Deviation as a key to innovation: understanding a culture of the future Trudy Barber The author Trudy Barber is based at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Keywords Sexuality, Social deviance, Innovation Abstract Deviation, fetishism and sexuality are often considered as emotive subjects that tend to be treated with amusement or disdain. Associating such concepts with technological innovation often instigates a reaction more akin to that of titillation, controversy and intrigue and has sometimes been dismissed outright. However, as this paper shows, deviation, fetishism and sexuality could prove to be fundamental factors in creativity and innovation. When consumers create their own technological innovations inspired by their personal predilections, arousal and preferences, new and unanticipated uses for technologies are being born. The role of deviation as a key to innovation must not be overlooked as it will contribute to our understanding of new intimacy, culture and the future of developing information and communications technologies (ICTs). Due to the multidisciplinary approach to this subject area there is a brief explanatory glossary that accompanies this contribution. Electronic access The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1463-6689.htm Introduction and context I am an artist who has recently completed a Sociology PhD researching cultural studies, titled “Computer fetishism and sexual futurology: exposing the impact of arousal on technologies of cyberspace” at the University of Kent at Canterbury[1]. I also hold a BA degree in Fine Art, from Central Saint Martins College of Art in London. Mixing art, sociology and cultural studies with sex, information and communications technologies (ICTs) and fetishism is, to say the least, an unusual combination. So, let me first explain how my interest in such an unusual mix of subjects came about, hopefully giving a more general understanding of issues raised later in this article. During my Fine Art studies I spent time as an industrial artist-in-residence observing power technologies, and also spent three months studying cadavers and the mechanics of the body in a university morphology laboratory. At that time I also completed works around the experience of being asthmatic while a volunteer at the Medicine One asthma research centre at Southampton University Hospital. These earlier experiences had a profound influence on my choice of subject matter for degree study that culminated in a passion surrounding a fusion of the body and interaction with both old and new technologies including the computer. This became manifest in my eventual experimentation with computer- generated virtual reality (VR) as an art form. I had hoped the work that I produced with VR would be seen as contemporary, a new art medium and as an innovative method for exploring more traditional and figurative artistic studies of the nude, gender and the body. Consequently, I created an immersive virtual world around the intimate theme of sexuality. I introduced this new art medium as an “immersive VR sex installation” and the work was shown as my final degree piece at Central Saint Martins[2]. Not only had I aimed to bring VR technology into the discipline of fine art, but also considered that my work could contribute to the inclusion of new technology within cultural debates and pertinent contextual themes of the time such as AIDS education and sexual life-styles. Audiences of the installation were both terrified and fascinated by the concept of computer technology combined with eroticism, intimacy, sex and the immersive experience. Such activity was then considered as part of the mythology of “cyberpunk” fiction (Gibson, 1984) and was more commonly described as “cybersex”. My work was seen as a futuristic fantasy that had become a reality, and was associated with danger, viewed with suspicion and considered as taboo by both foresight Volume 6 · Number 3 · 2004 · pp. 141-152 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 1463-6689 DOI 10.1108/14636680410547744 141