Well, that might be mad science enough just on its own, but what really caught my eye was that one of the best articles on this innovative piece of technology was on Synthtopia, a site devoted to electronic music, under the headline “Moaning Lisa:  The Most Bizarre Electronic Music Instrument Ever.”

Quoth her inventor, Matt Ganucheau

The process leading to a female orgasm is a uniquely delicate challenge for both sexes leaving it a mystery to most men and women. Moaning Lisa is an instillation that examines this complex process by simplifying it into an almost game-like state. With Lisa, as in life, there are no instructions on display. This leaves each participant to discover how Lisa’s true sexual potential is unlocked.

Wow.  I would be remiss, of course, if I didn’t embed appropriate video.

Matt Bell reporting from 2007 Arse Electronica:

The presentation of Moaning Lisa:

One has to love an audience question like, “So when are you going to release Moan Moan Revolution?”

But what really motivated posting this (somewhat) old news is that I hadn’t seen it before, and it was yet another reminder of how other people are thinking what you’re thinking.  Do you remember Tanya Yip’s rather unusual experience of being taught to sing better by being played like an instrument?

Tanya whips off her sweatshirt and casts it aside, then reaches back and undoes her bra-strap. Her bra hangs loose.

TANYA

Locrian! Please…

And, following that, her subsequent fantasy of becoming an instrument?

Sometimes I wonder if there are any unexplored erotic ideas.

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The whole thing is highly entertaining in its own right.

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An erotic inspiration indeed, especially since the model who posed for the picture was the stunning Kiki de Montparnasse (Alice Prin), who posed for any number of other striking things, such as this 1920 photograph (thus taken when Kiki would have been 18 or 19) Mädchen mit Vase by Julian Mandel.

I felt well-moved writing Tanya’s fantasy — the analogy between a master musician and a skilled lover seems to me very close.  (And the analogy also works the other way:  cf Honoré de Balzac:  “The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”)  I suppose there’s a rather radical bondage element as well as a transformation fantasy element.  After all, if you’re a cello, you can’t move and you’re at the mercy of whoever holds you…

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Rojan colored drawing, circa 1930

Seeing another masturbate can quite the experience for the seer, especially if things are going well for the seen.  It can even be quite the experience reflexively:  Susie Bright, dispensing auctorial wisdom for writers of erotica in How to Write a Dirty Story, recommends filming your own face at the moment of orgasm and watching that.

Happily in this day and age you can also readily see the faces of others as well:  there’s even a (subscription) site called ifeelmyself.com dedicated to erotica of exactly this kind — click through on the left to see their (free) promotional trailer.  I promise that you’ll get a little distracted…

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(Natalie Dessay show us how it’s done here in case your sight reading is a little rusty.)

The rather unusual and improving singing lesson that Tanya gets has its own rather unusual and special inspiration:  a famous (or notorious) painting by Balthasar Kłossowski de Rola, or Balthus (1908-2001) as he was more commonly known.  The painting is The Guitar Lesson (1934), and I’ll bet it’s scandalous even today (note that the image is from Wikipedia; I am reproducing it in-line for reader convenience):

Controversial, but unquestionably high art created by one of the twentieth century’s greatest painters.  It is even used by Richard Posner in his magisterial 1992 book Sex and Reason (pp. 376-7) as an example of how it can be nigh impossible to draw a clean distinction between “art” and “pornography.”

Judge Posner helpfully notes also that the girl in the painting whose guitar lesson has turned into a very different kind of lesson is in the same position as Christ in Enguerrand Quarton‘s fifteenth century La Pietà de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.

Ah, so it’s blasphemy as well as art!  Good, good…

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