[-empyre-] Women, Art, and Technology

["arteonline" <arteonline@arteonline.arq.br>]

Dearest dears Isabel, Barrie, Kanarinka, Hellen, Christina and all,

A little bit late, but here I am to answer your messages. In fact I began
this morning  a programming course and I am very proud! ;-)  Can you imagine
thar the teacher said that I was really surprising! (which means: a woman
not much young..., wanting to learn programming and accompanying the
class... ;-) he he he...)

Kanarinka wrote:

I think one of the problems is that books like you describe above (about
excellent artists of both genders) do happen (there are many books that
survey contemporary art and include women artists just as "artists", for
example), but that in many fields and particularly in technical fields,
the writers of these books are still (despite feminism) blind to their
own biases that have been produced by a society in which men hold the
reins of power.

> I was thinking about the book which is being analyzed, which I am sure is
good. However I believe  it could be much more better if Judy had worked
with the two genders.
Men hold the reins of power, yes they hold, but their identity was/is a
socio / cultural heritage, just like the feminine identity was/is.

Isabel wrote:

We both agree about Simone de Beauvoir for instance and her role in the
past. We may have a different appreciation of the situation nowadays.
It is possible that you have a rather optimistic view of the situation (and
I would be so glad if you're right) and that I have a more pessimistic one.

> Simone de Beauvoir was my inspiration and one of the authors that made me
think in the past, but I would like she had written "The first sex" too.
Perhaps our different appreciation of the situation nowadays is a
consequence of our countries. I know that french education is very severe.
Here in Brazil things are so different! What really worries me is the
poverty and the lack of opportunity of great part of the youthness of my
country. Poverty and lack of opportunity are not the way of freedom. Have
you think how many talents (boys and girls)  are being losing because of
this?

Barrie sugested:

If you can find them try these two:

Jean Tinguely, 'Meta', KGP Hulten, Thames and Hudson, 1972

and

Niki de Saint Phalle, Pontus Hulten, Hatje, 1992

There are numerous publications about these two artists, they worked
together and individually, collaborated and made their own way.

> I know their work very well Barrie. I like both. I saw some works of Niki
de Saint Phalle at São Paulo Bienal, sometime ago.  I will try to find the
books. Congrats about your family, it seems to be nice!
If you want to know an amazing performance of Celeida Tostes, one of the
artists of my dissertation, browser at:
http://arteonline.arq.br/museu/interviews/celeida.htm

Christina sent a Zoe text:

I would like to conclude with some speculations as to why installations and
interactive works might be of particular interest to feminist and women
artists. Various stereotypical experiences of femininity and maternity might
inspire women's interest in these media. Years of 'girl talk' (minutely
dissecting feelings and relationships) and practice at deciphering and
manipulating the actions of pre-verbal infants and inarticulate men are
probably excellent preparation for experiments in interactivity. And as
homemakers and shoppers, women in consumer culture could be seen as
practicing a homely kind of installation art that involves selecting and
combining items from arrays of objects and making meanings by arranging and
transforming them within domestic confines...

Feminists may be attracted to practicing art in areas relatively
unencumbered by canonical histories of white male masters: video, computer
graphics and animation, 3D installations and Internet sites are relatively
new fields, fields that women can enter 'at ground level' with a reasonable
chance of being exhibited (often under the curatorship of women), getting
noticed and influencing the evolving art form. Finally, there might be a
philosophical interest in artworks/networks that allows exploration of
non-Cartesian forms of subjectivity (i.e. emergent, core and intersubjective
selves) in which the old binary distinctions of reason and feeling, body and
mind, subject and object are no longer so salient (for example, when
visitors find their bodies acting as cognitive agents16 to experience and
produce effects independently of their conscious intention).

>The speculations above are interesting, but why she writes about women and
feminists? Feminists are not women? It seems to me that she is working with
stereotypes. It is not easy to find categories so precise when one talks
about woman.  What do you think?

Yours,

Regina