On January 16, the DIGS Lab is co-hosting a talk by Merel Noorlander, Non-Binary Pleasure Playgrounds: Self-made Sextech and Pleasure Activism as Strategies of Joy in collaboration with the JOY LAB. There is no registration for this event.

This guest lecture presents research situated at the intersections of physical and digital intimacy, queer identity, and sextech. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining community-based media design, interactive installations, and participatory processes to examine how speculative and community-based design practices can (re)imagine intimacy beyond normative frameworks, particularly within queer, trans, immigrant, and sexwork communities. Noorlander’s artistic research spans kinetic installations, ceramics, mobile projection mapping, and fieldwork on self-made pleasure objects. It explores how materiality, digital embodiment, and public space operate as sites of both pleasure and resistance.

Central to this work is the question:
When we look at public areas as queer and sex-positive spaces, what vernaculars, gestures, scents, sounds, and colors do we use to communicate? How do these evolve, intersect, and influence personal and cultural understandings of intimacy, and what tools support these interactions?

This research draws on Paul B. Preciado’s work on gender non-conforming identities, extending broader explorations of contemporary intimacy through technology and fluid ways of being. In practice, it investigates self-made queer sextech in everyday life, of all ages, combining theoretical inquiry with social practice. This includes weaving pleasure-oriented objects and installations into both public and private spaces, highlighting how artistic production can function as critical social intervention.Collaboration and co-creation is central to this work. It engages BDSM practitioners, sex coaches, sex workers, and queer and trans communities that I'm part of, in developing physical and digital self-made sex toys, translating diverse experiences into a shared visual and interactive language. A key conceptual framework guiding this research is pleasure activism, knowledge exchange and joy as a strategy for social change right at each others doorstep, empowering communities outside mainstream structures. By situating these practices within multidisciplinary art installations, this work integrates personal narratives, participatory research, and long-term interdisciplinary reflection. This lecture also invites the audience to actively reflect on their role in joy, pleasure activism, and the creation of self-made pleasure objects.

Speaker bio: Merel Noorlander (they/them) is a Dutch artist, designer, curator, and educator, navigating between Salt Lake City, Detroit, New York, and Amsterdam, raised in Amsterdam’s Red‑Light District among a self‑chosen queer family and captaining their own boat. They hold an MFA in 4D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Their work centers on community-based media, participatory design, and strong collaboration with LGBTQIA+, migration, and sex‑work communities. Currently, they serve as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Multi-Disciplinary Design Division at the University of Utah and lead a research group on “Queer Self‑made Sextech + Materials” with the SexTech Lab at The New School in New York, alongside Pani Farvid. They are also part of the accelerator program for their research under the mentorship of Bryony Cole at the SexTech School, Cohort 14. Merel is currently working on two book chapters: Social Practice & Participatory Design with the University of Buffalo, NY, and Queer Selfmade Sextoys in collaboration with York University, Toronto, Canada (Beyond the Interface Symposium, part of the Critical Trafficking and Sex Work Studies research group, peer-reviewed by Kathleen Cherrington), as well as a book proposal on SexTech, Pleasure, Joy, and Social Justice with Pani Farvid and their research team.