Re: [-empyre-] Isabel's thoughts on education

[Judy Malloy <judymalloy@judymalloy.net>]

Dear Isabel,

Thank you for your thoughtful response.  

I too still fight with code, as you put it. And in creating Uncle Roger 
and some of the works that followed it I spent hours trying to 
master the programming language.  I have some more thoughts about
this that I'll write soon.

And it would be good to hear from other women about obstacles 
encountered in education.

Very visual sites, such as your lunaire, are one way to 
overcome language barriers. I very much enjoyed "playing"
with this, and added it to the links list!

Best,
Judy


At 03:20 PM 12/8/03 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>My name is Isabel and, like Diana, I'm new on the list.
>First thank you for the very interesting topic .
>>From the first messages I noticed several aspects :
>1-the historical context
>2-the current situation (what work are women doing now?)
>3-the problem of geography and language
>
>1-The book mentions women working with technology since a long time
>(many years) and is written by women with a long
>technical background. It means that women (or at least
>a few of them) had the possibility to study and practice.
>The question is how easy was/is it for women to follow a
>technical education ?
>A personal example : in the seventies my mother didn't allow me
>to begin technical studies, though I was 1 of the 2 girls selected
>after tests (in the city where I was born) for that kind of
>study. I was not supposed to escape the controle of my mother....
>
>2-Is education always a problem ? Proportion of women in technical
>studies, proportion of female netartist with a technical background ?
>A technical background seems to be a necessity, otherwise you are facing
>problems. I experienced it as I began to create with a computer in 1999.
>I made my first website (including some netart pieces) in 2002. It was a lot
>of hard work and I'm still fighting with codes. I'm not quite sure that
>artists with a "traditional" experience can move easily towards animation,
>sound, 3D, netart.
>Is the technical hurdle to high for many creative people ?
>
>3-Geography and language : that's 2 more problems to face.
>I'm happy to see that Regina already wrote something :
>she lives in Brazil and english is for her of course a foreign language.
>If english is not the mother tongue or the language used every day :
>to post is a real challenge !
>(Remark : I like very much her creations, have a look!).
>When all the references are coming from North America or
>english speaking countries it's very difficult to add some
>comments. I'm french and I live in Germany : I live with 2 cultures and 2
>languages. I know : France and Germany
>are not third world countries, but once again very different
>from north amerika and english speaking countries.
>Perhaps I can encourage an experience : visite website made by
>women out of the english speaking world, better with no english at all.
>
>
>Best regards 
>
>Isabel Saij
>
>http://www.saij-netart.net
>http://www.saij-copyleft.net
>http://www.isabelsaij.de
>Contributor in the e-zine "netartreview.net"
>
>
>am 08.12.2003 4:48 Uhr schrieb -empyre-owner unter
>empyre-owner@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au:
>
>> 
>> Greetings Empryists,
>> 
>> I'm new to the list, though I've followed some of the debates via the
>> archive with great interest. The high quality of the exchanges is really
>> impressive. Hopefully, the following will be taken as it is intended, which
>> is in the hopes of exploring some of the more controversial aspects of a
>> book like Women, Art & Technology.
>> 
>> My colleague, Vali Djordjevic and I recently wrote a review of the book (we
>> are waiting for the go ahead from the publisher, MUTE, to post it here). As
>> both of us found the collection of texts rather problematic, I'm especially
>> pleased to have the chance to pose questions directly to Judy Malloy. I
>> should add that both Vali and I are co-moderators of the faces mailing list,
>> which is a platform for women in media [www.faces-l.net], and that our
>> colleague,  Kathy Rae Huffman, mentions the list in her text, which is also
>> included
>> in Women, Art, & Technology.
>> 
>> Without going into detail, I found the book troubling. My first questions
>> concern the selection criteria. Judy, you have already mentioned your goals
>> in allowing for different entry points to the book, which can be picked up
>> through different texts - but I'm curious to hear about how you selected
>> these texts. As the discussion here is already going in the direction of
>> what are women doing now, it might be worthwhile to qualify that, with which
>> women are being addressed? It seems that there is a universal notion of
>> woman, yet the book itself is concerned almost only with women in North
>> America, a few Europeans, and then a few texts that mention or address women
>> in the *third world* and *poor countries*. As there are few books that focus
>> on women and media, I found it really disappointing to find texts and artist
>> papers that came only from artists working in rich countries  - appearing to
>> be representative of women in general.
>> 
>> There was also the point of seminal and classic artist papers & texts - I
>> just didn't understand how these terms were understood in conceiving the
>> book. What was it about these works that gave them that status? How was that
>> evaluated?
>> 
>> 
>> All the best,
>> 
>> Diana
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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