dear sabine, dear list,

since I have been in the "art world", the hype of women in the arts is
coming and going - hip in one year, with some big feminist shows, and then
10 years of better not talking about being a woman.
the point is, that women still have no economic power. they are not the main
collectors, not the potent sponsors, there are only a few "important" female
curators...
and women and technology is still something like a joke.
I remember the german women artists´s group F.U.T. ("Frauen und Technik",
but Fut also means "cunt" in german), who where playing with this clichee
around 1993. 
there are initiatives like /ETC (eclectic tech carneval), where women give
tech workshops to each other, and I was part of a small international group
of women artists (42) 10 years ago, which organized small tech workcamps
once a year in different places.
it is good to see, that this idea has been growing since then - /ETC is a
real strong comunity by now -, but on the other hand it is a bit disturbing,
that it is still necessary to have women´s workcamps to encourage each
others.
the fact is: women still need empowerment to work in this field. this is
sad, but it´s a fact.
maybe in 100 years time there will be big shows of women pioneers in new
media arts: nostalgic, and not dangerous for the contemporary art scene of
their time. 
what we need, is the possibility to work NOW, to have recognition - and
budgets. because new media arts is highly specialized (you usually need
experts in more than 1 field), and the technical tools are expensive.
you can work on a low-cost level, work in collectives and transport great
ideas. but with this, you will not get the recognition in the scene that
stands for high reputation and prospective sponsorship. it may be good arts,
but this doesn´t mean, that it will get any recognition.
to put it in a simple way:
on one hand there are the "barefoot" open source geeks with their sleeping
bags and laptops, who probably never get any budget (and no place in the
history of new media arts), and on the other hand the "stars" of the scene
with enormous ressources and flashy projects (sponsored by big companies).

but all the art scene goes more to the direction of big, glamorous "events"
- content is more or less disturbing, and better not to mention.

sabine - where is it possible to get yvonne volkart´s book? seems to be
really important!

all the best,

eva




Am 29.10.2008 19:43 Uhr schrieb "Sabine Himmelsbach" unter
<[log in to unmask]>:

> Dear Verina, Dear CRUMB List,  Thank you very inviting me to the forum
> as a respondent on the topic of art, gender and new media. A lot of
> interesting posts have been made so far and I would like to add some
> thoughts.  I would like to emphazise the remark that Sue Golding has
> made - that the issue of feminism (gender) is still highly important.
> The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt recently staged the show *Women
> Impressionists - Morisot Cassatt Gonzalès Bracquemond*, which has been a
> huge success. It's one of the examples for the interest in yet untold
> histories of woman in the arts. In a personal discussion with the
> curator, Ingrid Pfeiffer, she mentioned that according to the
> statistics, a high percentage of women came to see the show. I think it
> is important and necessary to tell these often unknown stories of women
> in the arts.  Recently, I have been reading the book *Sexing Code.
> Subversion, Theory and Representation* by Claudia Herbst. She reflects
> on the issue of technological art histories, that have been mapped in
> regards to gender. Her book proposes that the de facto representation of
> technical ability serves to perpetuate the age-old association of the
> male with intellect and reason, while identifying the female with the
> body. In her writing, Herbst highlights women*s contributions in the
> writing and theorizing of code, particularly in the digital arts,
> hacking, and hacktivism. She claims that female role models in computing
> and their stories have effectively been eliminated from the record. She
> refers to computer programming as a form of *literacy* and as a type of
> *writing*, with social and cultural relevance. Herbst: *The
> positioning of women * and their ability to participate * in steering
> the course of code*s social and cultural influence is the incentive for
> this book.* Quite interesting are the chapters on *Subversion:
> Eroticizing the Female Hacker*, the analysis of the media portrayal of
> hackers and *Analysis: Immersed in the Body Code* which discusses women
> who are active in the New Media Arts. Josephine Bosma asked, why it is
> that no big power-networks have developed so far for women? According to
> Herbst*s book, one could say it has to do with the non-representation of
> women as empowered by technology so far.  I also would like to mention
> the book *Fluide Subjekte* (unfortunately only published in German so
> far) by media critic and theorist Yvonne Volkart on new media art. She
> says that gendered bodies are fluid and makes connections to similar
> effects in the information society. Her topic is, which role gender
> plays in the arts in subverting capitalist power plays.  Volkart's book
> looks on gender constructions and their importance for the design of
> subjectivity in general, not only at the role of women artists.  Best,
> Sabine