Re: [-empyre-] the use in girls coming

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@unsw.edu.au>]

jullianne and everyone hi..
gee - i didnt realise the month was slipping away so quickly..

> Behind the fun though was a desire to agitate for increasing women's
> involvement with the datasphere...and this is where the cyberfeminism
> comes in...it's about become active and making change and in some
> ways being aggressive about that. VNS Matrix wasn't about separatism,
> it was about recognising that the cybersphere isn't neutral at all,
> it's a political, privileged and cultural space.


Its hard to imagine now but at that time only 5% of online users where
women.. the landscape was very different ..there was a sense of open
contested space - not the commercial mainstream cbd the net is now..
im  surprised that the re publishing of the manifesto 12  years later has
brought out attitides that cyberspace isn't a political or gendered space..
as if it net .space is somehow different from the world we live in every day
where gender inequality is prolific..  look at Josh Ons "they rule" to see
which sex  holds the economic and informatic power in the world.. it  is
always an ongoing issue..

i was interrested to host this discussion to see where we are up to today
after the flurry of cyberfemminsist activity in the early-mid 1990's.. i saw
cyber femminism emerge with early critics like liz grosz  responding to the
reveling in percieved disembodiment of online space , eg  john perry barlows
claim that his "everything was amputated", and argued that virtual space was
a place that didnt include the female as it was based on the rationalist
masculine.., the strategy was really to get women to inhabit and change the
landscape of the net.. remeber Rosie Cross's (geekgirl) "grrls need modems "
stickers? from my perspective  a lot of what VNS was about was putting women
into  online spaces.. the  All New Gen work  for Gamegirls ,with  the DNA
sluts,  Circuit boy, then Bad Code etc.. Julianne is there documetation of
this left online now? or is cyber fem history  dissapearing..?

then everything changed when the virtual rape at lambda moo happened in 93?
and of course everyone went ..well yes we are embodied online....and sadie
plant pointed out the erotics of virtual reality.., thre was sandys stones
fluid identity phase,  .. katherine halyes then talked about how we had lost
our bodies and needed them back..but she was always speaking form a
litterary perspective..

but really after the mid 1990's cyberfemminism just seemd to have disaapered
as an artistic or theoretical  force ... VNS where artists in the field
doing work.. everyone else really just touristically wrote about it.. then
did soemthing else i dont think  particulary about gender issues - eg. sadie
plant is doing stuff on mobile networks these days, liz grosz is doing
things on spaciatiality last time i saw anything, and katherine halyes is
talking about flickering signifiers and and argues for the materiality texts
and  re-embodiment of users reading texts of online spaces.

I know VNS disbanded but still do work on gender.. like francesa da riminis
prolific online work, and josephine starrs just gave great  paper at ISEA on
the need to arm sex workers in the video game grand theft auto, so they can
fight back when killed by clients after sex..

but what other women are doing  things online?
has anyone got any examples? i always liked juilette martins text-ascii work
but thats quiet a while ago now as well.. http://www.julietmartin.com

is cyberfemminsim in a coma?

melinda


> My point in posting the manifesto was a starting point to discuss
> cyberfeminism, from its early roots to where it is now and where it
> might be going. How does it sit with other feminisms and how has
> cyberfeminism created a space for women to be active participants in
> the 'information age' - not just as participants but as influential