Performance & Book Signing | A Sexual History of the Internet
May 08, 20268:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Tickets on sale soon
Doors 8 pm; start time 8:30 pm
About the Event
The MCA presents the Midwest premiere of Mindy Seu’s A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET, a project that reveals the pervasive and perverted origins of our digital tools.
Together, we examine the relationships between techno-development and sexuality, innovation and autonomy, lust and extraction. In the participatory lecture performance, citations are read aloud by you, the audience, through a shared script on your mobile device.
Published alongside A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET is a companion 700+ page artist book that gathers anecdotes, artworks, and historical artifacts to ask: How have technologies shaped and been shaped by sexuality? Books are available as an add-on to your tickets and in-person at the MCA. Seu is available to sign books after the event.
To join this event, you’ll need to bring a smartphone that is logged in to your Instagram account.
Please note: This performance includes explicit references to sex, sexual assault, and nudity.
Access Information
This performance takes place in a dark room with bright flashing lights.
About the Artist
Mindy Seu (b. 1991, California) is an artist and technologist based in Los Angeles and New York City. Her practice of technology-driven performance and publication focuses on online culture and internet history. A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET (2025) follows her first book CYBERFEMINISM INDEX (2023), a pseudo-encyclopedia that gathers three decades of online activism and net art, which was commissioned by Rhizome, premiered at the New Museum, and awarded a Graham Foundation Grant. Seu is currently teaching as an Associate Professor at University of California, Los Angeles, in the Department of Design Media Arts.
Project Credits
- Designer: Laura Coombs
- Editor: Meg Miller
- Lecture Format Collaborator: Julio Correa
- Illustrator: Ven Qiu
- Timecode Scripting: Jon Gacnik
- Videographer: Gabriel Noguez
- 3D Artist: Tom Hancocks
- Website Support: Charles Broskoski
- Metalabel: Yancey Strickler, Lena Imamura
This Instagram-Stories-as-Lecture format was first conceived of by Julio Correa in Seu’s Lecture Performance studio course (Fall 2023) at Yale School of Art. Seu further developed this format, in collaboration with Correa, for A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET.
Funding
Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Talks is made possible by The Richard and Mary L. Gray Lecture Series through a generous gift to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign.
Generous support is provided by The Antje B. and John J. Jelinek Endowed Lecture and Symposium on Contemporary Art; the Kristina Barr Lectures, which were established through a generous gift by The Barr Fund to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign; The Gloria Brackstone Solow and Eugene A. Solow, MD, Memorial Lecture Series; and the Allen M. Turner Tribute Fund, honoring his past leadership as Chair of the Board of Trustees.