Provocative and
penetrating, Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? reveals a wealth of
depictions of the future and shows the many ways in which they also address the
present. As the official artists' collective
representing Vienna at the Sao Paulo Art Biennial in 2002, the monochrom group
-- Johannes Grenzfurthner, Gunther Friesinger, and Daniel Fabry -- invented an
artist called Georg Paul Thomann and carried off the exhibition as a very
elaborate prank. The trio, aided by philosopher Thomas Ballhausen, brings that
same sense of the cutting-edge and the carnivalesque to this collection
exploring erotica, science fiction, and technology. A bracing mix of literary
forms, the book shows why the fantasy genre is especially suited to the
investigation of the transgressive realms of sexuality and pornography. Here
questions of science, research, and technologization are examined, along with
the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality, and control (or the loss of
control).