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Dawn Mercedes
Gender matters. It is that simple and that complex. Our identities are shaped by rigid patriarchal structures that function as constant barriers to self-definition. Our technologies, in turn, evolve from androcentric, gendered perspectives. Therefore gender, along with many other contextual factors, is an influential consideration with regard to how artists and viewers perceive, understand, and think about art in the age of new media. As an artist, educator, and feminist, my concern is with the exploration and development of holistic alternatives to the patriarchal status quo. Indeed, feminist perspectives offer us viable options to the myth of patriarchy. More specifically, my research indicates that feminist aesthetic theory is both applicable and beneficial to the study of new, computer-mediated art forms. [1] While currently there are no aesthetic "standards" for computer-mediated art and although we do not need explicit standards, we do need a framework for understanding new media in order that we may enhance current practice. Through the implementation of alternative ways of seeing, knowing, questioning, creating, and being in the world, the role of gender and its impact on the interrelationships between art, science, and technology may be more fully understood.
notes
1.) J. Dawn Mercedes, Feminist Aesthetic Theory as an Alternative
Paradigm for Computer-Mediated Art, Dissertation Presented in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in
the Graduate School of the Ohio State University. (Columbus, OH: The
Ohio State University, 1999)
Responses:
From: Nancy Paterson Yes, gender matters. Trans-gender is the term I propose runs counter to the 'post-gender' and 'post-feminist' terminology in circulation ('trans' referring to an understanding on the meta level - knowledge about knowledge, rather than 'post' as in passed or past). We have no real understanding of trans-gender within rigid patriarchal structures because of the simultaneous influences of diversity (globalization), technology (privatization of society) and trans-gender politics. The patriarchal status quo is struggling with all of these factors at once. The right wing is taking advantage of high technology while we are engaging in this type of discussion - we must be heard. The economy (DOW), although technically 'successful' and 'good' is in fact so high because people are spending like there's no tomorrow (Y2K!) These kinds of stark contrasts and anomolies rule today. The shake out will take us well into the new millennium to sort out.
From: Judy Malloy As sort of a grounding, I want to go back a little in time because a couple of works comes to mind -- I guess because they are so clearly grounded in the mattering of gender -- one, Nancy, is your video installation Hair Salon TV in which you describe the hair dryers as representing "an apparently archaic technology still employed in this culture, primarily by and for women." Another is Jill Scott's Paradise Tossed about which she wrote: "Here domestic technology is used as a metaphor for the history of the machine-human interface, and the change and manipulation within the woman's workplace becomes apparent as domestic appliances seductively present themselves over a landscape flowing with the curves of the female body." Both of these works were done a few years ago -- at a time when many of us were looking at technology as much as we were using it. Now Tina LaPorte's Translate { } Expression comes to mind -- where the code which draws the female figure is integrated into the work. (as opposed to the work looking at technology) Or Nancy's Stock Market Skirt with its complex/layered industry/gender connections... In casual observation, it now sometimes seems that we are so steeped in the technology (or are so in "command" of the technology ourselves) that the role of gender is submerged. However, in her thesis Dawn has done a really wonderful job of showing how, in approach/methodology, feminist aesthetic theory is shaping some new media works. Dawn, (and/or others) it would be great to have some examples.
From: Annick Bureaud May be this is a side comment but I wanted to share it with you. I am teaching in an art school in France. I am the *only* teacher to be a woman. The students are equally men and women. Wether you teach from a feminist point of view or not, it does not matter : my approach as a woman will *always* be different as my male colleagues'. The girls use the same machines as the boys. But they have no "models" to confont to. I am not an artist, I am not teaching "studio classes" but "history and theory". The only examples they (girls and boys) get are the documents I show in class. For me this is a disaster. Both access equally the technology and the tools, but not the mental representations (I am not sure of the word, sorry for my English).
From: Andrea Polli Annick's comments resonate with me as I think about the last few years I have spent as an art and technology teacher in Chicago. I don't know if I agree that a female teacher's approach to the subject is always different than the approach of a male teacher, but I do think that a teacher's personal identity affects the message a student receives (especially in an art school). In this discussion, there has been mention of disproportionately low numbers of women in multimedia and other technological professions. I think one way to address this discrepancy is in the educational institutions. I teach at an inner-city art school that has an open admissions policy (i.e. any student with a high school diploma who applies can get in). This leaves the door wide open for any student who might want to take technology classes. Yet, in a school that is over 50% women, we were finding less than that percentage of women students enrolled in advanced technology courses. The way we have so far addressed this issue is to recruit female students actively. The response has been great. Students have since told us that they were interested in the subject but didn't feel like they 'belonged' in technology. By creating a welcoming environment: one that includes female teachers that the students can look to as role models and subject matter that addresses social inclusivity, all of our students have benefited from a more diverse community.
From: Karen O'Rourke Im surprised by almost the opposite reaction. In my classes at the University of Paris I (admittedly more art-oriented and less high-tech than some), I have as many women as men students. Last semester the javascript whizz in one class was a girl... At my school however we have a predominately middle-class population.
From: Dawn Mercedes How the courses/programs of study are "classified" and "categorized" may make a difference. For example, the technology-based classes I've taught have, at both beginning and advanced levels, been equally attended by women and men. It is worth pointing out that I teach in a Department of Art Education. Would such "techie" courses be as well attended by women students if only offered in the context of a Department of Computer Science? Language (naming) is a powerful form of *framing* in that it structures, determines, and controls our conceptual boundaries and provides us with a model for thinking (C. A. Bowers writes extensive ly about this topic). So the ways in which we frame our world (and the ways in which our world has been framed *for* us) dictates what we are able to think about and thereby reenforces biased social and cultural practices. If "engineering" suddenly became "art" would more women sign up for classes?
From: Tina LaPorta thank you judy for citing my work. i'd like to add that much of my recent work which responds directly to technology addresses the strong sense of alienation i feel when i'm immersed within an environmnet built around technology. this approach toward alienation has deep autobiographical roots for me. currently however, it often becomes analagous to the way i look at the world and am perceived back by it as a woman, artist, feminist, activist...
From: Carolyn Guertin Dawn Mercedes notes that there are as yet " no aesthetic standards" for computer-mediated art. Surely that is part of the wonder of the new forms we are playing with. Electronic conventions, like the slow evolution of the book, will take years or even decades to gel into a fixed shape. It is no accident that Brenda Laurel's real world thinking about interface design has been so influential. And here lies our opportunity. What might this potential multiplicity of feminist interfaces look like and how could they affect how we use our technology? How can women have input into the electronic "printing" conventions of the next millennium? How do we tear apart operating systems and inform them from their conception with a differently gendered consciousness? Steven Johnson in his book Interface Culture calls the interface the art form of the next century. According to him the interface, not the novel, will be the medium of the future. Women were primarily the mothers of the novel as they sought to find ways of speaking the issues of their time. Are we not seeing this same trend in innovations in computing and electronic art? In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray identifies the aesthetic pleasure in interactive environments as agency. She says that as the engine of any interactive world, it is us--the players--who simultaneously create and alter the environment through the fact of our nomadic voyagings. Might we have the power at our fingertips to terraform a new electronic future? Is not putting one of Purple Moon's games in a young girl's hands the fledgling gesture of just such an act? What kind of interface might that girl design for herself? Or for her own daughter?
From: Christy Sheffield Sanford This is a response to Annick Bureaud "history and theory". The only examples they (girls and boys) get are the documents I show in class. For me this is a disaster. Both access equally the technology and the tools, but not the mental representations (I am not sure of the word, sorry for my English)." Hi, Annick, I have to say theory is bigger than critical theory. Show them Gertrude Stein, Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Kathy Acker and me, in other words, some great formalists. Do the theoretical interpretation yourself. Show them Candace Pert, great theoretical material on the body and emotions and the mind (Molecules of Emotion is the title of her recent book.) She's a biochemist who did much of the important research on receptors and the parasynaptic system. And then there's N. Katherine Hayles. Well, I've gone on too long, please excuse my impatience. Best wishes, Christy
From: Judy Malloy And there aren't enough opportunities for all of us (artists/critics/art workers - male as well female) to say how great our work is. It was one of the aims of this panel to provide that space. Carolyn asks a key question: "How can women have input into the electronic "printing" conventions of the next millennium? How do we tear apart operating systems and inform them from their conception with a differently gendered consciousness?" Given, that at this point at time, many of us we don't have the positions in the industry that men do, I think we do need to go out (as did Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austin and many others) and just do it -- enduring some scorn for our exploratory systems. Theirs aren't perfect either. At the same time, we need to work for the sharing of power which Anna mentions in the Open Forum and also for the sharing of resources and financial rewards. (As an aside, I will probably link some of the threads when we are done talking, but prefer not to formalize this now.)
From: Karen O'Rourke Speaking of language, we women seem always to be excusing ourselves for one thing or another (our English may not be perfect, we may ramble a bit: maybe men don't do this enough!). Does anyone remember an enormously funny short film called "Excuse me" (or "I'm sorry")? It was made by a woman whose name I've forgotten unfortunately ("I'm sorry"!) and was a never-ending litany of such situations. I showed it to my 7-year-old daughter who has a hard time (a really hard time) saying "excuse me"...
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