there's a lot of taboos. And also because sometimes I received the the feedback that it can affect the work itself of the commerce. In terms of, of the user that they have problematic with the fact that the people can see them on a different context. Yes. And did you have specific guidelines that you were using to choose the streams, you know, particular design elements that you were looking for even personal characteristics of the streamers? Yeah, there was some times the conversation, I noticed that was easier when they were over, there was already an orientation towards an artistic approach on how to design the space and everything. So it was interesting to have conversation specifically on what was going on in that chart chapter on on. So if we were certainly attracted by some elements in those rules, and then we try to approach those people more than others that were more natural as background or the language of the way.

Abigail Div
That makes a lot of sense, you know, you attracted based on the personal characteristics that appeal to you too.

Giorgio Gasco
Yeah, definitely.

Abigail Div
Certainly, sexes is a game of personal preferences, right? So you choose based on what, in some ways is personally attractive? Did you have a standard set of questions that you were looking to ask? Or did you end up deviating from those, given how difficult it was to interact to start with?

Giorgio Gasco
Yeah, so we prepared a certain amount of questions to start off with a conversation or B, and then you went away went, also, sometimes really, personally, I have to say it was nice, because people they open to tell stories, intimate stories as well. But we the question we prepared were, for example, which kind of if the ornament in the rooms was important for them, how much time were they taking to prepare themselves before starting a live performance? If the room in which they were was rented, or it was their own bedroom? For example, if they would keep working in this space forever, we'd like to change it or if they do change every time they perform, because some people they prefer to have everytime different location or others, they rather prefer to have always the same to create the same identity. And then also, another interesting question was trying to recreate trying to not recreate but like trying to find who was the inspiration of the idols of those people? So we try to ask if they had any camgirls or artists, they were a representative for them as a content creator themselves in the first place. Did you find that there was a common thread for inspiration? So there are different categories in terms of that we gave, so it's not something official, but we observed some different microdata categories but the reference that they gave was every time it's a different camgirls, maybe some that they add more following more followers than others that brought their attention or they even bring them into the this work. And some of the category I was mentioning, are, for example, the cyberpunk subculture, or the not manga, but hentai world is also called cosplay. This is really important. There's so many, so maybe I should say, for example, cosplay. Also, it's really relevant there.

Abigail Div
Well, like sex and the fact that there are so many different niches of camming in the camming world, it is as wide as it is deep. Were you looking at a particular sub segment or segment of the population for collecting your data?

Giorgio Gasco
Let's say that we try to follow this kind of categories I mentioned before the population is set in the in those website. It is variagated, of course, it's not about gender, because there's all the gender in the website but there is a certain age that say there's a majority of I would say young generation and also a I don't know, like a, or at least what what I could see in the first featured people probably must follow adam. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

Abigail Div
Well, let's move right along then and get to the actual design of the project. The music is physically our stucco cast, a series of visual references to objects in these cyber video chats. In layman's terms, it's wall art a la camgirl style.

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Right? What were some of the common features that you saw in these rooms? Yeah, basically. So we started analyzing all these rooms. That yeah, as as also Giorgio said before we we picked them based on our specific interests, what was capturing our attention. And in this room sorts we started selecting different elements, but first, also analyzing what were the common elements that we could also put in our you know, what stucco walls. And then like, we found out that some of these elements, for example, were like, the blanket, the material itself will have some have some blankets, or cushion wigs like for example, the this this kind of pastel colors, or like one common element also that we saw in every kind of stream of camgirl stream was the neon lights going from, for example, blue and purple. And this you can also see in under, in the pieces that that we have made. There, for example, we use the L wire, which is a specific type of light, which is used to do to create like an ambient light. Also, even in, in cars. We also saw some sort of like furnitures, specific furnitures, like the chairs, or like the manga, sort of manga, the entire elements from the fantasy world, for example, like delfines, or unicorns, or like, like, yeah, fly butterflies. Some of them were also like toys, that that are used in depth performances. And the some of these are very iconic. One of these, for example, is the relevance. And this one, we also use the thing one of the of our pieces, because the relevance is this remoted confirmed vibrator, which is like increasingly being used in these performances. But we didn't stop at only at the yeah, the rooms, but also at their attitudes, their dresses, and of course, also at some tip, tip menu. For example, there was this specific performance called the eiga face, which we also represent. This is from the manga in Taiwan, and it is represented in one of our stuco the angel, the little puto that that you see with the with the tongue outside. So yeah, these were some of the of the elements that that we analyzed.

Abigail Div
Yeah, so it sounds like you've gone from the physical representation, which is you know, the physical spaces that are incorporated into the camming world, some of the actual setup, if you will, the digital setup, which includes, you know, the chat functionality, and then also some of the references that they made for tipping. Which for those of you who are not familiar with hentai world, the the face or the expression of pleasure, or orgasm, that you would have in an Asian scene, where a woman has her eyes crossed and her tongue stuck out, which for us in the Western world is somewhat of a displacement for but for a lot of these cammers, it sounds like it's so far more common. Well, what were some of the most unexpected scenes that you saw as given that there was some some more conventional elements already in these worlds?

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah, we saw like a lot of yet conventional conventional rooms because they were rooms, I mean bedrooms. But I think the most unconventional one that we found was one of Dutch kamgar on top of on top of a car. So she was streaming from she was from airgarage, we suppose and she was streaming on top of her car and on this car, you found like the blankets still and also the toys she was using in in the performance. It was almost like a film scene, something that was really unexpected for us, of course really prepared. That's why we said like I said, it's looking like a female scene but but really nice on on the artistic point of view, because was something that you were not expecting to see in these websites, where the most of them are full of for just rooms, bedrooms,

Abigail Div
Yeah, some people have taken literally outside of the bedroom into other spaces, or other scenarios, to captivate an audience. You know, creativity has no boundaries, literally, physical boundaries. Well, room decor, speaking of which was a big influence on the work. Were these spaces mostly self-decorated, were they rented spaces, were there's their combination of both?

Giorgio Gasco
Yeah, it was, there was also outdoor spaces, it's something quite common to see in the backyard, but also he's in between, there is this wire aspect of it, trying to hide from other people, that's also something is recurring. But then we can say that there are three main categories. So there's people who try to really don't care much don't spend too much attention about this stenography of the room. So you can see also a bit of a mess, mess, messy background, yes. And in other cases, the space is rented. So there are proper studios. And this happened, because last week, we were chatting with a camera. And she said that sometimes being all the time, at home working can be really frustrating. So being in studios, is also a moment to have an exchange with the other people that works in the field. And it creates a community, in addition to the fact that it offers a good light system. It offer like all the props necessary for the job. And then, of course, and probably the most interesting, one is when they when people create their own space, like the example of the garage, but also many others were the scenography. And is inside a room designed, let's say by the user themselves. Yes. Because you can go really beyond the conventional bed with the backdrop or like, if you paint on the side, yeah.

Abigail Div
Yeah, you can certainly make it your own, you know, and put your stamp of creativity, personal creativity into into the design work. Well, there are eight pieces in the exhibit. What didn't make it in? That you would now have added? What didn't make the cut?

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah, actually, actually, we could say we made a lot of them. We made a lot of trials. A lot of different elements we selected. Of course, what we see what we consider our best choices. That would what made it but for sure, we spend a lot of time making a piece around a unicorn. But in the end, we we failed. We failed. We failed, but for sure is something that we're gonna make soon. Yeah.

Abigail Div
I can imagine that being very fragile at the, you know, a tip, a very long, conical tip. It may be a little bit brittle for the purposes that way you're succoing.

Giorgio Gasco
For the plaster yes

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah, it really was really a difficult one in the making. But also I would say in the digitalization, it was a bit difficult to to combine it you know, with, with other different elements of the piece itself, because each piece that you see already in the exhibition, it's not like for example, you have an element and then around you don't have anything that's it's always like a constructed element of something modified. Like for example, the Lovsense where we modify the thing in a way that it replicates the design of an ornamental scoobies from the past or like the four where we actually extracted the idea of four and we made out we made up that kind of frame. With the unicorn was really difficult to just select like for example the head and then modifying it in digital to to have something together with it. So then end we discarded it, but it's in the making.

Abigail Div
It itching to be exhibited, stuck somewhere in the back of your workshop closet.

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yeah, exactly

Abigail Div
It's peering its head out looking to have some some visibility into. Yeah, I know that inkling. Well, wonderful. And camming is just one of the many genres in the world of streamers. There's gamers, vloggers, interviewers, cosplayers, basically anything that can be designed, filmed, and then broadcast can go online into a stream. For designers like yourselves, this must be a playground of opportunity, and also a chance to iterate on the concept that you've come up with. Your focus right now has been on the rooms, primarily, as well as some of the elements of the virtual community that it's around, Do you have plans to incorporate other attributes of the cameras themselves into the project in the next iteration.

Giorgio Gasco
But it certainly, we learn a process now on how to extract elements and then use them for our design purposes. And after the rooms, there's also many others elements that we will design and where they can be integrated with those. Let's say aesthetic is we kind of created not created, but extract an aesthetic that we then modify the beat, according to what was the purpose of the design. So we made walls to configuration, but I can totally see a table, I can totally see a nice so far make out of his language we extract. And, and we can do this both from another streamer, but also trying to take the camgirls elements and bring them in another context. I think this would be quite challenging and interesting as well.

Abigail Div
Yeah, both from a social standpoint, as well as like, how do you physically represent personality? You know, it's so varied. Wonderful. Well, are there plans also to expand it to other types of streamers?

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Yes, as I said, already, in the beginning, like we started this project there on streamers in general. So we already had in the beginning, like some, you know, like categories that we would like to, to analyze. And we already started already working on another category, which are the gamers, which I think nowadays is also very, like, mainstream. Also, you will see, on Twitch, like, if you open Twitch, the first things that come up is like, only gamers everywhere. But they're like, I think like the design process will be the same, but actually the results will be totally different from from the camera word because also here the the aspect. So what we will analyze is not anymore the room because most of them are not even like showing the rooms are only showing the game. And in fact, our our goal here it will be to to understand what they're trying to show and how they're showing it and also extract elements from from the game itself. That could represent also this category. And that could give us some inspiration to make to make new pieces. Yeah,

Abigail Div
Yeah, that certainly sounds like streamers in the gaming world is an easy target, as they're also as varied and follow similar trend lines in terms of aesthetics, from the chairs that they use to the the backlighting that they have as well in the same way that the cammers follow some of the same visual trends. So it'll be interesting to see what you come up with on the next iteration. We'll have to have you back on the podcast to talk about that

Gianmaria Della Ratta
That would be great.

Giorgio Gasco
Yeah, it would be.

Abigail Div
Wonderful and thank you, Giorgio and Gianmaria for joining me today to talk about Digital Muses.

Gianmaria Della Ratta
Thank you. Thank you very much. It was really a pleasure for us. I think yeah, we I mean like we are really happy to, to have participated in it. Because I think this was also the perfect we have spoken about this and this, I think was the perfect continuation and also result for for our project to go in a podcast lectures.

Abigail Div
Oh, well, it's my pleasure to have you and if you like what you hear, please join me again next time for another feature on Le Sex Lab.