Julianne Pierce on Wed, 18 Jun 1997 03:52:03 +0200 (MET DST) |
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Re: <nettime> bossy cunts online |
The fact that the posting by Anne de Haan has set off quite a lively discussion, shows (to me anyway) that the topic of 'feminist art' or more to the point 'cyberfeminist art' still provokes some hot responses from people. As Alan Julu Sondheim points out, feminist deconstruction of art practice has been around since the 1970's...a lot of this work has focussed on the body (and still continues to do so)...but this of course has been a major focus for female artists enabling them to investigate identity, culture and biology itself. Analysis and reconfiguration of the body creates a space for women to redefine themselves as active subject rather than passive object (as they have so often been historically portrayed in traditional art practice, the 'nude' being the most potent example of this). Like dollyoko, I've also worked with VNS Matrix for about six years. In the early days of VNS, cyberfeminism was very fresh, it had no boundaries or definitions, so we were having a lot of fun with it...using the body as a point of departure to talk about feminist politics, technology, art, pornography and popular culture. One of our mottos, 'the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix' (which has perhaps been paraphrased by Anne de Haan) was about women having a direct connection with technology, that our little physiological buttons could easily interface with the machine. Certainly the cyberfeminist movement has grown, and I believe in a really positive way. The internet and information culture is perhaps the first major cultural shift that women can actively have a role in developing and defining. This is incredibly exciting for women, as there is a real chance to shape and influence the culture and future in which we live, interact etc. Cyberfeminism has presented some sort of united front for a lot of women to engage with. Certainly in Australia the whole grrrrl movement has gained incredible momentum and there are a variety of URL's, zines, magazines and now even heavy theory texts that deal with girls online with attitude etc. As McKenzie says, perhaps cyberfeminism is now in its own box...certainly VNS seem to have collapsed up their own black hole...but the movement itself still has real relevance. The Old Boys Network (at Documenta X) will certainly be investigating, dissecting, promoting how cyberfeminism can mutate and evolve. I hope that cyberfeminism has not just been another trendy movement, in this age of 'kill it off quick if it gets boring'....cyberfeminism is maybe something that can last...the label might change but there'll always be grrrls who don't mind getting their buttons wet. ............................ --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de