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Anna Couey
Women know: we neither abandon our herstories nor our bodies when we create in cyberspace. Our sensibilities as artists are shaped by experience, which is shaped by the social construction of gender, among other influences. Just like men. If we believe in women's rights, we must uphold the right of a woman to be herself. We must acknowledge that women are a diverse group of people, not just culturally or racially or economically, but individually. If the personal is political, then each one of us is walking the trajectory toward freedom on her own path. And yet the steps that each one of us takes, and the times we stumble and fall, reverberate through our collective body, and shape what gender means -- to us, those around us, and those who come after us. Gender is malleable. This is the danger of identifying ourselves as women artists -- our work becomes women's work, contained in defining and being defined by gender. Gender-identified work has an important role to play in building our understanding and freedom, but it does not represent the entire scope of women's stories. To think otherwise is to box us into ourselves, our bodies, closed loop: sexism, once again. We need to be able to speak as people on this planet about issues that impact all of us -- not neutered, but *with* our women's stories, our shared and disparate experiences. So what does it mean to be a woman artist working in new media? It matters. New media technologies are powerful communication systems and they are increasingly controlled by transnational corporations with little accountability to people's needs. I'm talking about power and who has it and what it's used for. Our stories and structures -- contradicting, outside the lines, connecting people to people, opening our souls -- are vital steps in the struggle for human rights in the new millennium. This is true for all people who are oppressed. And I'm not talking about getting ourselves pieces of the pie which always submerges our struggle, but on creating the world as we envision it: not accommodation, but transformation.
couey@well.com
Responses:
From: Nancy Paterson Oppression takes new opportunities with new technology (eg. the mantra of Silicon Valley - make more money - faster)!
From: Judy Malloy Yes and it is also important to remember (re Anna's comment about power and who has it) that as Martha Burkle Bonecchi points out in her paper "Technology has Forgotten Them: Third World Women and New Information Technologies", (in press for Women in New Media) "....the fact that my personal feminist reflection is made from a Mexican point of view, and that of a that of a Third World Country, talking about women and NIT carries on other perspectives." Among the things she says really struck me is that "..especially in Third World countries, it is common to find many families in lower economical and social levels that the daughters must work to pay for their brothers' education."
From: Pauline Oliveros We need to campaign for reform of corporations. The corporate box is unassailable - no one is responsible to humanity or the environment only to the bottom line. Making money is the single minded narrow objective of the corporation. The corporation is excused from responsibility otherwise. Dealing with corporations today is dealing with the box with noone in it to respond to human need - noone to be responsible for injury to humans or environment. We need to complain en masse to correct this error of organization which is set against us as invincible in order to make money from us.
From: Annick Bureaud I am preparing myself for the total eclipse of tomorow. I will go in a small town north of Paris. The encounter of the Sun and the Moon. The male principle hidden by the female principle, so says the story. In some myths it is considered to be a fight, in others to be a love story. What this has to do with this panel ? Nothing and everything. Is men, women and technology going to be (has been) a love story or a fight ? Is the question relevant ? The eclipse is the result of the celestian mechanics, not a love story, nor a fight. What about men, women and tech (plus art in the middle to complicate the whole thing !) ? The relationship of (gendered) humans to technology has nothing to do with the technology and a lot to do with the structure of power and the roles devoted to each in the societies. I just heard tonight on the news that according to a recent survey French women are still underpaid at equal level of job than men. No comment. Nothing to do with the technology. Why should we isolate women artists ? Is there a "woman tech-art" ? Why do we ask this question for "tech-art" and not for other kind of art ? Some chaotic thoughts from someone who is a woman and who does not know if it is good or bad, helpful or harmful to focus on "women and tech-art" a. technology has killed one of the very few "real" difference between men and women : the physical force. I don't need my muscles any more to perform some tasks, men don't either. We are equal. They can no longer "beat" us (in the very literal sense of this word). b There are more women in tech-art than in any artform before. More women at the top level, recognized, who were pionniers of the field (think of holography for instance, but you can find them in every field) or "master" (can I say "mistress" ?) artist. When Judy Malloy started researching for her book, it turned out she had more material than she could include in the MIT Press format of a "normal-sized" book. May be this is because, at the beginning, tech-art was not taken seriously, so who cared of women being involved ? May be because programming needs to use your brain and ... women have brains too :-) Honestly I don't know and I am not sure I care about the "real" reason. c Is the tech-art made by women different from men's ? This is the heavy question. The answer is yes and no (not very helpful, I know). No, in the sense that if you list all the women in tech-art and their artwork, you will not find a "common" ground that make those artworks special or different from a gendered point of view. The only result you will get is the sub-group of the feminist and/or lesbian works ... which is already identified as they precisely work into that direction. Yes, if you consider some specific artworks for which you have this strange "knowledge" that they could not have been done by the other gender. Some deals this sexual issues, or gendered issues, others don't. Examples : Stelarc, Survival Research Lab, Epizoo, Orlan, Tecla Shiphorst, Isabelle Choini, Jill Scott. All my examples deal with the body and the technology. But are all the works dealing with the body and technology, gendered ? I don't know, this would need a research, but I don't think so. "Legible City" has been created by a man, Jeffrey Shaw. It is not gendered. "Handsight" has been created by a woman, Agnes Hegedus. It is not gendered. d Should we focus (promote) the women in tech-art or is it a bad idea, putting them in a ghetto ? Here too my answer is ambivalent. When doing the history we should be very careful that women are not forgotten (because women "tend" to be forgotten, this is our current society). But otherwise ? Yes, in the sense that we still have to fight in a gendered power society and doing this kind of panel is drawing the attention to a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. No, in the sense that, girls we are there, we have already made our room. The fight is elsewhere : in training, in creating games that are not only Shoot them up, in ... giving the little girls "models" by showing them that women artists do exist in tech-art ... and back to the beginning, I am in total contradiction ! May be the answer is not so much to try to define a "feminine approach to technology and to tech-art" and to focus on women, as in this panel, than to promote their work, show them, write about them, everywhere there is an exhibition, not as an artifically isolated group but just equally. And if we don't like a woman's artwork ... just say it, not because she is a woman, but because we think the work is weak. I told you, just huge contradictions. May be tomorow the Moon and the Sun will give me a hint of an answer...
From: Anna Couey Wow! Many thoughts, ideas, overlapping & differing from mine. As an artist living in the region of Silicon Valley, I find the transformation of the Internet "industry" just since 93-95 has been phenomenal. The shift from interesting ideas to making-big-money-fast seems virtually absolute. And if you have other values...well, just try and see how far you get (& I've got to believe you can win, but I don't believe it will be easy). Those who are winning really big are mostly white men. While in the chip factories, as Coco Fusco points out, one predominantly finds women of color on the assembly lines. And they are not making great wages. She says, "As the demand for electronics grows steadily in the US, fueled by the incessantly euphoric infomercials masked as journalism that insist that technology liberates 'us', the American consumer's access to new technologies depends increasingly on the subordination of these women." As women new media artists, who have some level of access to the tools of power, some level of liberation, we must pay close attention to this fact and to be very conscious of what we are doing. I believe Pauline is right -- in general, and in particular. In the arena of new media, corporate concentration/monopolization is seeking to define the landscape. What is our role as women new media artists, if our Internet Service Provider only allows us to access particular content, strangely enough the content that they produce or distribute? Do we have a space there? I said what I did above about the dangers of framing ourselves as women artists in part because of a very surprising experience. In 1993, Lucia Grossberger Morales and I organized an exhibit of telecommunications works by women for SIGGRAPH. The works were not overtly about gender: a poetry slam, an interactive narrative, an online dialog with at-risk students in San Diego... They were works that attempted to break down communication hierarchies by utilizing relatively accessible technology and participatory communication structures, and by involving women, children, people of color as among the participants. I was shocked when male conference attendees assumed that because we were showing works initiated by women, that the exhibit wasn't "for" men. One man told me our exhibit was sexist (I think because we didn't show any works by men). I don't want to see our work evolve in wholly separate spheres (women's work) from men's, because then it will always be ghettoized and/or falsely analysed. But I also think gender plays into our work in conscious and unconscious ways -- both by us, and by our viewers. And that is something for us to be aware of. To me, feminist art has that awareness, whether its content is explicitly about gender or not.
From: Annick Bureaud I agree with Anna. I would like to tell you a story. It was I think in Helsinki for ISEA. I was looking at VNS cd-rom (not released yet, on HD) and enjoying it, *deeply*. A friend of mine came by. he is a man, a really "open-minded" and not sexist one. He watched a few secondes over my shoulder and said "pussy work". I was so shocked, we had a "hot" discussion and I found out that he was actually having hard time "entering" the work that was, unconsciously, taken as an "attack" by him, from a "male" point of view. He was destabilized.
From: Aviva Rahmani There were so many thoughts evoked by this intelligent discussion. Just a few responses: first, we can never ignore the money issue 'for the sake of art" because unfortunately it is the bottom line of survival, a tool of co_option, a copyright reality, a means of exclusion and of empowerment. I am reminded of an opening I went to in 1977. I had been part of a group of women artists who empowered each other and in many cases, went on to become quite famous and powerful. I happened to run into an older member of our group and commented in passing that I didn't sense we were all as supportive as we used to be. The response was along the lines of, we all suddenly realized there was a pie and we wanted a slice and competition became a real issue. It was then that I began to understand that with out a conscious effort, people fall off the trajectory. Attributions become a little sloppy and the result is loss of access to opportunity. This is a serious problem, not a new one and frames the question of making good art. Can you make good art without access? Of course, but it's harder, sometimes much, much harder. About three years ago at a CAA panel of women who had "made it" in the art world as traditional painters and sculptors, I asked the question whether anyone had a sense of ambivalence that perhaps they were among the chosen given "permission" for whatever reason above and beyond the quality of their work to succeed? As in any struggle to enter a field as "immigrants" some pass better than others (ie., blond, pretty white women do better). The response was understandably defensive to my undiplomatic question. At least in cyberspace, the visuals are less of an issue. But just over a year ago, I was part of a conference at Harvard in which a Bioengineer (Wendy Goldsmith) and I were presenting some of the work we had done together. Wendy looked quite feminine with long red hair and was very visibly pregnant. After the presentation, another presenter, a large white male landscape architect referred dismissively to our work as "boutique". Now, there is no objective way to measure the responses of people to looks and gender association but most of us know intuitively that competition for resources and the impact of physical appearance/gender is real and intrudes on our ideals. I am reminded of two studies, neither of which I can attribute and Emily Dickinson's compilation of gender statistics. The two studies refer respectively to 1. In blind studies where photos are mounted alongside tasks performed, volunteers consistently chose the "best" work when paired with the most conventionally attractive appearance, including of course, when the work was switched. 2. Second study, in classroom situations, boys consistently feel excluded when they aren't picked first. The Dickinson study (I hope I got her name right, I don't have it handy) refers to numbers of women in exhibitions. When it is an invitational, women do very poorly. When people have no idea of the author, selection comes out equal. Now, besides the question of whether a sense of entitlement is acculturated or genetic, there is the one of territorialism. Males of every species like to accumulate territory. The same year I asked my indiscreet question of the women, I asked in another CAA panel of painters, how they felt coming into the studio. One young man promptly responded: "kill all the other artists". The audience gasped and the men seemed to generally agree. The women seemed generally aghast. What I am saying is that there seem to be some gender issues that keep recurring over time regardless of how much progress we seem to be making objectively. In the second wave of feminism we worked very hard to make these differences work for us, ie., nurturant capacity. That became discredited with essentialist critiques but I wonder if we haven't swung too far over to the other side now with the presumption that we are going to transcend this all now. In some ways, I see women now as more separated and therefore more vulnerable to sexism. As in race issues, I also see the discrimination as more subtle and sophisticated and therefore harder to fight. I don't want to see a return to adversarial gender politics and I applaud loudly those of you who are engaged in various forms of education and research but I am very grateful to Judy for promoting this panel where we can continue to examine the questions posed above and elsewhere here.
From: Carolyn Guertin Corporate boxes and the capitalist impulse, that Pauline Oliveros refers to, stifle creativity. Look at what happened to Atari, and a lot of other think tank technological operations, when they became "too" succcessful and suit culture takeovers had their way with the creative engines that had powered the real innovations. Pedagogical studies demonstrate that grades, rewards, prizes, paycheques and other end-driven operations lower productivity, deaden motivation and kill the for "art for art's sake" passion. Ultimately, it is *play* that is the great motivator and innovator and, as Robert Atkins notes, this means that it is the "amateurs" who are the visionaries of any time. (Can one be a professional in a field that is not yet born?) Marshall McLuhan quotes Wyndham Lewis as saying: The artist is always engaged in writing a detailed history of the future because he is the only person aware of the nature of the present." Gertrude Stein called the creator an outlaw. "No one is ahead of his time," she says in Composition as Explanation, " It is only that the particular variety of creating his time is that one of his contemporaries who also are creating their own time refuse to accept." Is it any wonder that playful experimentation is derided with shocking terms like "pussy work" that radical innovations are not usually accompanied by a living wage? The status quo and the mainstream _by definition_ are incapable of understanding the dynamic process that is the avant-garde. Janet Murray deems the ideal model for interactive art to be the imaginative world of children's play. While the Disneys and the Mattels produce entertainment or infotainment, independent artists are exploring the new media to fuller potentials through the introduction of playfulness into their methods, their thinking and their virtual worlds. And girls' play might just find a way of making things flower instead of explode...
From: Carolyn P. Speranza "Creating the world as we envision it: not accommodation, but transformation." I recently said to a friend, "I am a feminist, not a bra burner," as a serious joke and in the same conversation, "it's not that you shouldn't hire any man, but just the right one," for her "women only" YWCA class. In my view, transformation occurs in a clear space, unencumbered by predefinition and selection. Not in "the box," but out of the box: in conversation with another, in the listening of the crowd, the community, the neighborhood, the world. Recently, I heard a theorist friend, Malcolm Miles, speak on public art and the civic artist. He pointed out that it is the artist who works in the grey spaces between defined entities, be they corporate, cultural, political or gender-based-- who creates truly new ways of seeing and being. It is the individual who can work adroitly between the fixed spaces of gender, economic class, corporate technology and a still, hero-based modernist culture who will produce the next "paradigm shift."
From: Rose Anne mcgreevy power requires energy - think about it - men go out and 'do' because for the most part there is a woman somewhere in their life taking care of them. When women (artists or not) acknowledge this and CHOOSE what happens with their primary energy; secondary energy and the little bits left over which they seldom give to themselves maybe the nature of power struggles between men and women will change. There is a conundrum in the women's world - they struggle (admirably) against that which is oppressing them whislt they feed, clothe, succour, sex and help that which is oppressing them. I suppose a futureistic analogy could be that of robots being 'badly treated' in everysense of the term and they - the robot - continuing to serve and fill the bank of that which is oppressing them. It's a bit like "go and make the dinner - I need the energy to put my boot on your neck". Just a rave. Sometimes it seems so simple to me (the sollution) that i feel that maybe women like to be oppressed or.. what they want more than non-oppression by males is 'love' 'being liked'. It takes a lot of energy and emotional courage to feed yourself - first at least.
From: catherine mcgovern I have to agree with the idea that gender is malleable and that there are dangers in identifying ourselves as women artists. however on a practical level knowing that a woman created a certain technologically challenging piece does serve the very important function of offering a role model. the biggest hurdle for any newbie to a new technology is confidence and the belief that maybe they could actually learn such and such tech. (that is persuming they have already gained some access to the tech). I hate to say this, but when I was working with Studio xx (artist-run centre for women working with digital media tech) I found that far more often than not (generally younger) men were much more giving of their knowledge, skills, time. I found that the women with the skills rarely were willing to give of their "wealth". they often (not without reason based on experience in the industry) felt that to give was to be taken from. in an enviroment where men's help was questioned, it was really disappointing to see women unwilling (perhaps unable) to offer what these men didnt think twice about offering. obviously, there are causes which lead this to be the case. i'm not suggesting the women were just being bitches... but it was a disturbing reality in a community based, pro-women, for the benefit of women organization.
From: Judy Malloy Hmmm -- what I've observed in these situations is that men are more willing to bullshit if they don't know and that they step more easily into the "I'm the one who knows it all" construct than women do. So, it might not always be that the women were unwilling to share. I wonder in some cases if it might be because women look at multiple ways of doing things more and are more likely to say either "I don't know" or "well it could be done this way or this way or this way." I've also observed that sometimes - just sometimes - women will take technical instruction more easily from men because it is the traditional power construct and because a few women students, rather than feeling you are a great role model are going to feel threatened because you can do something they can't. It's expected that men can do these things. But it doesn't sound like that was the case at Studio xx. Can, you tell us more about your program catherine?
From: catherine mcgovern i think also, that it was a very small number of women and thus not a representative sample. partially it was these particular men - all young enough to have grown up with professional career person mothers. i found that they always wanted to share their knowledge, but didnt push it. they didnt do that common bullshit when you don't know thing that you mentioned judy. (though tons of men will) i was horribly disappointed in the behavoir of the 3 or 4 women i'm refering to. and i really believed in the sisterhood of wired women. as for studio xx itself - its a great organization, with very good reasons to exist and to continue growing. it grew too fast in the last couple of years and as is often the case with organizations that do that it has gone through its share of identity crises, etc. i found that the women who came there to learn (through workshops) were always really keen. i think it is more about feminist pedagody, than women must teach women. though, again role models are really important. computers can be horribly threatening and frustrating and the biggest challenge is getting over that. xx has always tried to demystify the tech. and that's a really important under- taking. i found from reading FACES mailing list that european cyber- feminists seemed to be very techie as well as theoretical. and that is something i think xx as a community has so far failed at. cyberfeminists should be getting their hands dirty too! IMO. ok, must run. sorry to reply late - big big big grant application...
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