Kunst Raum Goethestraße in cooperation with Fakultaet
Big f, little f. One is a political label; the other is a state of mind, a personal philosophy by which to live.
Airlie Bussell: *Talking Up*, p. 133
"In 'Generation f: Sex, Power & the Young Feminist,' Virginia Trioli eloquently captures the impact of feminism on many dimensions of young women's lives today. She examines the significance of the 1994 AGB McNair telephone poll in which 70 % of young women polled in Sydney and Melbourne said they would not call themselves feminist. Trioli highlighted the paradox implicit in these numbers. Of course they believe in equal pay, a fair justice system, harassment-free workplaces and sexual freedom. This then raises several questions. What do the 70 % call these beliefs, if not feminism? And amongst the 30 % who "identify" as feminists, what else (if anything) do they see as feminist?
Rosamunde Else-Mitchell & Naomi Flutter: Talking Up. Young Women's Take On Feminism
The methods used by young artists of this generation-in comparison to those of the '70s, '80s and '90s-also invite a similarly ambivalent discussion. So-called "girl culture" makes use of the entertainment industry to draw attention to itself with "sex, fun & style" (Baldauf). Generation f rehashes, slices 'n' dices, copies and remixes the "found footage" of mainstream culture in order to thus render the Zeitgeist in intensified and exaggerated form. Its members are appropriating and redefining terms, or recontextualizing familiar labels and categories. The results permit us to visualize in ways that are often bizarre, odd, droll or even ridiculous the extent to which our society and our social environment are constructs.
The origin of cyberfeminism, however, is also an example of such an artificial construct: "... female artists, activists and theoreticians (...) use the potential of the concept of cyberfeminism, which is the result of its contradictory nature and lack of clarity. (...) An important strategy of cyberfeminism in this sense is the use of irony. Irony deals in humor and earnest play. Only by means of irony can irreconcilable stances and points of departure be maintained. All of these irreconcilable points of view are necessary and important, and generate a frightful tension. Thus, cyberfeminism is not only a rhetorical strategy but also a political method. There is an urgent need for a new concept of politics. Models from previous decades are no longer getting the job done. This expanded concept of politics must embrace the possibility of being paradoxical and utopian. It is oppositional, can argue from different standpoints simultaneously, and nevertheless makes sensible political action possible. A concept of politics that simulates politics and is at the same time politically effective. With such a concept of politics, we are returning once again to the proximity of art." (C. Sollfrank in: netz.kunst, Yearbook 98/99‚ published by the Institute for Modern Art, Nürnberg, p. 78).
Feminists of the second wave women's movement, on the other hand, regard being a part of the subcultural milieu as a prerequisite for critique and social change. For example, in the moo xxero Panel Room recently, Nova complained that being freed from burden of doing the labor of reproduction did not represent the fulfillment of the 1970s feminists' dream. After all, they had never called for a freedom that is dependent on multinational conglomerates. It is the power of capitalism that robs the people of their utopias and dreams by making the dreams come true and selling them back to those same people at a high price.
Young female artists, though, create utopias just like they used to. They construe themselves from scratch and create new social entities that they themselves-and perhaps society too-would like to have, since the masquerade and the switching back and forth between genders and systems makes traditional roles become blurred. Media (video and computer) have always assumed an important role here; within these realms, experiments can be carried out without encountering conventional patriarchic structures. Nevertheless, processes of transformation are underway, and these make it unavoidable to confront the changed demands of communication technologies, means of assuring ones ongoing ability to survive professionally and make a living, as well as a society that is redefining its structures. These circumstances create new patterns of behavior: in the area of capabilities/fields of expertise and methodological approaches, analyses of the culture of everyday life and social interrelationships.
It has been said over and over again that women use the Internet differently. They use it as a tool. Networks serve as a means of exchanging and disseminating information, as a meeting place in the virtual domain.
The new Generation f does not primarily utilize women's networks as networks by and for women, but rather as a mechanism to exchange ideas with each other and to meet one another. That the network itself becomes the object of an artistic strategy has to do with the focus of those who are the driving forces behind it. In going about this, so-called patchwork biographies are part of the strategies in the artistic field: adaptation of production methods and approaches to work from the worlds of business and social services as well as the mechanisms of a Fun Culture make for a smooth transition from production, services and the representation of social interconnections. Mixed realities and mixed media visualize themselves in everyday life just as they do in art, and vice versa.
In Project female takeover - ff, seven female artists and groups of female artists working under pseudonyms treat the cluster of so-called female strategies to link together the non-material world of the WWW and the material world of real life. They will confront the methods of the feminist practice of net art (in which Kathy Rae Huffman, Faith Wilding, Cornelia Sollfrank, Victoria Vesna and many others are regarded as pioneers who have made a name for themselves with important, trend-setting works in the WWW) and the strategies of younger female artists (Nine Budde, Snergurtuschka, Lina Hoshino, Cue P Doll, N.N.) who discuss purportedly feminist issues in generalizable, more open, and often ironic forms. To get things started: What would be appropriate strategies towards feminism if one proceeds under the assumption that Generation f wishes to distance itself from this concept?
And: does the brief half-life of works, issues, positions and debates necessitate more flexible networks in contrast to longer-term concepts?
PROJECTS
Rachel Baker
Cultural Terrorist Agency (CTA)
Rachel Baker is part of the panel I of Kunst Raum, which presents new strategies by young female artists. Currently embarking on a residency at HTBA (www.timebase.org). Rachel Baker hopes to implement an independent media distribution network facility in Hull. The exploitation of the workplace is an ongoing project. As part of Cultural Terrorist Agency (*http://www.irational.org/cta*) she is responsible for strategies in raising funds for projects that promote cultural interference. The most recent CTA project to be unleashed was GirM, a brand of genetically modified goods placed discreetly on supermarket shelves. The Cultural Terrorist Agency (CTA) is a funding agency committed to supporting contestation of property and representation. CTA turns its enemies´ best weapon, that being investment, back onto itself.
Nine Bude
Im Versagen Schön Sein
What initiated the thought process of this experiment was the question of how to emotionalize German brains despite their strongly context/technology/content-oriented way of thinking. It became clear to me that this was above all a problem of language. The more monotonous and unmelodic the voice while speaking the language, the more content-oriented the listener. A book about 13th century poetry I came across led me to the conclusion that the solution was to be found in the reintroduction of Middle High German-a language that is considerably more flexible and (for us) funnier. A solution equivalent to this would be to reintroduce courtly love. Analogous to the basically rather unemotional process of German communication is, in my view, communication in the Information Age. It suggests emotions but fails to place any appropriate media at their disposal. At the very least, SMS and e-mails function in a most one-sided fashion, and are rather to be understood as play prostheses. My answer is playfully construed: a 1.80 meter high medieval castle made of wooden trash and featuring integrated courtly love-Karaoke. The knight/dame stands in front of the house of the object of his/her courtly love and sings along to the Karaoke into a microphone. This Karaoke is a compilation-partially refrains with a strophe, partially just refrains. This communication pruning leads to confusion and, subsequently to data jams. Nevertheless, the one-sided dialogue situation accelerates the occurrence of an intuitive clash among all participants, regardless of whether one is in love or not, since similar feelings are being produced by the courtly love-adapter and the abstruseness of the situation.
Hypothesis: the Information Age is not just a matter of using communication technologies to get information but also of emotional communication with the help of technology.
(The medieval castle is based on an actionist work in the public sphere that was installed for the first time in May 2001.)
Cue P. Doll
CueCat
*CueCat* is a cat-shaped barcode scanner distributed for free at stores in the US and to subscribers of certain magazines worldwide. Consumers plug *CueCat* into their computers and then scan product barcodes in order to be instantly whisked to advertising webpages for the products scanned.
Digital artist Cue P. Doll was frustrated with the smug assumption of consumerism-as-leisure-activity evident in the concept of *CueCat*, as well as the closed system by which *CueCat* feeds the consumer specifically dictated corporate information under the guise of interactivity. So Cue P. created CueJack, software that works with the *CueCat* scanner in place of its packaged software. CueJack subverts and parodies the *CueCat* concept by allowing *CueCat* scans to dig up information on the web about corporate misbehavior by the products' manufacturers. In its "normal" state, *CueCat* transmits identifying serial numbers with each scan in order to allow the *CueCat*'s manufacturers to archive information on what products individual consumers buy. In response CueJack software by default transmits randomly
forged serial numbers instead - but allows any consumer who prefers to be tracked by corporations the unusual opportunity to "opt-in" to corporate tracking.
CueJack is currently available for Windows and Linux and is distributed courtesy of RTMark. More information on CueJack is available at www.cuejack.com or http://www.rtmark.com/cuejack.
Lina Hoshino
Chillin' Woman
Multi-faceted and with a paradoxical life of negotiating business, art, and life, Lina Hoshino is a graphic designer, artist, and activist. In her work she initiates questions like: How does an artist resolve the paradox of the personal need for expression while financially supporting herself? How does simultaneously working on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and blurring the lines between business, art and political expression sometimes strengthen and sometimes harm the creative process?
There are benefits to having a consulting income. Most of my art and activism projects do not have to answer to any institution or any particular audiences because in most cases, I do not depend on funding from grants or larger institution. In some respects, I have the flexibility to work with fluidity. Many of my projects draw from my personal experiences as a single heterosexual Asian American woman living and working in San Francisco community within the larger context of the fluctuating dot-com and global economy. I work in a wide range of media including video, computer graphics, stickering, animation and ceramics, and anything that seems most appropriate for a particular purpose. The projects are mostly small scale, low budget, quick and manageable for practical as well as strategic reasons.
For female takeover - ff the project is focused on strategies which emphasize:
o Accessing a wide audience beyond traditional gallery patrons by utilizing the internet, cable access television, the streets, and appropriating popular communication language without compromising the quality or the message.
o A belief that art should be functional and useful in daily life
o Importance of collaboration by recruiting different specialists to strengthen the project
o Feminist tradition of drawing from personal experiences to address larger issues such as the global economy.
Leigh Haas
flora&fauna media
*flora&fauna media* is an integrating pole at the intersection of two sets: cultural mainstream and underground. To this can be added wide-ranging contacts in the media, art and music scene as well as a pronounced affinity to young urban culture. *flora&fauna media* puts together the optimal crew for you, to make your project a complete success from planning to realization. Commercial interests and artistic demands are fluidly and credibly interwoven and ensure a lasting, far-reaching communications success.
SNEGURUTSCHKA
snegurutschka presents a 16-minute women's film that clears up a few things:
that a one-room apartment has fewer m²
that to eat breakfast, chewing is indispensable (whether you read the newspaper or not)
that women take in the linens before watering the flowers, and that in order to fall asleep, the eyes are best kept shut ...)
Cornelia Sollfrank
Die Utopie des Rollenwechsels
Her project is an inquiry into the contemporary image of the artist. Who specifies the roles and defines in whose interest they are played, and says whether social workers or hackers are the artists of today or tomorrow? Posing a few choice questions localizes, behind this purported fluidity, traditional power structures whose representatives understandably have little interest in loosening up their crusted hierarchies. The ostensible Takeover serves only to revitalize the art system and to force fresh impulses and ideas into the classic conceptions of artistic space, presentation and representation.
Faith Wilding
subRosa
I am active with the cyberfeminist cultural research and production group subRosa, which describes itself as a "reproducible" cyberfeminist cell, focusing on issues in biotechnology, new reproductive technologies, feminist health activism, feminist theories of difference, feminist cyborg and body theory, and gender and technology. SubRosa works with new media and digital technologies in tactical ways. Through embodying our differences and our conflicts in both work and conviviality we are evolving fluid forms of collective work across disciplinary and generational boundaries. Members have skills and experience in producing video, digital imaging and animation, photography, WEB pages etc. As well, we do a lot of theoretical research, writing, and publishing. We are interested in combinations of high and low tech, and in detouring consumer electronics. A factor with strong impact on the collective is the increased competition and professionalization of art careers within graduate schools and universities which a tight job-market and over-production of MFA's have contributed to. In our professional positions in institutions there is pressure to produce and show our "own" work. No matter how successful a collective may be, it is still hard to get institutional recognition and support for collective work. The process of working with electronic media and digital technologies requires interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge. Our challenge is increasingly to produce and distribute our activist critical work in and through the larger field of the social, and in different venues such as clinics, schools, trade shows, public spaces, etc. For subRosa this means working with many different individuals, groups, and networks - healthworkers, scientists, ecologists, theorists, agriculturalists, and the like.
Mariko Horo
Profession: Time and Space Traveler
Art Form: 3-D Horogram
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